The construction of ideophones with light verb collocations is important not only because it is cross-linguistically frequent, but also because it represents a well- investigated diachronic path from ideophones to verbs, especially in northern Australian languages. McGregor (2001: 2005) argues that “ideophones repre- sent an important historical source for [Uninflected Verbs] in northern Austra- lian languages”, and according to Schultze-Bernd (2001), uninflected predicates (co-verbs) in Jaminjung and other northern Australian languages have ideo- phone-like characteristics. Even though McGregor does not argue that the scena- rio for Australia is universal, it is profitable to consider it here to show in what way Lithuanian is different.
The univerbation of ideophone plus light verb is no option in Lithuanian for the development of new verbs, although there are many verbs in Lithuanian
16 See Dingemanse (in press) for a discussion of the typological relevance of the notion of syntactic integration of ideophones.
containing elements reminiscent of ideophones. This means that there must be at least two ways to travel from ideophones to verbs:
i. Condensation of ideophone+light verb collocations (compound verb const- ruction, McGregor 2001)
ii. Verbal derivation from ideophones (in languages where the derivation of verbs from most different parts of speech is very common)17
Let us first summarize McGregor’s (2001: 214) scenario for the development of compound verb constructions (co-verb+light verb) in northern Australia:
1. The class of ideophones is expanded.
2. Simultaneously, ideophones are frequently used with ‘say’ (instead of ‘he swam’ ‘splash he said’).
3. This means of expression catches on.
4. Other light verbs (‘go’, ‘hit’, ‘sit’, ‘put’, ‘catch’, ‘give’, ‘fall’) are used analogi- cally.
5. The original simple verbal expressions are outdated.
6. The light verbs can become meaningless conjugation class markers and the compound verb constructions are condensed to a new productive class of verbs. As soon as this stage is reached, the cycle can start anew.
According to McGregor (2001: 218), there is reason to believe that this sequence of processes has occurred more than once in the history of Australian languages.
While this scenario may be appropriate for the explanation of developments in northern Australian languages, it is doubtful whether it is compatible with all languages with ideophones. In Lithuanian, there is no evidence for a stage 2.
Lithuanian is thus a counterargument against a scenario where the construction with ‘say/do’ is a universal precondition for the expansion of a class of ideophones.
Note also that some of the “other verbs” in McGregor’s scenario are characteristic for ideophone-verb constructions in Lithuanian, notably ‘hit’, ‘catch’, and ‘fall’.
It is thus not necessarily the case that ‘say/do’ is historically prior to ‘hit’, ‘catch’, and ‘fall’; ‘say’ and ‘do’ simply have more potential to become more general light verbs and hence to be the major motor of such a grammaticalization, but this does not mean that ‘say/do’ is the only point where an expansion can start.
17 For a similar argument concerning delocutive verbs – which are often derived from ideophones – see Plank (2005: 481): “Wherever delocutive expression is genuinely morphological rather than syntactic, the re-analysis of existing non-delocutive morphology, or rather its re-use for yet another purpose, with the earlier functions continuing to be catered for, is a diachronic scenario far commoner than univerbation…”
In Lithuanian, there is no evidence of ideophone+verb combinations resul- ting in lexical verbs. However, verbs can be derived from ideophones (verb deriva- tion is overall very productive). On the one hand, general verbal suffixes are used, such as the causative -in-; on the other hand, there are specific suffixes to derive verbs from ideophones. Delocutive verbs provide an important link to causative verbs (see Plank 2005 for a typological survey). In (15), the causative derivation in į-krūpšt-in-ti ‘into-ideo-caus-inf’ seems to be motivated by delocutive origin (making the sound krūpšt, which characterizes the manner of motion, and is then turned into a motion verb with the prefix į- ‘into’ in the context of a motion event clause).
