Kwantlen Polytechnic University KORA: Kwantlen Open Resource Access All Faculty Scholarship Faculty Scholarship 2014 Finnish Nominal Ideophones as Evaluatives Päivi Koskinen Kwantlen Polytechnic University Solveiga Armoskaite University of Rochester Follow this and additional works at: http://kora.kpu.ca/facultypub Part of the European Languages and Societies Commons, Modern Languages Commons, Morphology Commons, and the Semantics and Pragmatics Commons KORA Citation Koskinen, Päivi and Armoskaite, Solveiga, "Finnish Nominal Ideophones as Evaluatives" (2014). KORA Faculty Scholarship: Paper 32. http://kora.kpu.ca/facultypub/32 This Conference Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at KORA: Kwantlen Open Resource Access. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of KORA: Kwantlen Open Resource Access. For more information, please contact kora@kpu.ca. armoskaite & koskinen ideophone workshop, may 2-3, university of rochester finnish nominal ideophones as evaluatives data Consider Finnish noun-noun constructions in (1)-(3) that share a visually descriptive ideophone kanttura: (1) Puu‐n kanttura tree‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a tree bent by wind, weight of snow, etc.’ (2) a. Uko‐n kanttura (old.)man‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a decrepit (old) man’ b. Aka‐n kanttura (old.)woman‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a decrepit (old) woman’ (3) a. Lehmä‐n kanttura cow‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a large, bony, old cow’ b. Hirve‐n kanttura moose‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a large, bony moose’ question How to account for these sound symbolic expressions? proposal  [NGenitive NideophoneNominative] is an evaluative formed at phonology‐syntax‐semantics interface roadmap 2. Phonological properties of [NGen NideoNom] 3. Morphosyntactic properties of [NGen NideoNom] 4. Semantic properties of [NGen NideoNom] 5. Proposal: [NGen NideoNom] is evaluative 6. Further questions 1 armoskaite & koskinen ideophone workshop, may 2-3, university of rochester 2. Phonological properties of [NGen Nideo] Q What identifies the [NGen NideoNom] construction within Finnish sound system? A It is a prosodic unit with particular sound properties.  There is no absolute division between ideophones & non‐ideophones cf. e.g. Mikone 2001, Jarva 2003, 2008  However, some strong tendencies are observed, such as: • Prevalence of certain phonemes in ideophones: e.g. /ø/ & /æ/ Kiviniemi 1971, Sivula 1989, Leskinen 1993, among others • Atypical word‐initial, medial and –final consonant clusters Karlsson 1983, Leskinen 1993, Mikone 2001, among others • Change of phoneme causes no (shade of) meaning change Ruoppila 1934, 1935, Rytkönen 1940, among others • Such variation is not normally permitted in Finnish Compare the ideophonic (4) with non‐ideophonic (5) (4) viuhka­n löyhötys / löyhytys / leyhytys /leuhutus / leuhotus fan‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘movement, by a fan, that makes a stream of air or a breeze’ (5) Minimal pairs: a. löytöä ‘of the find’ vs. löytyä ‘to be found’ b. kuva ‘picture’ vs. kova ‘hard’ For a more thorough discussion, see e.g. Mikone (2001) or Jääskeläinen (2013) 3. Morphosyntactic properties of [NGen NideoNom] Q What identifies the [NGen NideoNom] construction within Finnish morphosyntax? A It behaves as a syntactic atom Table 1. Properties of Finnish [NGen NideoNom] [NGen NideoNom] Argument: Adjunct: subj, modifier obj ✓ ✓ Moves as unit ✓ One One Infl: modifier/ Num quantifier ✓ ✓ Split Pause ✗ ✗ 2 armoskaite & koskinen ideophone workshop, may 2-3, university of rochester  [NGen NideoNom] string behaves as a noun It may function as a subject (6a), an object (6b), or a modifier (6c) (6) a. [Hatu‐n reuhka] roikku‐u naula‐ssa. hat‐ GEN IdPh.NOM hang‐ PRES.3SG hook‐INE ‘The floppy, worn‐out hat is hanging on a hook’ SUBJECT b. Minä tykkä‐än [siitä hatu‐n reuhka‐sta]. I like‐PRES.1SG that.ELA hat‐ GEN IdPh‐ELA ‘I like that floppy, worn‐out hat’ OBJECT c. [Hatu‐n reuhka‐n] reuna repes‐i. hat‐ GEN IdPh‐ GEN edge.NOM rip‐PAST.3SG ‘The edge of the floppy, worn‐out hat ripped’ MODIFIER  Movement test shows that [NGen NideoNom] behaves as a syntactic atom (7a) One cannot front only Ni (7b) or Nii (7c) (7) a. [Siitä hatu‐n reuhka‐sta] minä tykkä‐än that.ELA hat‐GEN IdPh‐ELA