[Lingtyp] SPAM Re: languages with few (emotion) nouns

Wed Dec 11 07:32:51 UTC 2024

Hi Maia, 

I think it's a global phenomenon in most spoken languages
that psychological and abstract terms are rendered more frequently with
adjectives or verbs. When my colleagues and I edited a spoken Tibetan
dictionary, it was very frequent that the noun was missing or rare in
Tibetan for these semantic domains, but the verb/noun existed. I can
give you several examples if you need them. The noun and adjective
usually exist in Literary Tibetan, but many people did not know them if
they were not used to reading in the language or did not go to school.
Actually when you look at large English corpora, several of these nouns
are also much less frequent in spoken English than in fiction or
academic English (compare for example 'sad' and 'sadness' 'amazed' and
'amazement', 'to suppose' vs 'supposition'). Many abstract nouns have
also been popularized in the 19th-20th century through the
popularization of psychology and abstract thinking, so I think the
phenomenon might be mainly cultural.  

I'll be happy to know what you
found. 

Cheers, 

Eric 

Eric Mélac  
Maître de conférences en
linguistique  /  Associate professor in linguistics 
Département
d'études anglophones 
EMMA (EA 741) 
Université Paul Valéry Montpellier
3 
https://emma.univ-montp3.fr 

Le 10/12/2024 21:00, Wesley Kuhron
Jones via Lingtyp a écrit :

> Hi Maïa, 
> 
> Hurukui (a.k.a. Wasembo,
[gsp], Trans-New Guinea > Madang) is another Papuan example.  
> 
> Some
emotions are expressed by adjectives (I show the "cf" examples as
evidence that they are adjectives in this language): 
> 
> Khane-o
UPHU(E)-e-re. 
> inside-1sg.poss HEAVY-become-3sg.prs 
> 'I am
sad/upset.' (lit. My inside becomes heavy.) 
> 
> cf. Koi UPHUE maisa.

> bag HEAVY bad/intens 
> 'The bag is very heavy.' 
> 
> Khane-o
MAY(A)-e-re. 
> inside-1sg GOOD-become-3sg.prs 
> 'I am happy.' (lit. My
inside becomes good.) 
> 
> cf. Opopo MAYA ome. 
> thing/food GOOD
is.not 
> 'It's not good food.' 
> 
> But some emotions are expressed by
initials in a light verb construction. Sometimes the initial never
occurs outside the light verb construction, so its original word class
is not certain (at least at this point in my analysis of Hurukui LVCs).
This is because the light verb in these cases can be used with initials
of various word classes, so selection of _i/e_- 'become' as the LV is
not a good diagnostic. 
> 
> Ima HAUH-e-ra. 
> 1sg HAPPY-become-1sg.prs

> 'I am happy.' 
> 
> Ima HAUWAH-e-ra. 
> 1sg VERY.HAPPY-become-1sg.prs

> 'I am very happy.' 
> 
> Some emotions, however, are expressed by
nouns. Here I use the diagnostic of inalienable possession morphology,
which is not found on other word classes. Maybe based on this, Hurukui
has too many emotion nouns to count for your sample? 
> 
> Ima
URA-n(a)-e-ra. 
> 1sg FEAR-2sg.poss-become-1sg.prs 
> 'I am afraid of
you.' (lit. I become/do your fear.) 
> 
> Ima ORAPE-(o)-e-re. 
> 1sg
SKIN-1sg.poss-become-3sg.prs 
> 'I am ashamed.' (lit. It becomes/does my
skin.) 
> 
> Ima HAMBUKHA-n(a)-e-ra. 
> 1sg
LIKING-2sg.poss-become-1sg.prs 
> 'I like you.' (lit. I become/do your
liking.) 
> 
> Notably, this last example is undergoing reanalysis as a
verb stem rather than a LVC, so the following is also used: 
> 
> Ima
HAMBUKH-(i)-na-ra. 
> 1sg LIKING-(become)-2sg.obj-1sg.prs 
> 'I like
you.' 
> 
> Unlike Nen, mentioned by Nick Evans above, Hurukui doesn't
use experiencer object constructions for what I would consider as
emotions, but it does use them for other experiences, such as 'be sick',
'be hungry', and 'feel cold'. 
> 
> I am still in the process of
analyzing the ubiquitous LVCs in this language, so my analysis of words
like _hauh(V)_ 'happy' may change. 
> 
> Best, 
> Wesley Kuhron Jones 
>
University of Oregon 
> 
> On Tue, Dec 10, 2024 at 9:54 AM Cat Butz via
Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote: 
> 
>> Hi Maïa,
>>

>> I can add Dalkalaen (Oceanic) to the list of Papuan/Austronesian
that 
>> don't make a lot of use of distinct nouns to express emotions,
which are 
>> generally expressed by saying that specific body part
hurts or feels 
>> bad. There is some specificity though, so while "I'm
angry" is just "my 
>> insides are sore", "I'm scared" is "my skin is
scared", with a specific 
>> verb for "be scared". There is also a noun
for "love", and possibly 
>> others that I'm forgetting / don't know
about.
>> 
>> Anyway, seems like this might be a frequent phenomenon in
the 
>> Oceania/Australia area.
>> 
>> Warmest,
>> ---
>> Cat Butz
(she)
>> HHU Düsseldorf
>> General Linguistics
>> 
>> Am 10/12/2024
01:12, schrieb PONSONNET Maia via Lingtyp:
>>> Dear all,
>>> 
>>> Nearly
two years ago, several of you responded to a query on this list
>>>
regarding pain interjections.
>>> 
>>> With the help of Christophe
Coupé, Kasia Pisanski, François
>>> Pellegrino and Aitana Garcia Arasco,
we took this further and
>>> identified puzzling form-meaning
correlations in pain interjections
>>> [1].
>>> 
>>> I am very grateful
for all your contributions, which confirmed my
>>> inclination to
investigate the matter.
>>> 
>>> (The data shared on this list was
upgraded for published data in the
>>> actual data set.)
>>> 
>>> Today,
I am considering a different question, namely which emotions
>>>
languages tend to describe as nouns (rather than words from other
>>>
classes).
>>> 
>>> In Australian languages this is reasonably easy to
investigate [2],
>>> due to a relative scarcity of abstract nouns.
>>>

>>> In order to put the Australian distribution into typological
>>>
perspective, I am now looking for other languages with small numbers
>>>
of nouns/abstract nouns/emotion nouns.
>>> 
>>> Any suggestion in this
respect will be most welcome !
>>> 
>>> With many thanks again to
LingTyp community for such insightful
>>> discussions, and for sharing
data,
>>> 
>>> 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/
>>> 
>>> __
>>> 
>>> Membre du
Comité d'Ethique de la Recherche, Université de Lyon
>>> 
>>> [3]
https://tinyurl.com/cerunivdelyon
>>> 
>>> __
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>
Links:
>>> ------
>>> [1] 
>>>
https://pubs.aip.org/asa/jasa/article/156/5/3118/3319867/Vowel-signatures-in-emotional-interjections-and
>>>
[2]
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07268602.2024.2329890
>>>
[3] 
>>>
https://www.universite-lyon.fr/recherche/comite-d-ethique-de-la-recherche/comite-d-ethique-de-la-recherche-245561.kjsp
>>>
_______________________________________________
>>> Lingtyp mailing
list
>>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>>>
https://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>>
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[Lingtyp] ***SPAM*** Re: languages with few (emotion) nouns

[Lingtyp] SPAM Re: languages with few (emotion) nouns