(15) Causative derivation from ideophones (Valančius 1996: 14)
T-uo tarpu krūpšt krūpšt į trob-ą
that-ins.sg.m between ideo ideo in hut-acc.sg
į-krūpšt-in-o bobel-ė
pv-[ideo-caus>]drag-pst.3 old.woman-nom.sg
‘An old woman dragged herself krūpšt krūpšt into the hut.’
In Lithuanian, there are entire types of verbs preferably derived from ideo- phones. Senn calls them interjectional verbs (1966: 297) or momentive verbs (1929:
112). The suffix -telėti, (variant -terėti) expresses events occurring only a single time and enduring only for a moment. Already Leskien notes that these verbs mostly derive from ideophones: “Dass eine ziemliche Anzahl der Verba auf -terėti (-telėti) unmittelbar von Rufen herkommt, ist sicher. Der Ausruf bumbt…ist Grundlage zum Verbum búmbtelėti bums! hinfallen, cínkt klirr! zu cínktelėti…klirren, cvánkt bei plửtzlichem Schlag, zu cvỏnktelėti…” (Leskien 1902/1903: 180). Momentive verbs share with ideophones their propensity to distinguish duration formally (see Section 3.2). Aside from -telėti, there is another shorter affix -telti (variant -terti) expressing an especially short duration (distinction made only in infinitive stem, not in the present or the past). The two affixes can be combined with different degrees in the root marking iconic length distinctions as well (see Section 3.3):
dèptelėti ‘throw a sharp short glance at sth.’, dė́ptelėti ‘throw a slightly longer sharp short glance at sth.’, dèptelti ‘throw a very short sharp glance at sth.’, dė́ptelti ‘throw a slightly longer very short sharp glance at sth’ (Senn 1929: 112).
It is often hard to decide whether a verb is derived from an ideophone or the other way round. But there are many verbs that are associated with related ideophones, e.g., styrì ‘slow going with stiff legs (from cold or after long sitting)’
in (12). The verb styrinėti ‘go around with one’s legs apart bashfully, nakedly, go on tiptoes’ could be derived from styrì, but styrì is probably derived in turn from stirti ‘become rigid’, related to German starr ‘rigid’, Classical Greek stereós
‘rigid’.
The connection between ideophones and verbs is not restricted to Lithuanian.
Baltic, Slavic, and Germanic languages have a large range of verbal derivations from ideophones especially for inchoatives, as has been stated, for instance, for Slavic by Meillet: “Le slave s’est servi de ce procédé [suffixe i.-e. -ske-] pour former des verbes expressifs en -skati, -štati indiquant en particulier des bruits, verbes qui de par leur sens ne comportent guốre d’ộtymologie prộcise: ainsi trěskati ô faire du fracas ằ…” (Meillet 1934: 215). Stang (1942: 135) associates the characteristic st-suffix in Baltic inchoative present stem formation with Germanic sound verbs in -s-to such as Gothic kriustan ‘crunch’, Middle High German krīsten ‘groan’, Old Norse gnesta ‘crack’ (see also Brugmann 1916: 371). We may conclude with Leskien that the derivational relation between verbs and ideophones is not unidirectional.
Ideophones can be derived from verbs and vice versa: “In der That ist die Bezie- hung von Ausrufen und Verben nach beiden Seiten hin: Rufe aus Verben, Verba aus Rufen, im Litauischen sehr ausgedehnt” (Leskien 1902/1903: 166).
In the literature on ideophones, deriving verbs from ideophones is sometimes seen as an aspect of “deideophonization” (Childs 2001: 66). Deideophonization is the process by which ideophones are lost or become less frequent, for instance, in urban varieties of African languages. However, deriving verbs from ideophones does not necessarily entail that the ideophones themselves disappear. I do not know to what extent we can speak of deideophonization in Lithuanian. Indeed, there are many texts and entire registers of Lithuanian where ideophones are ext- remely rare or completely lacking. It is possible, but difficult to prove that things have been different five centuries ago when Lithuanian was only a spoken lan- guage. However, if Brugmann, Stang, and Meillet are right, it is likely that ideo- phones have played a considerable role in the makeup of verbal derivation in at least some Indo-European languages, which is only conceivable if ideophones have been salient in language use at that time (this issue is further treated in Danylenko, this volume).