I like‐PRES.1SG ‘It is that floppy, worn‐out hat that I like’ b. * Siitä hatu‐nj minä tykkä‐än [ tj reuhka‐sta] that.ELA hat‐GEN I like‐PRES.1SG IdPh‐ ELA Intended: ’It is hat that that I like that floppy, worn‐out ’ c. *Reuhka‐staj minä tykkä‐än [siitä hatu‐n tj] IdPh‐ ELA I like‐PRES.1SG that.ELA hat‐ GEN Intended: ’It is that floppy, worn‐out that I like hat’  When [NGen NideoNom] inflects for Num, only one suffix is allowed, on Nii (8) a. Hatu‐n reuhka‐t b. *Hattu‐je‐n reuhka‐t hat‐GEN IdPh‐PL hat‐PL‐GEN IdPh‐ PL ‘floppy, worn‐out hats’ c. *hattu‐je‐n reuhka hat‐PL‐GEN IdPh One can modify the entire [NGen NideoNom] string, but not each individual N The modifier precedes Ni, but agrees with Nii in number and/or case (here NOMINATIVE SINGULAR, zero marked) (9) a. suuri hatu‐n reuhka large.NOM hat‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a large, floppy, worn‐out hat’ 3 armoskaite & koskinen ideophone workshop, may 2-3, university of rochester b. *punaise‐n hatu‐n reuhka red‐ GEN hat‐GEN IdPh.NOM Intended: ‘a red, floppy, really worn‐out hat’  If a quantifier is used, it precedes [NGen NideoNom], yet it agrees in case with Nii (10) a. Kaiki‐lle hatu‐n reuhko‐i‐lle all‐ALL hat‐GEN IdPh‐PL‐ALL ‘to all the floppy, worn‐out hats b. *kaiki‐n hatu‐n reuhko‐i‐lle all‐ GEN hat‐ GEN IdPh‐ PL‐ALL  Nothing can be inserted between the two elements (11) a. hatu‐n reuhka hat‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a floppy, worn‐out hat’ b. *hatu‐n suuri reuhka hat‐GEN large.NOM IdPh.NOM ’a large, floppy, worn‐out hat’  There is no pause between the two elements.  Stress falls on the first syllable of Ni or both Ni and Nii may be stressed.  Native speakers prefer derivational suffixes on Nii (12a). The suffixes can surface on Ni, too (12b). They can also attach to both nouns, albeit with a stylistic overkill (12c). (12) a. Hatu‐n reuhka‐nen hat‐GEN IdPh‐DIM.NOM ‘a small floppy, worn‐out hat’ b. Hattu‐se‐n reuhka hat‐DIM‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a small floppy, worn‐out hat’ c. ?? Hattu‐se‐n reuhka‐nen hat‐DIM‐GEN IdPh‐DIM.NOM ‘a really small, floppy, worn‐out hat’ 4. Semantic properties of [NGen NideoNom] Q What identifies the [NGen NideoNom] construction within Finnish semantics? A it provides speaker perspective on the entity at hand cf. Amanuma 1974, Hinton, Nichols & Ohala 1994; Jespersen 1922  Normally, the [NGen NideoNom] string refers to an entity that is viewed pejoratively so (13) can refer to (14b) but not to (14a) (13) hatu‐n reuhka hat‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a floppy, worn‐out hat’ 4 armoskaite & koskinen (14) a. ideophone workshop, may 2-3, university of rochester b.  Can one use [NGen NideoNom] in a positive context? (i) Yes, when the beauty standards set by the speech community are at odds with the beauty standard of the speaker: (15) Minä rakasta‐n tä‐tä I hatu­n reuhka­a en‐kä love‐PRES.1SG this‐PAR hat‐GEN IdPh‐PAR ikinä hei‐tä NEG.1SG.and never si‐tä pois. throw‐TA.INF it‐PAR away ‘I love this floppy, worn‐out hat and I’ll never throw it away’ (ii) Yes, when the beauty standards set by the speech community are at odds with the beauty standard of the addressee: (16) Sinu‐lla on taas tuo rakas vanha hatu­n reuhka pää‐ssä‐si. you‐ADE be.PRES.3SG again that dear old hat‐GEN IdPh.NOM head‐INE‐1SG.POSS ‘You have that dear, old, floppy, worn‐out hat on your head’  Crucially, the standard of evaluation may shift depending on the perspective(s) of the interlocuters  [NGen NideoNom] encodes the type of the entity combined with a property    The burden of highlighting a particular property: the ideophonic Nii The non‐ideophonic Ni encodes the entity, already marked in some way The more neutral and formal Ni is, the more awkward the expression and the less it is accepted by the native speakers as natural see also Leinonen 2010:208 E.g., the ideophone käppänä refers to a small, light, shrivelled entity  In its [NGen NideoNom] use, there is a continuum of acceptability based on formality ‐ ‘old fart’ & ‘bloke’ in (18) or ‘cop’ in (19) > the neutral ‘man’ in (20) or ‘police officer’ in (22) ‐ ‘grampa/gramma’ in (19) > the formal ‘grandfather /grandmother’ in (22) ‐ the gender of Ni (‘uncle’ in (20) > ‘aunt’ in (22) ‐ but ‘Mrs’ in (22) > ‘Mr’ in (23) 5 armoskaite & koskinen ideophone workshop, may 2-3, university of rochester  The