The meaning and form of onomatopoeias in Tjwao

Andrason, Alexander; Phiri, Admire; Fehn, Anne-Maria

doi:10.1017/cnj.2023.17

Can. J. Linguist.

2023

DOI: 10.1017/cnj.2023.17

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The meaning and form of onomatopoeias in Tjwao

Alexander Andrason,

Admire Phiri,

Anne-Maria Fehn

Abstract: The present article analyzes the meaning and form of onomatopoeias in Tjwao, a Khoe-Kwadi (Kalahari Khoe) language. Making use of a prototype approach to categorization, a corpus of 113 onomatopoeic lexemes were tested for their compliance with the semantic, phonetic, and morphological features associated with the prototype of onomatopoeias in scholarly literature. The evidence demonstrates that Tjwao onomatopoeias tend to instantiate the prototype fully. This signifies, in turn, that, as far as their phonetic… Show more

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2024

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Cited by 2 publications

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Hunting gestures in Tjwao

Andrason,

Mohr,

Phiri

et al. 2024

Journal of African Languages and Linguistics

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Hunting gestures, i.e., gestures used to avoid scaring away prey or raising the attention of predators, are a central part of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of many foragers. These gestures have been documented for several groups in Southern Africa. This article is dedicated to such gestures, specifically those used by the speakers of a moribund East Kalahari Khoe language – Tjwao. It documents the hunting gestures collected in the villages of Sanqinyana and Sifulasengwe in Western Zimbabwe and analyzes them by adopting a formal descriptive approach. The focus is on the phonology and semantics of the gestures. Regarding phonology, handshape, palm orientation, location of the gesture, movement, handedness, and any participation of other parts of the body in the production of a gesture are discussed. Concerning semantics, we examine the referents of the hunting gestures and the type and extent of iconic relationship each gesture entertains with its real-world referent. In light of the analysis, we conclude that the hunting gesture code used by Tjwao speakers largely complies with the profile exhibited by the other hunting gesture codes found across the area, although certain dissimilarities can also be observed. This provides further evidence supporting the existence of the Kalahari Basin Area Sprachbund.

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Hunting gestures in Tjwao

Andrason,

Mohr,

Phiri

et al. 2024

Journal of African Languages and Linguistics

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Instability of interactives: The case of interjections in Gorwaa

Andrason,

Harvey

2024

Open Linguistics

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This article studies the morpho-phonetic instability of interactives through the example of Gorwaa interjections. The analysis of 91 constructions demonstrates that, in Gorwaa, interjections are highly unstable: the number of idiolectal interjections is much larger than that of shared interjections, and the interjections of both sets form clusters – spaces composed of constructions connected through the family resemblance of a formal and functional type. The formal modifications are achieved through prolongation, replication, alternation (of phones/features), and concatenation, and are related to changes in meaning and the polysemy inherent to interjections. Overall, the interjective category is modeled as a dynamic/fuzzy network of related (formally/functionally) constructions. The grammatical profiles of shared and idiolectal interjections are identical and corroborate the validity of the prototype of interjections. The refinements proposed include a preference for [j] over [w], a tendency toward (extra-)high tones and decreasing tonal patterns, the use of gutturals and clicks as the most common extra-systematic sounds and that of clicks as genuine consonants in non-click languages, the iconic foundation of some interjections and their relationship to babytalk, as well as the close relationship of interjections with the |A| place of articulation.

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The meaning and form of onomatopoeias in Tjwao

Cited by 2 publications

References 60 publications

Hunting gestures in Tjwao

Hunting gestures in Tjwao

Instability of interactives: The case of interjections in Gorwaa

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