4 Conclusions
Contrary to opposite claims in the modern literature on ideophones, ideophones are a traditionally recognized part of speech in at least one European language, Lithuanian. Their name ištiktukai ‘eventives’ (Jablonskis 1922) is a very good cha- racterization of the phenomenon. Lithuanian ideophones are well described due to the work of Neogrammarians (in particular August Leskien and Alfred Senn).
At the end of the nineteenth century, many of the best linguists of their time did fieldwork in Lithuanian in the same vein as typologists today do fieldwork on languages in Amazonia and New Guinea. Leskien and Senn developed an
interest in ideophones largely because of their abundance in one single book Palangos Juzė, itself a sole specimen of nineteenth-century Lithuanian literature.
Its author, Bishop Motiejus Valančius, used several stylistic devices to strengthen the identity and solidarity among the rural population. This is well in line with the characterization of ideophones as rural, quintessentially social, and marking local identity in the modern literature.
The Neogrammarian work on ideophones is not known by many typologists because of an obvious rupture of tradition. Neogrammarians are associated pri- marily with sound laws and not with fieldwork or the description of morphosyn- tactic categories. This is related to a more or less tacit assumption among many typologists that Indo-European languages are not interesting. They are simply not “exotic” enough. Indo-European tends to be identified implicitly with written Standard Average European and the diversity of the family is ignored. However, unusual categories in exotic languages are passed on most easily if described in a most non-exotic meta-language, preferably English. As a meta-language, Lithuanian is much too exotic to be taken note of. Furthermore, for traditional Lithuanian linguists, the idea that their language boasts a part of speech that is known predominantly from African and Australian languages is not particularly appealing.
Most properties of Lithuanian ištiktukai are well in line with the characteri- zation of ideophones in the modern literature (and many of them have long been described by Leskien, Senn, and others). The interaction with tone is of particular interest (Section 3.3) and likewise a tendency to grammaticalize reduplication as event number (Section 3.2). There are, however, some rather specific characte- ristics, notably the pseudo-morphological “formants” (Section 3.4) and the lack of (bleached) combinations with ‘say’ and ‘do’ light verbs. The complete lack of compound verb constructions with ‘do’ and ‘say’ makes Lithuanian ideophones important for the study of the relationship of ideophones and verbs. There is no evidence in Lithuanian for a cyclic development of verbs from compound verb constructions. Rather verbs can be derived directly from ideophones by produc- tive processes of word formation. Comparative evidence suggests that deriva- tions from ideophones have contributed considerably to the inventory of verbs in Baltic, Slavic, and Germanic, even though reconstruction is particularly difficult in this domain due to the dynamic nature of ideophones.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Tom Güldemann, Christiane Schiller, Mark Dingemanse, the editors, and four anonymous reviewers for many useful comments, and I am
highly indebted to Ljuba Veselinova for her many excellent suggestions for refor- mulation, which have considerably improved the paper.
Abbreviations
1 1st person 2 2nd person 3 3rd person
9 Bantu noun class 9 acc accusative
a(ct) active adv adverb all allative augm augmentative caus causative cnv converb dat dative
def definite form of adjectives dem demonstrative
dim diminutive ds different subject f feminine fut future gen genitive
ideo ideophone/ištiktukas imp imperative
indef indefinite
ine inessive inf infinitive ins instrumental interj interjection ipv imperfective iter iterative loc locative m masculine neg negation nom nominative pass passive pl plural pres presentative prs present pst past ptc participle pv preverb
refl reflexive/middle sbjv subjunctive sg singular sim simultaneous ss same subject
Participles in adverbial function are glossed as converbs according to typological practice.
References
Ameka, Felix. 2001. Ideophones and the nature of the adjective word class in Ewe. In Erhard F. K. Voeltz & Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds.) Ideophones, 25–48. Amsterdam, Philadelphia:
John Benjamins.
