[Lingtyp] questions about adverbs

Fri Jun 19 01:38:17 UTC 2020

Hi folks,

To add to Kellen’s remarks, we also find these things in Adi and Milang, two Trans-Himalayan languages spoken in Arunachal Pradesh, India. We call them “expressive intensifiers”, to capture their ideophone-like expressive quality, but distinguish them both from the “four-syllable-expression”-type expressive one often finds in Southeast Asia (which also exist in Adi and Milang), and from ideophones proper (which also exist in Adi and Milang). It would of course be possible to expand either the class of expressives or the class of ideophones (on a mostly functional basis) to include expressive intensifiers, but, well - they are certainly distributionally well-distinguished.

https://www.academia.edu/35372326/The_functional_value_of_formal_exuberance_Expressive_intensification_in_Adi_and_Milang

It’s remarkable to see such a similar (almost identical) phenomenon in Wolof. We found the Adi and Milang cases striking since these languages are geographically close, but not genealogically close, while languages that are genealogically closer to Adi (such as Galo) seem to lack this construction. In principle therefore, it looks contagious.

Cheers
Mark

Modi, Y. and M. W. Post. In press 2020. ‘The functional value of formal exuberance: Expressive intensification in Adi and Milang.‘ In Jeffrey P. Williams, Ed., Expressive Morphology in the Languages of South Asia. London, Routledge.

On 18 Jun 2020, at 23:25, Joey Lovestrand <joeylovestrand at gmail.com<mailto:joeylovestrand at gmail.com>> wrote:

There are similar "ideophones” in Chadic languages. Newman (1968) calls them “adjectival intensifiers” in Hausa. Blench (2013) refers to “colour intensifiers” in Mwaghavul. I treat them as a type of ideophone in Barayin (Lovestrand 2019).

Note that “ideophones” in Chadic languages typically have adverb-like morphosyntactic properties.

-Joey

Blench, R. (2013). Mwaghavul expressives. In H. Tourneux (Ed.), Topics in Chadic Linguistics VII: papers from the 6th Biennial International Colloquium on the Chadic Languages, Villejuif, September 22-23, 2011 (pp. 53–75). Cologne: Köppe.

Lovestrand, Joseph. (2019). Ideophones in Barayin. In Topics in Chadic Linguistics X: Papers from the 9th Biennial International Colloquium on the Chadic Languages. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.

Newman, P. (1968). Ideophones from a syntactic point of view. Journal of West African Languages, 2, 107–117.

--
Joseph Lovestrand
British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow
School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics
SOAS University of London

On Thu, Jun 18, 2020 at 1:29 PM Östen Dahl <oesten at ling.su.se<mailto:oesten at ling.su.se>> wrote:
I would agree with Martin here. I think ideophones can have different functions, so just calling them “ideophones” would be only half the story anyway.
It is also worth mentioning that lexically specific intensifiers may start out with a transparent meaning which is later bleached as the intensifier generalizes. In spoken Swedish, the noun jätte ’giant’ was prefixed to stor ’big’ as a lexically specific intensifier, but is now frequently used with just any adjective, e.g. jättebra ‘very good’. Prescriptivists were not happy with combinations such as jätteliten ‘(lit.) giant small’.

  *   Östen

Från: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> För Martin Haspelmath
Skickat: den 18 juni 2020 11:21
Till: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Ämne: Re: [Lingtyp] questions about adverbs

Yes, they remind one of ideophones, but it seems that Alex François's term "lexically specific intensifiers" captures best what these forms are (though I would prefer "degree modifiers", to avoid confusion with self-intensifiers).

It seems that "ideophones" are generally understood more broadly, because they do not have to be degree modifiers (and maybe more narrowly at the same time, because they have to be "marked", and "depict sensory imagery", according to Dingemanse: http://ideophone.org/working-definition/<https://protect-au.mimecast.com/s/m96ECANpgjC7MNO8hGixkk?domain=ideophone.org/>).

It may be worth studying lexically specific degree modifiers more systematically across languages. Ekkehard König mentioned English "ice-cold", "crystal clear", "pitch-black", and German "hunde-müde" [dog-tired], "stock-dunkel" [stick-dark], and Jussi Ylikoski mentioned Finnish "upo-uusi" (extremeley new) – these are usually treated as marginal phenomena, but the fact that such lexically specific degree modifiers are found on at least three different continents (Wolof, Mwotlap, English) may point to something more general.

Martin

P.S. The term "adverb" is not wrong, but I try to avoid it, because it has been applied to a very heterogeneous range of phenomena.

Am 18.06.20 um 10:56 schrieb Kofi Yakpo:
Dear Aminata,

As Dmitry points out, these words would normally be referred to as ideophones in African linguistics. Most ideophones in "African languages" (they are more of an areal than a genetic feature) are lexically/constructionally restricted in one or the other way, so there is not much need to invent a new label for them besides "ideophone". Colour-specific ideophones can be found in all Atlantic-Congo languages I am familiarity with, and the European-lexifier creoles of Africa incl. Kriyol (Casamance, Guinea-Bissau, Cape Verde).

You could check the work of Mark Dingemanse and the works he cites for an overview of most of the literature.

Best,
Kofi
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On Wed, Jun 17, 2020 at 7:07 PM Majigeen Aminata <aminatamajigeen at yahoo.com<mailto:aminatamajigeen at yahoo.com>> wrote:
Dear all,

I am currently working on what are called “adverbs” (see words un bold) in wolof literature. Wolof, spoken in Senegal (West Africa) has specific words that only work with some colors: white, black, red and each word-adverb match only with its color, they are not commutable.

weex tàll: extremely white (it can't be whiter)

ñuul kukk: extremely black (it can't be more black)

xonq coyy: extremely red (it can't be more red)

Others words adverbs go with state verbs and are specific to them as well. They are not commutable.

baax lool: extremely nice (it can't be nicer)

bees tàq: really new (nobody has ever used it)

dëgër këcc: extremely hard (it can't be harder)

diis gann: really heavy (very difficult to carry)

fatt taraj: extremely blocked (it can't be more blocked)

fess dell: extremely full (it can't be fuller)

forox toll: really acidic (it can't be more acidic)

gàtt ndugur: really short (he can't be shorter)

jeex tàkk: completely finished, ...

In Wolof they are called intensifiers but this term does not convince me because it can be confusing. They do not intensify the verbs. These words mean that the state or action of the verb is at its end of completude. I would like to know if there are languages that work like that and what is the terminology used for this kind of construction. Can someone also recommend me new documentation on the definition of the concepts of verbs, adverbs, adjectives… in African languages?

Thanks and regards.

Aminata

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