Leiden University Student Repository

Smoll, Laetitia (2014)

Me:ɾuɾu, ɸoku and tʃitowiʃ: An analysis of ideophones in Katuena (Tunayana)

Research master thesis | Linguistics (research) (MA)

This thesis investigates the structure and uses of ideophones, sound-symbolic words evoking sensory imagery, in Katuena (Tunayana), an Amerindian language spoken in the Amazon basin. The Katuena language has a large number of ideophones, and these are used both in story-telling and in daily conversation. The first part of this study provides an introduction to the Katuena people, their history and their language, as well as an overview of the literature on ideophones. The second part uses a corpus of Katuena and interviews with speakers to provide a comprehensive analysis of the phonological and morphological structures of Katuena ideophones, as well as their syntactic characteristics. This is followed up by an analysis of the meanings and uses of ideophones, including the ways iconicity contributes to their meanings, and the gestures which frequently accompany these sound-symbolic words.

ideophones

Katuena

Tunayana

Amazonian language

sound symbolism

Author

Smoll, Laetitia

Faculty

Faculty of Humanities

Supervisors

Carlin, E.B.

ECTS Credits

30

Language

en