position of each term on the continuum depends on a speaker’s relationship Best (18) a. Äijä‐n/Ämmä‐n käppänä (old.)man/woman‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a small, shrunken (old) fart/bag’ b. Jätkä‐n käppänä bloke‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a small, shrunken bloke (of a man)’ Good (19) a. Vaari‐n / Mummo‐n käppänä grampa/granny‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a small, shrunken grampa’ b. Kytä‐n käppänä cop‐GEN IdPh.NOM Not so good (20) a. Miehe‐n/Naise‐n käppänä man/woman‐GEN IdPh.NOM b. Eno‐n/Sedä‐n käppänä uncle‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a small, shrunken cop’ ‘a small, shrunken man/woman’ ‘a small, shrunken uncle (maternal/paternal)’ Passable (21) Poja‐n/Tytö‐n käppänä boy/girl‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a small, shrunken young man/woman’ Barely acceptable (22) a. Tädi‐n käppänä aunt‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a small, shrunken aunt’ b. Isoisä‐n / Isoäidi‐n käppänä grandfather/mother‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a small, shrunken grandfather/grandmother’ c. Rouva‐n käppänä Mrs‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a small, shrunken married woman, or simply any adult woman’ d. Poliisi‐n käppänä police‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a small, shrunken police officer’ Not acceptable (23) a. #Ihmise‐n käppänä human‐GEN IdPh.NOM b. #Herra‐n käppänä Mr‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a small, shrunken human being’ ‘a small, shrunken mister’ 6 armoskaite & koskinen ideophone workshop, may 2-3, university of rochester  The acceptability of the more neutral and formal nouns in (22) depends on the attitude of the speaker towards Ni. The inherently positive examples in (24) are unacceptable under normal circumstances, but possible, e.g., in a scenario where a brawny but non‐heroic person derisively refers to a scrawny hero as sankarin käppänä ‘a small, shrunken hero’. A listener without background knowledge of the relationship between the non‐hero and hero would find such a statement highly contradictory and confusing. (24) a. #Enkeli‐n angel‐GEN käppänä IdPh.NOM ‘a small, shrunken angel’ b. #Sankari‐n käppänä hero‐GEN IdPh.NOM ‘a small, shrunken hero’ 5. Proposal: [NGen NideoNom] is an evaluative generalizations [NGen NideoNom] is a constituent in terms of sound, form and meaning: It is a prosodic unit with particular sound properties. It behaves like a syntactic atom. It provides speaker perspective. assumptions  Syntax mediates between sound~meaning relation in generative grammar Chomsky 1995, among many others  Syntactically, sound‐symbolic [NGen NideoNom] is a possessive construction  Grammatical possession is semantically heterogeneous, it covers, e.g.: ‐ my colour (property) ‐ my book (property/possession/authorship) ‐ my father (kinship) ‐ my leg (part‐whole relationship) ‐ my train (temporal relationship) Postma 1997:275 ‐ Jo has a lot of anger (emotional state) ‐ Jo has the answer (knowledge state) ‐ Jo has nothing (absence of ownership) Francis 2000:87  Genitive‐Nominative structure may be an instance of modification  In the case of adjectival modification (a white wall), the variable provided by the modifier to the nominal has the relevant features such as size, color, etc. 7 armoskaite & koskinen ideophone workshop, may 2-3, university of rochester In the case of nominal modifier, there is no semantics to provide the parameters of the variable (Hilary’s wall). The interpretation of modification is undefined and is open to any number of possible relations which will be fixed in an extra‐grammatical component. Massam 1993:123  Semantically, genitives vary cross‐linguistically as to whether they are determining/non‐determining, definite/indefinite/generic Alexiadou 2007, Willemse 2007, among others  Pragmatic features are enter syntax, as e.g., Evaluative Mood Phrase Cinque 1999, Speas 2004, among others proposal  [NGen NideoNom] is an evaluative formed at phonology‐syntax‐semantics interface Structure Genitive‐Nominative structure allows for a loosely defined property relationship between possessor ~ possessee. (25) a. Schematic blueprint of possessive relationship DP 3 possessori DP 3 D NP ‘s 3 DP N ti possessee Sound Phonotactics specific to Finnish ideophones mark the