Cover not available
Article published In:
Morphology and emotions across the world's languages
Edited by Maïa Ponsonnet and Marine Vuillermet
[Studies in Language 42:1] 2018
► pp. 51–80

Diminutives and augmentatives in Beja (North-Cushitic)

| LLACAN (CNRS-INALCO-Université Sorbonne Paris-Cité)
| Ahlia University, Omdurman, Sudan
The evaluative morphology of Beja consists of four devices: gender shift to feminine on nouns, and sound change (r>l) on nouns, verbs and adjectives form the diminutives. A suffix -loːj on adjectives, and -l on Manner converbs, form the augmentatives. The analysis focuses on the evaluative, emotional and other pragmatic values associated with these morphemes, size, endearment, praise, romantic love, contempt, politeness and eloquence. When relevant, the links to the general mechanism of semantic change, lambda-abstraction-specification proposed by Jurafsky (1996), is discussed. This paper also discusses productivity, cases where the evaluative device has scope over an adjacent noun instead of its host, the distribution of values across semantic domains and genres, and cases of lexicalization. The corpus analysis shows that the proportional frequency of pragmatic expressive connotations compared to the denotational meaning is higher for diminutives than for augmentatives. Further, with diminutives, positive emotional values are more frequent than negative ones, while with augmentatives attested pejorative values are very rare. The analysis is set within a typological framework.
Keywords: Beja, evaluative morphology, diminutive, augmentative, gender, emotion
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Diminutives
    • 2.1Gender shift: masculine > feminine
      • 2.1.1Frequency and semantic domains
      • 2.1.2Semantics and pragmatics
        • 2.1.2.1Body parts
          • a.Denotational meaning
          • b.Lexicalizations
        • 2.1.2.2Geographical terms
          • a.Emotions
          • b.Denotational meaning
        • 2.1.2.3Artefacts
          • a.Emotions
          • b.Denotational meaning
      • 2.1.3Summary
    • 2.2The shift alveolar trill r > alveolar lateral approximant l
      • 2.2.1Frequency and semantic domains
      • 2.2.2Semantics and pragmatics
        • 2.2.2.1Body parts
          • a.Denotational meaning and quasi-lexicalizations
          • b.Denotational meaning and rhetoric
          • c.Emotions
        • 2.2.2.2Geographical terms and natural elements
          • a.Denotational meaning
          • b.Lexicalization
          • c.Emotions
        • 2.2.2.3Derived nouns
        • 2.2.2.4Adjectives
          • a.Denotational meaning
          • b.Emotions and rhetoric
        • 2.2.2.5Verbs
          • a.Denotational meaning
          • b.Pragmatics and politeness
          • c.Emotions
      • 2.2.3Summary
  • 3.Augmentatives
    • 3.1Gender shift on nouns: feminine > masculine
    • 3.2Adjectives and the suffix -loːj
      • 3.2.1Denotational meaning
      • 3.2.2Emotional meaning
      • 3.2.3Summary
    • 3.3Manner converbs and the suffix -l
      • 3.3.1Denotational meaning
      • 3.3.2Lexicalization
      • 3.3.3Habituality
      • 3.3.4Emotions
      • 3.3.5Summary
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Sources
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 19 April 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.00003.van
References (45)
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra. 2012. Round women and long men: Shape, size, and the meanings of gender in New Guinea and beyond. Anthropological Linguistics 54(1). 33–86. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bauer, Laurie. 1996. No phonetic iconicity in evaluative morphology. Studia Linguistica 501. 189–206. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brown, Penelope & Stephen C. Levinson. 1978. Politeness: Some universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace (ed.). 1980. The pear stories: Cognitive, cultural, and linguistic aspects of narrative production. Norwood, New Jersey: Ablex.Google Scholar
Cohen, David. 1988. Bédja. In David Cohen (ed.), Les Langues dans le monde ancien et moderne: Langues chamito-sémitiques, 270–277. Paris: Editions du CNRS.Google Scholar
Corbett, Greville G. 2015. Gender typology. In Greville G. Corbett (ed.), The expression of gender, 87–130. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Creissels, Denis. 1999. Origine et évolution des diminutifs et augmentatifs dans quelques langues africaines. Silexicales 21. 51–57.Google Scholar
Darmon, Chloé. 2015. A morphosyntactic description of Xamtanga: An Agaw (Central Cushitic) language of the northern Ethiopian highlands. Lyon: Université Lyon Doctoral dissertation.Google Scholar
de Reuse, Willem J. 1986. The lexicalization of sound symbolism in Santiago Del Estero Quechua. International Journal of American Linguistics 521. 54–64. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Diakonoff, Igor M. 1988. Afrasian languages. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Di Garbo, Francesca. 2014. Gender and its interaction with number and evaluative morphology: An intra- and intergenealogical typological survey of Africa. Stockholm: Stockholm University Doctoral dissertation.Google Scholar
Dixon, Robert M. W. 1982 [1977]. Where have all the adjectives gone? And other essays in semantics and syntax. Berlin: Mouton Publishers. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2004. Adjective classes in typological perspective. In Robert M. W. Dixon & Alexandra Aikhenvald (eds.), Adjective classes: A cross-linguistic typology, 1–49. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dressler, Wolfgang & Lavinia Merlini Barbaresi. 1994. Morphopragmatics: Diminutives and intensifiers in Italian, German and other languages. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Feghali, Michel & Albert Cuny,. 1924. Du genre grammatical en sémitique. Paris: Geuthner.Google Scholar