Amha, Azeb. 2001. Ideophones and compound verbs in Wolaitta. In Erhard F. K. Voeltz & Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds.) Ideophones, 49–62. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Andersen, Henning. 2009. Reduplication in Slavic and Baltic: Loss and renewal. Morphology 19: 113–134.
Brugmann, Karl. 1916. Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen. Vergleichende Laut-, Stammbildungs- und Flexionslehre. Zweiter Band, dritter Teil. Strassburg: Trübner.
Camilleri, Andrea. 1998. Il cane di terracotta. Palermo: Sellerio.
Childs, G. Tucker. 1994. African ideophones. In Leanne Hinton, Johanna Nichols & John J. Ohala (eds.) Sound symbolism, 178–204. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Childs, G. Tucker. 2001. Research on ideophone, whither hence? In Erhard F. K. Voeltz & Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds.) Ideophones, 63–73. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Corbett, Greville G. 2000. Number. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Creissels, Denis. 2001. Setswana ideophones as uninflected predicative lexemes. In Erhard F. K. Voeltz & Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds.) Ideophones, 75–85. Amsterdam, Philadelphia:
John Benjamins.
Derbyshire, Desmond C. 1977. Discourse redundancy in Hixkaryana. International Journal of American Linguistics 43.3: 176–188.
Dingemanse, Mark. 2012. Advances in the cross-linguistic study of ideophones. Language and Linguistics Compass 6(10): 654–672.
Dingemanse, Mark (in press). Expressiveness and system integration. On the typology of ideophones, with special reference to Siwu. To appear in Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung.
Doke, Clement Martin. 1935. Bantu linguistic terminology. London: Longmans.
Fortune, George. 1971. Some notes on ideophones and ideophonic constructions in Shona.
African Studies 30(3/4): 237–257.
Fraenkel, Ernst. 1962/1965. Litauisches etymologisches Wửrterbuch. Bd. I–II. Heidelberg:
Winter.
Güldemann, Tom. 2008. Quotative indexes in African languages: a synchronic and diachronic survey. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Jablonskis, Jonas. 1922. Rygiškių Jono Lietuvių kalbos gramatika [A Lithuanian grammar by Rugiškių Jonas]. 2nd ed. Kaunas, Vilnius “Švyturio” bendrovės leidinys. In Jablonskis, Jonas. 1957. Rinktiniai raštai [Collected writings] T. I: 183–433. Vilnius: Valstybinė politinės ir mokslinės literatūros leidykla.
Jašinskaitė, Irena. 1971. Ištiktukai [Ideophones]. In Kazys Ulvydas (ed.) Lietuvių kalbos gramatika [The grammar of the Lithuanian language]. Vol. 2: Morfologija [Morphology], 734–746. Vilnius: Mintis.
Jašinskaitė, Irena. 1975. Lietuvių kalbos ištiktukai [Lithuanian ideophones]. Vilnius: Mintis.
Kilian-Hatz, Christa. 2001. Universality and diversity. Ideophones from Baka and Kxoe.
In Erhard F. K. Voeltz & Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds.) Ideophones, 155–163. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Kunene, Daniel P. 2001. Speaking the act. The ideophone as a linguistic rebel. In Erhard F. K.
Voeltz & Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds.) Ideophones, 183–191. Amsterdam, Philadelphia:
John Benjamins.
Leskien, August. 1902/1903. Schallnachahmungen und Schallverba im Litauischen.
Indogermanische Forschungen 13: 165–212.
McGregor, William. 2001. Ideophones as a source of verbs in Northern Australian languages.
In Erhard F. K. Voeltz & Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds.) Ideophones, 205–221. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Meillet, Antoine. 1934. Le slave commun. Paris: Champion.
