LINGUIST List 10.603

Tue Apr 27 1999

Disc: Exclamations and Interjections

Editor for this issue: Jody Huellmantel <jodylinguistlist.org>

Directory

1. Zylogy, Re: 10.589, Disc: Exclamations and Interjections

Message 1: Re: 10.589, Disc: Exclamations and Interjections

Is anyone considering the different usage of exclamations/interjections 
by children vs. adults? If I remember correctly, one of the dialects
of Yokuts has quite a number of onomatopoeic forms given up by
adulthood, and Japanese ideophones of adults are replacive of forms
used by youth. Such forms generally convey little usable information
(in the predicational sense) for adults (who usually know what sounds
objects/processes/entities make), and so are used primarily either for
humorous effect (in contexts where there is a sudden loss of control
by agents/patients otherwise expected to be in control) or to teach
the young, who don't yet have this knowledge, and who themselves
haven't mastered control in a very real sense. In this context it may
be significant that children use such vocabulary much more often than
do adults, and in more contexts.

Jess Tauber
zylogyaol.com