LINGUIST List 33.3861
Tue Dec 13 2022
Qs: Prosodic Expression of Evaluation
Editor for this issue: Everett Green <everettlinguistlist.org>
Date: 02-Dec-2022
From: Olga Lovick <olga.lovick
usask.ca>
Subject: Prosodic Expression of Evaluation
E-mail this message to a friend Hi all,
I am looking for (published and unpublished) information on whether and how the domain of "evaluation" can be expressed prosodically.
The domain of evaluation includes augmentation, diminution, intensity, pejoration, hypocorization etc. In many languages, these notions are expressed morphologically (e.g. through affixation in Italian, or through reduplication in English). Yet while information on the morphological expression of evaluation is plentiful, information on its prosodic expression (whether accompanied by morphological changes or not) is scarce.
Prosodic evaluation exists (albeit somewhat rarely) in English, e.g. in expressions as "a looooong time ago" where the vowel of "long" is unusually protracted and pronounced with raised pitch. In this instance, the resulting meaning is one of somehow unusual length.
It is much more common in several Dene languages. In Upper Tanana (Dene, N. America), there is a regular process of lengthening stem vowels in all lexical categories to express augmentation, intensification, pejoration. This lengthening is quite extreme (usually 3-4 times as long as a "regular" stem) and often accompanied by raised pitch. A few examples are shown here, with lengthening represented by colons (vowel length is distinctive in this language and written by double vowel symbols). The left column shows the basic form; lengthened stems are in the right column. Translations are provided for the basic form as well as for the lengthened one. Data and description from Lovick (in press).
(1) Upper Tanana
a. nagnjit 'I was scared' nagnji:::t 'I was terrified'
b. kon' choh 'a big fire' kon' cho:::h 'an enormous fire, a conflagration'
c. k'ahmänn' 'in the morning' k'ahmä::::nn' 'early in the morning, first thing in the morning'
d. hihdelxoh 'they played' hihdelxo:::h 'they played in a dangerous and bad way'
e. ch'ik'eh 'tracks' ch'ik'e::::h 'lots of tracks'
Similar observations have been made for Koyukon (Tuttle 2018) and Tłįchǫ Yatiì (Leslie Saxon, p.c.). Outside the Dene language family, it has been reported for Shiwiar (Chicham; Martin Kohlberger p.c.), Ket (Yeniseian; Matthew Carter p.c.).
References:
Lovick, Olga. In press. A grammar of Upper Tanana, volume 2: Semantics, syntax, discourse. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Linguistic Field(s): Pragmatics
Page Updated: 13-Dec-2022