Metuzāle-Kangere, Baiba. 1991. Verba strepentia and morphological development in Latvian and Lithuanian. In Norbert Boretzky, Werner Enninger, Benedikt Jessing & Thomas Stolz (eds.) Sprachwandel und seine Prinzipien. Beitrọge zum 8. Bochum-Essener Kolloquium ỹber “Sprachwandel und seine Prinzipien” vom 19.10. – 21.10.1990 an der Ruhruniversitọt Bochum, 194–205. Bochum: Brockmeyer.
Mithun, Marianne. 1988. Lexical categories and the evolution of number marking. In Michael Hammond & Michael Noonan (eds.) Theoretical morphology: Approaches in modern linguistics, 211–234. San Diego: Academic Press.
Munro, Pamela. 2001. Field linguistics. In Mark Aronoff & Janie Rees-Miller (eds.) The handbook of linguistics, 130–149. Oxford: Blackwell.
Newman, Paul. 2006. Pluractionals (distributives). In Keith Brown (ed.) Encyclopedia of language and linguistics. 2nd edition, 640–641. Oxford: Elsevier.
Niedermann, Max, Alfred Senn, & Anton Salys. 1951–1968. Wửrterbuch der litauischen Sprache.
Heidelberg: Winter.
Nikitina, Tatiana. 2012. Russian verboids: A case study in expressive vocabulary. Linguistics 50(2), 165–189.
Noss, Philipp A. 1985. The ideophone in Gbaya syntax. In Gerrit J. Dimmendahl (ed.) Current Approaches to African Linguistics, Vol. 3, 241–255. Dordrecht: Foris.
Noss, Philipp A. 2001. Ideas, phones and Gbaya verbal art. In Erhard F. K. Voeltz & Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds.) Ideophones, 259–270. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Paul, Hermann. 1909. Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte. 4th edition. Halle: Niemeier.
Plank, Frans. 2005. Delocutive verbs, cross-linguistically. Linguistic Typology 9(3): 459–491.
Samarin, William J. 2001. Testing hypotheses about African ideophones. In Erhard F. K. Voeltz &
Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds.) Ideophones, 321–337. Amsterdam, Philadelphia:
John Benjamins.
Schultze-Bernd, Eva. 2001. Ideophone-like characteristics of uninflected predicates in Jaminjung (Australia). In Erhard F. K. Voeltz & Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds.) Ideophones, 355–373. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Senn, Alfred. 1924. Lautnachahmende Bildungen in den Schriften von Motiejus Wolonczauski.
Tauta ir žodis 2: 456–462.
Senn, Alfred. 1929. Kleine Litauische Sprachlehre. Heidelberg: Groos.
Senn, Alfred. 1966. Handbuch der litauischen Sprache. Bd. 1: Grammatik. Heidelberg: Winter.
Stang, Christian S. 1942. Das slavische und baltische Verbum. Oslo: Dybwad.
Urdze, Aina Marite. 2010. Ideophone in Europa. Die Grammatik der lettischen Gerọuschverben.
Bochum: Brockmeyer.
Valančius, Motiejus. [1863] 1996. Palangos Juzė. Vilnius: Baltos Lankos.
Valančius, Motiejus. 2003. Namų užrašai. Sudarė Aldona Prašmanaitė. Vilnius:
Baltos Lankos.
Voeltz, Erhard F. K. & Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds.). 2001. Ideophones. Amsterdam, Philadelphia:
John Benjamins.
Wọlchli, Bernhard. 2005. Co-compounds and natural coordination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wọlchli, Bernhard. 2010. Baltische Gerọuschverben und Ideophone. Eine Herausforderung fỹr die Sprachtypologie. Rez. von Aina Marite Urdze: Ideophone in Europa. Die Grammatik der lettischen Gerọuschverben. Baltic Linguistics 1: 167–179.
Zinkevičius, Zigmas. 1981. Lietuvių kalbos istorinė gramatika [A historical grammar of Lithuanian] Vol. 2. Vilnius: Mokslas.
