Iconicity and parts of speech: Changana´s ideophones

Authors

  • Heronides Moura Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina - UFSC - Florianópolis
  • Ezra Alberto Chambal Nhampoca

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17058/signo.v42i75.11146

Keywords:

Ideophones, Parts of Speech, Radical Construction Grammar.

Abstract

This paper intends to investigate the part of speech and function of ideophones in Changana, a Bantu language, spoken in South Africa, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. Ideophones are words that describe events/actions/scenes which present a noticeable aspect. The analysis is based on Radical Construction Grammar (CROFT, 2000; 2001). The hypothesis put forward in this paper is that ideophones constitute a particular part of speech of Changana, whose function is predicative, even if ideophones in Changana are not the prototypical predicates. The verbs are the prototypical predicates in Changana. Ideophones are marked predicates, both in the sense of functional markedness, and in the sense of typological markedness.

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Published

2017-09-11

How to Cite

Moura, H., & Nhampoca, E. A. C. (2017). Iconicity and parts of speech: Changana´s ideophones. Signo, 42(75), 48-58. https://doi.org/10.17058/signo.v42i75.11146

Issue

Section

VIII Conferência Linguística e Cognição