Animal sounds: a human vantage point

Why is it that the lexicon is often shunned and ignored by linguists, or in other words, treated with disdain and generally considered to be the Ugly Duckling of the linguistic family? This paper is both an attempt to redress the balance and it is designed as a tentative, initial contribution to...

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Main Author: Ekaterina Rakhilina
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Oslo 2011-02-01
Series:Oslo Studies in Language
Online Access:https://journals.uio.no/osla/article/view/152
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author Ekaterina Rakhilina
author_facet Ekaterina Rakhilina
author_sort Ekaterina Rakhilina
collection DOAJ
description Why is it that the lexicon is often shunned and ignored by linguists, or in other words, treated with disdain and generally considered to be the Ugly Duckling of the linguistic family? This paper is both an attempt to redress the balance and it is designed as a tentative, initial contribution to the study of verbs of sound. Here, the central focus is devoted to a small subsection of verbs of sound, namely to the verbs denoting animal sounds used with metaphorical reference to human beings. The paper also attempts to sketch possible situations and parameters which are relevant for human beings and which appear to be cross-linguistic universals. The discussion is for the most part focused on Russian but examples from other languages, such as English, German, Estonian, and so forth, are also included.
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spelling doaj.art-fdc3d47fd3704c60af44dd68581a45482022-12-21T23:25:39ZengUniversity of OsloOslo Studies in Language1890-96392011-02-012210.5617/osla.152Animal sounds: a human vantage pointEkaterina Rakhilina0Russian State University for the HumanitiesWhy is it that the lexicon is often shunned and ignored by linguists, or in other words, treated with disdain and generally considered to be the Ugly Duckling of the linguistic family? This paper is both an attempt to redress the balance and it is designed as a tentative, initial contribution to the study of verbs of sound. Here, the central focus is devoted to a small subsection of verbs of sound, namely to the verbs denoting animal sounds used with metaphorical reference to human beings. The paper also attempts to sketch possible situations and parameters which are relevant for human beings and which appear to be cross-linguistic universals. The discussion is for the most part focused on Russian but examples from other languages, such as English, German, Estonian, and so forth, are also included.https://journals.uio.no/osla/article/view/152
spellingShingle Ekaterina Rakhilina
Animal sounds: a human vantage point
Oslo Studies in Language
title Animal sounds: a human vantage point
title_full Animal sounds: a human vantage point
title_fullStr Animal sounds: a human vantage point
title_full_unstemmed Animal sounds: a human vantage point
title_short Animal sounds: a human vantage point
title_sort animal sounds a human vantage point
url https://journals.uio.no/osla/article/view/152
work_keys_str_mv AT ekaterinarakhilina animalsoundsahumanvantagepoint