Žiugžda, Juozas. 1961. Lietuvių kalbos gramatika [A grammar of Lithuanian]. Kaunas: Valstybinė pedagoginės literatūros leidykla.
and verbs in Baltic and Slavic
To William R. Schmalstieg
1 Introduction
There is no disguising the fact that one of the problems for ascertaining the status of the onomatopoeic particles in Baltic and of the analogous formations in Slavic is their reconstruction. Thus, to adequately describe forms like Lith. čiùpt, Ukr.
xap, Rus. xvat’, Bel. xvac’ representing the act of grabbing, Bulg. and USorb. buch referring to thumping, and the like (Danylenko 2003: 204–205), it is necessary to determine their derivational relation to the corresponding verbs. In other words, one should answer a chicken-and-egg question vexing specialists in Baltic since Leskien (1902/1903: 166) and in Slavic ever since Lomonosov (1755: 167) – which came first, the onomatopoeic particle or the corresponding verb?
With this puzzle in mind, I will first review semantic, formal (syntactic), and morphophonemic properties of the onomatopoeic particles in Lithuanian and East Slavic, which will be proxies for the Baltic and Slavic languages, respec- tively, in this chapter (Sections 2.1–2.3). Most of these properties are discussed in descriptive grammars and can serve as a backdrop for a palliative theory premi- sed on the analysis of the corresponding lexicalizing (expressive) devices applied to the formation of onomatopoeic particles. Among those devices, for example, are expression (phonetic) reduction and root apophony, which are employed to form iconic representations of auditorily and non-auditorily based experiential dimensions of states, activities, and actions (Section 4.1). Following Potebnja (1941: 187–191), I will expand on my previous explanation of onomatopoeic for- mations in East Slavic and Lithuanian (Danylenko 2003: 204–223; see Sections 3.1–3.2.1). My ultimate objective will be to argue, first, that prototypical onoma- topoeic particles are “extracted” from the corresponding onomatopoeic verbs and, second, that the subsequent lexicalization of such particles in Lithuanian and East Slavic depends on different procedurals (Aktionsarten) as encoded in the base onomatopoeic verbs (see Sections 4.1–4.3). Unlike aspects, which are obligatory grammatical categories, the procedurals are optional, derivational categories that modify the meaning of a lexical verb (Andersen 2009a: 125; cf.
Maslov 1948), including the onomatopoeic verb, and ultimately the semantics of a particle “extracted” from such a verb.
Onomatopoeic particles warrant here some terminological disambiguation.
Thus, for East Slavic, I will deal with verb-related onomatopoeic formations, called “deverbal” (Karskij [1911] 2006: 58) or “verbal” interjections (Šaxmatov 1941: 472), predicative or verbal particles (Potebnja 1941: 189).1 For Lithuanian, I will primarily focus on verb-related onomatopoeic ištiktùkai ‘exclamatory inter- jections’ that, sharing the root with the respective onomatopoeic verbs, refer pri- marily to actions associated often with acoustic and visual effects or impressions (Ambrazas 1997: 440); cf. šlèpt alongside šlep(s)nóti ‘to walk, plod’ (Ulvydas 1971:
257). Andersen (2009a) has recently employed the term “eventive” as a Lithuanian part of speech that represents events, a characteristic captured by the native term Lith. ištiktùkai (cf. ištìkti ‘to occur’).2 Unlike interjections (cf. Senn 1966: 308) or particles, ‘eventives’ describe or represent situations, which, according to Ander- sen (2009a: 113, 125), is really a defining feature of “eventives” as a para-lexical part of speech (see Wọlchli, this volume). However, the postulated description or representation of situations by “eventives” is not relevant for present purposes.
I will concentrate instead on the lexicalization of such formations, which may ultimately delineate the derivational vector between the particles and verbs.
2 Profiling onomatopoeic particles
The Lithuanian and East Slavic onomatopoeic particles demonstrate similar semantic (Section 2.1) and syntactic features (Section 2.2), although varying mor- phophonemic properties (Section 2.3).