constructions as salient b. DP 3 unmarked sound stringsi DP 3 D NP ‘s 3 DP N ti marked sound strings 8 armoskaite & koskinen ideophone workshop, may 2-3, university of rochester Meaning Possessor content: entity type, possessee content: pejorative property (visual)1 c. DP 3 entity typei DP 3 D NP ‘s 3 DP N ti pejorative property Pragmatics Evaluative Mood content is context‐dependent and may override the default pejorative interpretation d. Evaluative Mood Phrase 3 Operator ...DP [ ± positive]3 entity typei DP 3 D NP ‘s 3 DP N ti pejorative property 1 Note that the nominalized form of the verbal serial verb construction has the same structure as the examples that we look at: a. Laulu‐n lurit‐us song‐gen IdPh‐nominalizer ‘the warble of song’ b. Hauku‐n luskut‐us bark‐gen IdPh‐nominalizer ‘the (deep) yelping of barking’ Semantically, however, it is not the same as the one we’re looking at, i.e., no pejorativity is involved. It is in line with the proposal that the genitive structure is semantically heterogeneous. 9 armoskaite & koskinen ideophone workshop, may 2-3, university of rochester 6. Further questions Table 1 (repeated). Properties of Finnish [NGen NideoNom] [NGen NideoNom] Argument: subj, obj ✓ Adjunct: modifier ✓ Moves One as unit Infl: Num ✓ ✓ One Split Pause modifier/ quantifier ✓ ✗ ✗  [NGen NideoNom] string behaves as a N atom provides speaker evaluation of an entity Table 2. Properties of Finnish [VInf VideoTense] One One One subject object tense ✓ ✓ ✓ [Vinf VideoTense] One aspect ✓ One negator ✓ CoSubPause ordination ordination ✗ ✗ ✗  [Vinf Video] string behaves as a V atom provides Aktionsart of an event see Armoskaite & Koskinen 2014 for more detail (26) Minä sinne lume‐en kaatu‐a tupsahd­i­n I there snow‐ILL fall‐INF IdPh‐PAST‐1SG ‘I tumbled into the snow with a soft, sudden, unexpected thud.’ Armoskaite & Koskinen, 2014  What, if any, is a unified account of [NGen NideoNom] and [VInf VideoTense]? What if Pesetsky (2013) is right, and all nouns are born Genitive? If, as have been argued, Nom is Tense on N (Pesetsky & Torrego 2004), is Genitive the Infinitive on N? What does this entail?  What is the relationship that holds between a simplex N and [NGen NideoNom]? e.g., for Päivi, reuhka without Ni means ‘hat’, but based on web forums, blogs & other youth hangouts, for the average 17‐year‐old now it means ‘messy hair’. As for something like käppänä ‘small shrunken entity’, if Päivi hears you say ‘some KÄPPÄNÄ is standing in the back yard’, she will assume that this will be a male, slightly built, undesirable person, rather than the small twisted fir tree that stands 10 armoskaite & koskinen ideophone workshop, may 2-3, university of rochester there all the time. In order to make käppänä be a tree, house anything other than human, or to make a human be female, cop, etc., you need N‐N. Current hypothesis: the ideophone is used on its own either: (i) when it has been codified to a default referent (ii) or when your previous conversation has set the context of what refers to So ‘I lost my REUHKA’ actually sounds quite weird to Päivi, without the Ni ‘hat’, UNLESS we have already established that you are looking for some hat, and are just specifying that it is your dear old floppy one you are after.  How predict the relationship that holds between [NGen NideoNom] and context? Speaker intent? How to integrate this relationship into the unified account? (27) Tytö­n typykkä girl‐GEN IdPh.NOM For Päivi’s generation, the term is a mild endearment for a little girl Apparently not so for the younger one, as Google images for the term brings up scantily clad young women, and Wiktionary translates the term as ‘babe’. So for Päivi the connotation is a mildly positive, but she is not sure which way it goes for the younger – negative for women who don’t want to be sex objects? Or positive for guys who desire them, but at the same time view women negatively? (28) Poja‐n pallero/pullero boy‐ GEN IdPh. NOM ’a plump male baby/toddler’ Positive in the sense that you’re admiring a cute tot; negative in that you’re insinuating that the baby is too fat. references Amanuma, Y. 1974. Giongo­Gitaigo Jiten. (Dictionary of Onomatopes and Attitudinals). Tokyo: Tokyodo Publishing House. Alexiadou, Artemis. 2005. Possessors and (in)definiteness. In Lingua 115 (6), 787‐819. 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