[Lingtyp] pain interjections

[Jess Tauber]

Yahgan, a genetic isolate from Tierra del Fuego, whose last fluent speaker
passed recently, had a great number of interjections. While I'm not
familiar with all of them, there was at least one, with the shape vkka: (v
schwa, colon marks tenseness of the vowel preceding it, and stress on both
syllables (signified by doubled consonants as the generally convention),
which refers to 'great suffering'. I'm scanning the dictionary, and if I
find more I'll post them here.

Jess Tauber

On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 1:32 PM Alex Francois <alex.francois.cnrs at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Dear Maïa,
>
> Mwotlap (Oceanic, north Vanuatu) has four interjections for expressing
> pain:
>
>    - *awē*  [a'wɪ]
>    - *awō*  [a'wʊ]
>    - *awuu * [a'wu:]
>    - *lageh* [la'ɣɛh]
>
> The first three *awē* *– **awō – awuu* are similar in their forms and
> properties:
>
>    - they occur either alone, or utterance-initially
>    - they can be intensified either by lengthening their final vowel (→
>    *awēēē*   ~  *awōōō*  ~  *awuuu*)
>    or by adding an intensifying /h/ (→ *awēh ! ~ awōh !*)
>
> The fourth one *lageh* is a bit different, being utterance-final ;  it
> cannot be lengthened.
>
> That said, these interjections share similar semantics:  they all colexify
> *pain* (including violent pain) together with different forms of *strong
> emotions*:
>
>    - intense surprise  – including pleasant surprise (“Wow, great!”
>    “Unbelievable!”)
>    - annoyance
>    - intense sadness – (as in mourning)
>    - hilarity  – (as in laughing hard)
>
> I just created these dictionary entries for you today, with examples from
> my corpus  (including a couple with audio links):
>
>    - *awē
>    <https://marama.huma-num.fr/Lex/Mwotlap/a.htm#%E2%93%94aw%C4%93> —* *awō
>    <https://marama.huma-num.fr/Lex/Mwotlap/a.htm#%E2%93%94aw%C5%8D> — awuu
>    <https://marama.huma-num.fr/Lex/Mwotlap/a.htm#%E2%93%94awuu> —* *lageh
>    <https://marama.huma-num.fr/Lex/Mwotlap/l.htm#%E2%93%94lageh> *
>    - the combination *awō lageh
>    <https://marama.huma-num.fr/Lex/Mwotlap/a.htm#%E2%93%94aw%C5%8D%E2%93%A22%E2%93%9Daw%C5%8D%20lageh>!*
>     is also common, with the same array of meanings.
>
> Finally, I also wrote the entries for *kēh
> <https://marama.huma-num.fr/Lex/Mwotlap/k.htm#%E2%93%94k%C4%93h>* ~ *ēkēh
> <https://marama.huma-num.fr/Lex/Mwotlap/%C4%93.htm#%E2%93%94%C4%93k%C4%93h>*,
> but these are apparently used to express disappointment or sadness
> (“alas!”) rather than pain.
>
> best
> Alex
> ------------------------------
>
> Alex François
> LaTTiCe <http://www.lattice.cnrs.fr/en/alexandre-francois/> — CNRS–
> <http://www.cnrs.fr/index.html>ENS
> <https://www.ens.fr/laboratoire/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-et-cognition-umr-8094>
> –Sorbonne nouvelle
> <http://www.univ-paris3.fr/lattice-langues-textes-traitements-informatiques-cognition-umr-8094-3458.kjsp>
> Australian National University
> <https://researchers.anu.edu.au/researchers/francois-a>
> Personal homepage <http://alex.francois.online.fr/>
> _________________________________________
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ---------
> From: PONSONNET Maia <maia.ponsonnet at cnrs.fr>
> Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2023 at 05:13
> Subject: [Lingtyp] pain interjections
> To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
>
>
> Dear all,
>
>
> I am starting a study on pain interjections and the phonetic material they
> are made of.
>
> Before I begin excavating individual lexical resources, I thought I'd put
> a request to the list.
>
>
> Would you be able to share the forms of pain interjection(s) in the
> languages you know?
>
>
>
> All I need is the form, with its *phonetic transcription *and any *prosodic
> information*; as well as its *semantic scope *(is it just pain or does it
> also express other experiences eg surprise, fear...?). If you can flag
> a published source where the interjection is documented this is ideal.
>
>
> Also, if you can point to references containing lists of interjections (eg
> grammars), this will be extremely useful too.
>
>
> Many many thanks for your contributions, it is wonderful to be able to
> rely on such a knowledgeable and generous community.
>
> With kind regards,
>
> Maïa
>
>
>
>
> Maïa Ponsonnet
>
> Chargée de Recherche HDR @ CNRS Dynamique Du Langage
>
> 14, avenue Berthelot, 69007 Lyon, FRANCE  -- +33 4 72 72 65 46
>
> Adjunct @ University of Western Australia
>
> + + + + +
>
> Co-rédactrice en chef du *Journal de la Société des Océanistes*
>
> https://journals.openedition.org/jso/
>
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