Featural affixation and sound symbolism in Fungwa

Fungwa marks the diminutive by fronting non-high vowels of nominal roots and the augmentative by backing non-high vowels of nominal roots. The root-vowel mutation is considered to be an effect of diminutive and augmentative morphemes which have [―back] and [+back] features as their phonetic exponent...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Phonology 2021-11, Vol.38 (4), p.537-569
Main Author: Akinbo, Samuel
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Affixes
Asymmetry
Diminutives and augmentatives
Evidence
Field study
Hausa
Language
Literary Styles
Morphemes
Morphology
Morphophonemics
Mutation
Native Speakers
Nouns
Onomatopoeia
Phonemes
Phonetics
Phonology
Psycholinguistics
Syllables
Symbolism
Vowels
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Summary:Fungwa marks the diminutive by fronting non-high vowels of nominal roots and the augmentative by backing non-high vowels of nominal roots. The root-vowel mutation is considered to be an effect of diminutive and augmentative morphemes which have [―back] and [+back] features as their phonetic exponents. The form–meaning association of the morphemes is consistent with the pattern of sound-size symbolism in various languages. Thus Fungwa presents categorical and deterministic evidence for sound-size symbolism. To account for the realisation of the featural affixes, I assume featural correspondence constraints. Given that the featural affixes are not realised on high vowels, I argue that the realisation of the featural affixes involves a prominence-based licensing condition.
ISSN:0952-6757
1469-8188
DOI:10.1017/S0952675721000324