[neuroling] Re: phonosemantic diachrony/typology
- From: "Jess Tauber" <phonosemantics@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "neuroling" <neuroling@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 13:17:25 -0400
Thanks to Prof. Lamb. It would be a thesis length effort (several, maybe)
to fully detail all the bits and pieces of evidence for the synthesis I've
built from analysis of observations of over 300 languages over a span of 20
odd years (emphasis on odd).
Where to start, how to condense?? How about the comment about the right
hemisphere?
As I mentioned in my recent posting, ideophones generally have about them a
sense of lack or loss of control over state or dynamism. Thus rational
animate agents find themselves at the mercy either of natural forces
originating beyond the body, or of bodily physical states which impede the
natural high levels of control prototypical agents should possess, despite
any efforts they might make to regain or attain such control over events.
Is there not some relation between the left hemisphere and fine motor
control? Thus one might expect grammaticalized materials to have their
neurological home base largely on the left. But if ideophones are a kind of
antigrammar, then they might be mirrored in the right hemisphere directly
opposite.
Ideophones also tend to be produced in relatively relaxed discourse
settings (not terribly goal-oriented), yet they themselves are often highly
prosodically charged, and their use seems designed to elicit an emotional
reaction in the listener- another right hemisphere hint?
Further, we know that grammatical morphology evolves from lexicon, and both
these are represented generally on the left side. If my hypothesis that
ideophones are instead derived from prosody/intonation (which is on the
RIGHT?), then they would also be localized with their source. The question
then becomes- do Wernicke's and Broca's areas have directly opposing
opposite numbers in the right hemisphere, and do they interact in ways
similar to those of W. and B. areas on the left? If so, then which opposes
which?
Further grammatical evolution beyond normal grammaticalization (late stage
"inflecting" types with a great deal of paradigmatic conflation, levelling,
collapse, etc.)seems to feed the prosodic system. And according to recent
work by others (such as Bill McGregor on Australian languages, others for
Central Asian language families such as Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, etc.,
Suzanne Wash on Miwokan, etc.) ideophones are often a major source of new
lexical roots (for instance one thesis I have on hand (whose author I can't
think of)says that somewhere between 30-40% of all lexical roots are
ideophonic in origin in one Uralic language). Such numbers don't seem to be
at all unusual.
My point here is that while lexicon feeds morphology, the latter's demise
seems to feed prosody (a major part of syntax). Conversely, prosody may (IF
my thesis about their origins is largely correct) feed the ideophone
system, whose demise then feeds the lexicon.
Full circle.
So do we have then Wernicke's and Broca's areas in one hemisphere in a feed
relation, and their counterpoints in the other similarly organized? If so,
how then do commissural interhemispheric linkages perhaps then coordinate
their activities? I've already mentioned the syntactic relation of prosody-
would we then expect this zone, if real, to be opposite the home of
grammaticalized morphology on the opposite side, so that they may in some
real way actively oppose each other?
Given the attachment of ideophones to sensation (far more developed in
their semantics than any motoric senses), might we then be also able to
hypothesize that they would be opposite the lexical association areas near
the sensory cortical regions?
Since I'm only guessing about the possible existance of any discrete area
for ideophones there is no way I'm going to wax the know-it-all here.
However, if there is such an area, wouldn't brain lesion studies be able to
help us home in on it? Are there patients whose ability to play with
language, including the use of sound symbolism and other similar forms of
iconicity, be impaired? This is an eminently testable notion, I would
imagine.
One last point for this post- I mentioned that the languages with lots of
ideophones tend to be those of the isolating/analytical kind or those with
relatively fresh agglutinating character. These are also those types most
likely to have a great deal of use of tone or similar contrasts- more
right-hemisphere association?
Best,
Jess Tauber
phonosemantics@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Other related posts:
