LINGUIST List 17.299

Sat Jan 28 2006

Books: Semantics, Basque: Ibarretxe Antuñano

Editor for this issue: Megan Zdrojkowski <meganlinguistlist.org>

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Directory         1.    Ulrich Lueders, Sound Symbolism and Motion in Basque: Ibarretxe Antuñano

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Message 1: Sound Symbolism and Motion in Basque: Ibarretxe Antuñano
Date: 25-Jan-2006
From: Ulrich Lueders <lincom.europat-online.de>
Subject: Sound Symbolism and Motion in Basque: Ibarretxe Antuñano


Title: Sound Symbolism and Motion in Basque Series Title: LINCOM Studies in Basque Linguistics 06 Published: 2006 Publisher: Lincom GmbH
                http://www.lincom.at

Author: Iraide Ibarretxe Antuñano, University of Zaragoza Paperback: ISBN: 389586318 Pages: 90 Price: Europe EURO 44.00
Abstract:

Sound symbolism studies the motivated relationship between sound andmeaning. Although in traditional linguistic theory (Saussure 1916), thisrelation is assumed to be arbitrary, several studies in this field (Abelin1999, Hamano 1998, Hinton et al. 1994, Nuckols 1996, Voeltz and Kilian-Hatz2001a) have shown that there is a non-arbitrary element in the way somemeanings are linked to some sounds, as well as some sounds are linked tosome meanings. Furthermore, this relation seems to a universal phenomenon;that is, all languages have sound symbolic words in their lexicons; thedifference is that some languages are more prone to sound symbolicformations than others.

Basque, a genetically isolated language spoken on both sides of the westernPyrenees, is one of those languages with an important and rich soundsymbolic system that covers a wide range of semantic fields such as smallcreatures, types of activity, weather phenomena, noise-making instruments,physical characteristics, and sexual terms. Despite its crucial role in thelanguage, the study of Basque sound symbolism has been largely neglected inBasque linguistics. There are a few 'onomatopoeic lists' in some manuals,but no studies that systematically analyse the formal and functionalproperties of these elements.

This book bridges this gap by offering a detailed analysis of one semanticarea of Basque sound symbolism: movement imitatives, i.e. those soundsymbolic expressions that are used for the description of motion. Thisstudy is organised as follows: First, it starts with a discussion about thestatus of sound symbolism in linguistic studies (chapter 1), followed by abrief overview of their main formal characteristics (chapter 2). Second, itoffers a description of the structure (chapter 3), morpho-syntax (chapter4) and semantics (chapter 5) of movement imitatives in Basque. Third, itdraws some conclusions and points out several research areas that deserve amore thorough analysis in future studies (chapter 6). Finally, it includesan appendix with the corpus of more than 800 movement imitatives used inthis work, together with their English translations, and their structuraland semantic information.

Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano (PhD Edinburgh, 1999). She is currently alecturer in Linguistics at the University of Zaragoza, Spain. She was aresearch fellow at UC Berkeley (1999-2001), the International ComputerScience Institute (2000-2001), and the University of Deusto, Spain(2001-2003). She is especially interested in issues related tocross-linguistic polysemy, constructions, semantic change, semantictypology, sound symbolism, metaphor and metonymy, perception, space andmotion. She has published articles on these issues in a wide variety ofjournals (LACUS Forum 1999, Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 2003-1,Cognitive Linguistics 2004-15, Revista de Lingüística Española 2005,Belgian Journal of Linguistics 2004) and edited books (Metaphor inCognitive Linguistics, 1999; Relating Events in Narrative, LEA, 2004;Cognitive Linguistics Investigations across Languages, Fields, andPhilosophical Boundaries, 2005).

Linguistic Field(s): Linguistic Theories                             Morphology                             Phonetics                             Semantics                             Syntax
Subject Language(s): Basque (eus)
Written In: English (eng )

See this book announcement on our website: http://linguistlist.org/get-book.html?BookID=18034

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