Feldman, Harry. 1986. A grammar of Awtuw. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
Fradin, Bernard, Nabil Hathout & Fanny Meunier. 2003. La suffixation en -ET et la question de la productivité. Langue Française 1401. 56–78. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grandi, Nicola. 2002. Development and spread of augmentative suffixes in the Mediterranean area. In Paolo Ramat & Thomas Stolz (eds), Mediterranean languages, 171–190. Bochum: Dr Brockmeyer University Press.Google Scholar
. 2009. Restrictions on Italian verbal evaluative suffixes: The role of aspect and actionality. York Paper in Linguistic Series 21. 46–66.Google Scholar
Grice, Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. L. Morgan (eds.), Syntax and semantics, vol. 3: Speech acts, 41–58. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Haas, Mary. 1978 [1976]. The Northern California linguistic area. In Anwar S. Dil (ed.), Language culture and history: Essays by Mary R. Haas, 353–369. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Hamid Ahmed, Mohamed-Tahir. 2005. “Paroles d’Hommes Honorables”: Essai d’anthropologie poétique des Bedja du Soudan. Paris, Louvain: Peeters.Google Scholar
Hetzron, Robert. 1978. The nominal system of Awngi (Southern Agaw). Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 411. 121–141. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1922. Language. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Jurafsky, Daniel. 1988. On the semantics of the Cantonese changed tone. Berkeley Linguistic Society 141. 304–318. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1996. Universal tendencies in the semantics of the diminutive. Language 72(3). 533–578. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matisoff, James A. 1992. The mother of all morphemes. Augmentatives and diminutives in areal and universal perspective. In Martha Ratcliff & Eric Schiller (eds.), Papers from the first annual meeting of the Southeast Asian Society 1991, 293–349. Tempe (AZ): Arizona State University.Google Scholar
Matsumoto, Yoshiko. 1985. A sort of speech act qualification in Japanese: chotto . UCLA Journal of Asian Culture 91. 149–159.Google Scholar
Németh, Boglárka & Anna Sőrés. Evaluative morphology in the verbal domain. Complex verbs suffixed by -kVdik in Hungarian. In Maïa Ponsonnet & Marine Vuillermet (eds.), Morphology and emotions across the world’s languages. Special issue of Studies in Language, 42(1).
Nichols, Johanna. 1971. Diminutive consonant symbolism in western North America. Language 471. 826–848. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ponsonnet, Maïa. 2014. The language of emotions: The case of Dalabon (Australia). Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2018. A preliminary typology of emotional connotations in morphological diminutives and augmentatives. In Maïa Ponsonnet & Marine Vuillermet (eds.), Morphology and emotions across the world’s languages. Special issue of Studies in Language, 42(1).Google Scholar
Ponsonnet, Maïa & Marine Vuillermet. 2018. Introduction. In Maïa Ponsonnet & Marine Vuillermet (eds.), Morphology and emotions across the world’s languages. Special issue of Studies in Language 42(1).Google Scholar
Roper, E. M. 1928. Tu Beḍawiɛ: An elementary handbook for the use of Sudan government officials. Hertford: Stephen Austin.Google Scholar
Sapir, Edward. 1949 [1915]. Abnormal types of speech in Nootka. In D. G. Mandelbaum (ed.), Selected writings, 179–96. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Sasse, Hans-Jurgen. 1974. Notes on the structure of Galab. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 37(2). 407–438. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sifianou, Maria. 1992. The use of diminutives in expressing politeness: Modern Greek versus English. Journal of Pragmatics 171. 155–173. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Taine-Cheikh, Catherine. 1988. Les diminutifs dans le dialecte arabe de Mauritanie. Al Wasît 21. 89–118.Google Scholar
. 2018. Expressiveness and evaluation in Arabic: The singular development of the diminutive in Ḥassāniyya Arabic. In Maïa Ponsonnet & Marine Vuillermet (eds.), Morphology and emotions across the world’s languages. Special issue of Studies in Language 42(1).Google Scholar
Trigo, Loren. 1991. Scales and diminutivization. Linguistic Inquiry 221. 578–583.Google Scholar
Vanhove, Martine. 2005. ‘La grenouille et le moustique’ ou l’humour poétique bedja. In Ursula Baumgardt & Jean Derive (eds.), Paroles nomades: Ecrits d’ethnolinguistique africaine, 497–502. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
. 2014a. Beja grammatical sketch . In Amina Mettouchi & Christian Chanard (eds.), The CorpAfroAs corpus of spoken AfroAsiatic languages. (DOI logo) (Accessed 05/12/2016.)Google Scholar
. 2017. Le bedja. Leuven, Paris: Peeters.Google Scholar
. 2014b. The Beja corpus . In Amina Mettouchi & Christian Chanard (eds.), The CorpAfroAs corpus of spoken AfroAsiatic languages. ( DOI logo) (Accessed 05/12/2016.)Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, Anna. 1984. Diminutives and depreciatives: Semantic representation for derivational category. Quaderni di Semantica 51. 123–130.Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Torgersen, Henrik
2023. Diminutivizing L-reduplication in Norwegian. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 46:3 ► pp. 357 ff. DOI logo
Adrob, Hassan Ali
2021. The role of traditional songs in preserving languages of minority: The Beja case in Sudan. International Journal of Languages and Culture 1:1 ► pp. 18 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2024. TRAINING THE AUGMENTED INTERPRETER TODAY. Moscow University Bulletin. Series 19. Linguistics and Intercultural Communication 27:№1_2024 ► pp. 75 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 18 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.