The Systematic Stretching and Contracting of Ideophonic Phonology in Pastaza Quichua

Keywords

ideophones, phonology, Pastaza Quichua, typology

Abstract

This paper analyzes systematic differences between sounds used in ideophones and sounds used in the non-ideophonic or “prosaic” lexicon of the Pastaza Quichua language of Amazonian Ecuador. We compare a digitized corpus of vocabulary items with a list of ideophones identified from field observations. We find that if a sound, syllable structure, or stress pattern is distributionally restricted in Pastaza Quichua, it is likely to be normalized and expanded within ideophones. The overall system is also stretched among ideophones by the addition of new sounds to the obstruents. These expansions are complemented by an overall contraction among sonorant sounds within ideophones. Many of the sounds and structures that expand from the prosaic into the ideophonic system are found to be statistically significant in their differences between the ideophonic and prosaic systems. We conclude that ideophonic sounds and structures add greater complexity to obstruent sounds while diminishing the use of sonorants.

Original Publication Citation

The Systematic Stretching and Contracting of Ideophonic Phonology in Pastaza Quichua Janis B. Nuckolls, Elizabeth Nielsen, Joseph A. Stanley, and Roseanna Hopper International Journal of American Linguistics 2016 82:1, 95-116

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2016

Permanent URL

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/8867

Publisher

The University of Chicago

Language

English

College

Humanities

Department

Linguistics

University Standing at Time of Publication

Assistant Professor

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