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Article published In: Studies in Language
Vol. 44:3 (2020) ► pp.659–699

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The expression of vulgarity, force, severity and size

Phonaesthemic alternations in Reta and in other languages

ORCiD logo with link | Aarhus Universitet
 | Aarhus Universitet
Published online: 21 August 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.19073.wil
Abstract
Phonaesthemes are a common phenomenon, but they are generally not in paradigmatic opposition like morphemes are (Svantesson, Jan-Olof. 2017. Sound-symbolism: The role of word sound in meaning. WIREs Cognitive Science 8(5). 1–12. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar: 6). Reta, however, has a phonaesthemic contrast /l/~/r/, where /r/-colouring of neutral base words signifies an increase in vulgarity, intensity, size or severity (e.g. ɓela ‘bad’ vs. ɓera ‘terrible’, -ool ‘penis’ vs. -oor ‘cock’). This paper describes this phenomenon in detail, and provides a discussion as to whether it is best classified as morphological, phonaesthemic, or otherwise. We argue that, although some of the cross-linguistic criteria for phonaesthesia exclude phonaesthemic /r/ from being classified as such, it is not straightforwardly classified as either phonological or morphological. Using Kwon, Nahyun & Erich R. Round. 2015. Phonaesthemes in morphological theory. Morphology 25(1). 1–27. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar criteria for phonaesthesia and derivational morphology, we compare Reta phonaesthemic alternations to similar phenomena in other languages. We argue that such alternations differ fundamentally from both non-alternating phonaesthemes and morphology, and are best construed as a distinct cross-linguistic category.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A brief overview of Reta
  • 3.Phonaesthemic alternations in Reta
    • 3.1Form and function
    • 3.2Phonaesthemic /r/ outside of alternations
  • 4.A tentative explanation for phonaesthemic alternations in Reta
  • 5.Is it phonology, morphology, both, or neither?
    • 5.1Morphology
    • 5.2Phonaesthesia
    • 5.3Phonology
  • 6.Phonaesthemic alternations are not just phonaesthemes
    • 6.1A cross-linguistic overview of phonaesthemic consonant alternations
    • 6.2A proposal for the classification of phonaesthemic alternations
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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