Chapter published in:
Operationalizing Iconicity
Edited by Pamela Perniss, Olga Fischer and Christina Ljungberg
[Iconicity in Language and Literature 17] 2020
► pp. 106–121

System-internal and system-external phonic expressivity

Iconicity and Balkan affricates

| The Ohio State University
The expressive function of language as realized phonically is explored here through an examination of the major role that affricates play in various Balkan languages, but especially Greek and Albanian, in marking words as showing emotion, affect, color, and similar sorts of expressive dimensions. Moreover, it is argued that language contact is an important causal factor here, in part through the enhancement of already existing tendencies in the languages in question and in part through the recognition that system-external elements can have an “exotic” character and thus can be especially suitable for participating in phonic expressivity.
Published online: 13 May 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.17.06jos
References

References

Curtis, M. C.
2010  Xhorxh, xhuxhmaxhuxh and the xhaxhallerë: The xenophonemic status of Albanian /xh/. Balkanistica 23: 67–96.Google Scholar
de Saussure, F.
1916 Cours de linguistique générale. Paris: Payot.Google Scholar
Faye, C. U.
1923–5 The influence of “Hlonipa” on the Zulu clicks. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 3: 757–782. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, O.
2011 Cognitive iconic grounding of reduplication in language. In Semblance and Signification, Michelucci, P., Fischer, O., & Ljungberg, C. (eds), 55–82. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fónagy, I.
1999 Why iconicity? In Form Miming Meaning, Nänny, M. & Fischer, O. (eds), 3–36. Amsterdam: Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2001 Languages within Language. An Evolutive Approach. Amsterdam: Benjamins, CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, V. A.
2002 Macedonian (LOM/117). Munich: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar
2006 The Balkans as a linguistic area. In Elsevier Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, vol. 1, K. Brown (ed.), 657–72. Oxford: Elsevier. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, V. A. & Joseph, B. D.
2020 The Balkan Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Herbert, R. K.
1990a  Hlonipha and the ambiguous woman. Anthropos 85: 455–473.Google Scholar
1990b The relative markedness of click sounds: Evidence from language change, acquisition, and avoidance. Anthropological Linguistics 32: 120–138.Google Scholar
Hinton, L., Nichols, J. & Ohala, J.
1994 Introduction: Sound symbolic processes. In Sound Symbolism, Hinton, L., Nichols, J., & Ohala, J. (eds), 1–13. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hock, H. H. & Joseph, B. D.
1996/2009 Language Change, Language History, and Language Relationship. An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter (1st edn., 1996; 2nd edn., 2009).Google Scholar
Householder, F. W., Kazazis, K., & Koutsoudas, A.
1964 Reference Grammar of Literary Dhimotiki. ( International Journal of American Linguistics 30: 2/Publication 31 of the Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore, and Linguistics.) Bloomington: Indiana University.Google Scholar
Joseph, B. D.
1982 Ya tin idieteri θesi tu [ts]/[dz] stin eliniki fonologia [On the special status of [ts]/[dz] in Greek phonology]. Studies in Greek Linguistics. Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Meeting of the Department of Linguistics, Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, 1982 [1985], 227–235. Thessaloniki: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.Google Scholar
1983 Language use in the Balkans – The contributions of historical linguistics. Anthropological Linguistics 25: 275–287.Google Scholar
1984 Balkan expressive and affective phonology – The case of Greek ts/dz . In Papers for the V. Congress of Southeast European Studies (Belgrade, September 1984), Shangriladze, K. and Townsend, E. (eds), 227–237. Slavica Publishers (for the US National Committee of the AIESEE).Google Scholar
1987 On the use of iconic elements in etymological investigation: Some case studies from Greek. Diachronica 4: 1–26. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1994 Modern Greek ts: Beyond sound symbolism. In Sound Symbolism, L. Hinton, Nichols, J., & Ohala, J. (eds), 222–236. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
1997 On the linguistics of marginality: The centrality of the periphery. In Papers from the 33rd Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Anderson, G., et al. (eds), 197–213. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Jurafsky, D.
1996 Universal tendencies in the semantics of the diminutive. Language 72: 533–578. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kazazis, K.
1972 The status of Turkisms in the present-day Balkan languages. In Aspects of the Balkans: Continuity and Change. Contributions to the International Balkan Conference Held at UCLA, October 23–28, 1969, Birnbaum, H. & Vryonis, Jr., S. (eds), 87–116. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Klamer, M.
2002 Semantically motivated lexical patterns: A study of Dutch and Kambera expressives. Language 78: 258–286. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lorendzatos, P.
1923 Simvoli is ta neoelinika paronimia. Leksikografikon arxion tis mesis ke neas elnikis 6: 40–71.Google Scholar
Marchand, H.
1953 Die Bildung der lautsymbolischen Wörter im Türkischen. Oriens 6: 50–62.Google Scholar
McCarthy, J.
1982 Prosodic structure and expletive infixation. Language 63: 574–590 CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McLuhan, M.
1964 Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: Mentor.Google Scholar
Mirambel, A.
1959 La langue grecque moderne: description et analyse. Paris: Klincksieck.Google Scholar
Mitchell, D.
2019 Verbal -s in AAVE: Affect, Aspect, Dialectology, and Perceptions. Ph.D. Dissertation, The Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Mithun, M.
1982 The synchronic and diachronic behavior of plops, squeaks, croaks, sighs and moans. International Journal of American Linguistics 48: 49–58. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Newmark, L.
1998 Oxford Albanian-English Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nichols, J.
1971 Diminutive consonant symbolism in western North America. Language 47: 826–848. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Preston, D.
2003 Language with an attitude. In Handbook of Language Variation and Change, Chambers, J. K., Trudgill, P., & Schilling-Estes, N. (eds), Chap. 2. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sadowski, P.
2001 The sound as echo to the sense: The iconicity of English gl- words. In The Motivated Sign, Fischer, O. & Nänny, M. (eds), 69–88. Amsterdam: Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Samuels, M.
1972 Linguistic Evolution, with Special Reference to English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Shinohara, K. & Kawahara, S.
2010 A cross-linguistic study of sound symbolism: The images of size. Berkeley Linguistics Society 2010, 396–410. (Crossref, published by the Linguistic Society of America.)Google Scholar
Weinreich, U.
1953 Languages in Contact, Findings and Problems. New York: Linguistic Circle of New York.Google Scholar
Wescott, R.
1975 Allolinguistics: Exploring the peripheries of speech. In The Second LACUS Forum, Reich, P. (ed), 497–513. Columbia: The Hornbeam Press.Google Scholar