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A Study in Flim-Flam: Reduplicative Ablaut Ideophones in English

Jansson Wallace, Ted LU (2019) ENGK01 20191
English Studies
Abstract
In this study I analysed reduplicative ablaut ideophones in English for their morphosyntactical properties, as ideophones in other languages have been found to have several marked characteristics in this respect. Informed by the typology of ideophones in other languages, my research questions were whether the reduplicatives would appear integrated into or outside of sentences, if they would fill functions associated with traditional word classes, whether they would inflect and derive like other words, and if they would be limited to declarative type sentences and resist negation. I collected data from the iWeb corpus on the six reduplicatives flim-flam, zig-zag, knick-knack, dilly-dally, shilly-shally and wishy-washy, gathering 30 samples... (More)
In this study I analysed reduplicative ablaut ideophones in English for their morphosyntactical properties, as ideophones in other languages have been found to have several marked characteristics in this respect. Informed by the typology of ideophones in other languages, my research questions were whether the reduplicatives would appear integrated into or outside of sentences, if they would fill functions associated with traditional word classes, whether they would inflect and derive like other words, and if they would be limited to declarative type sentences and resist negation. I collected data from the iWeb corpus on the six reduplicatives flim-flam, zig-zag, knick-knack, dilly-dally, shilly-shally and wishy-washy, gathering 30 samples of usage on the bare reduplicative and 10 samples of any inflected/derived forms. My results showed all samples to be highly integrated syntactically and morphologically. The answer to my research questions was thus that the reduplicatives would not seem to exhibit the marked properties noted for ideophones in other languages. This could in part be due to their being found in writing and having been in the language for long enough to become de-ideophonized and more integrated. Overall, the scope of the study was very limited and did not encourage any generalisations on ideophones in English. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
Jansson Wallace, Ted LU
supervisor
organization
course
ENGK01 20191
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
Ideophones Reduplication Iconicity
language
English
id
8989967
date added to LUP
2019-07-06 22:22:10
date last changed
2019-07-06 22:22:10
@misc{8989967,
  abstract     = {{In this study I analysed reduplicative ablaut ideophones in English for their morphosyntactical properties, as ideophones in other languages have been found to have several marked characteristics in this respect. Informed by the typology of ideophones in other languages, my research questions were whether the reduplicatives would appear integrated into or outside of sentences, if they would fill functions associated with traditional word classes, whether they would inflect and derive like other words, and if they would be limited to declarative type sentences and resist negation. I collected data from the iWeb corpus on the six reduplicatives flim-flam, zig-zag, knick-knack, dilly-dally, shilly-shally and wishy-washy, gathering 30 samples of usage on the bare reduplicative and 10 samples of any inflected/derived forms. My results showed all samples to be highly integrated syntactically and morphologically. The answer to my research questions was thus that the reduplicatives would not seem to exhibit the marked properties noted for ideophones in other languages. This could in part be due to their being found in writing and having been in the language for long enough to become de-ideophonized and more integrated. Overall, the scope of the study was very limited and did not encourage any generalisations on ideophones in English.}},
  author       = {{Jansson Wallace, Ted}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{A Study in Flim-Flam: Reduplicative Ablaut Ideophones in English}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}