[Lingtyp] pain interjections

[Jess Tauber]

In Yahgan there is also a verb gaima:na meaning to groan or moan with pain.
Not an interjection, though. I'm almost halfway through scanning the 650 pp
dictionary.


Jess Tauber

On Wed, Jan 18, 2023 at 2:45 PM Jess Tauber <tetrahedralpt at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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/
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lingtyp mailing list
>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>> https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20230118/b19e3afb/attachment.htm>