Affiliation:
1. Language and Culture Research Centre, James Cook University Australia
Abstract
In many languages, terms denoting the human body and its parts constitute a closed subclass of nouns with special grammatical properties. Many if not all parts of the human body may acquire dimensions of meanings with ethnographic importance. I focus on a tri-partite division of visible and invisible parts of a human and their attributes in Manambu, a Ndu language spoken in the East Sepik province of Papua New Guinea. The trichotomy of ‘body’ (səp), ‘mind’ (mawul) and ‘spirit’ (kayik) in Manambu reflects a culturally embedded conceptualization of what a human is. Each of the three taxonomic units has specific grammatical properties. The physical and mental profile of a human being in Manambu (as in many other languages) cannot be appreciated without understanding the grammar. Conversely, a structural analysis of a language is incomplete unless it makes reference to the system of belief and concepts encoded in it.
Publisher
John Benjamins Publishing Company
Subject
Linguistics and Language,Communication,Language and Linguistics
Reference68 articles.
1. A Grammar of Tariana, from Northwest Amazonia
2. Language contact along the Sepik River;Aikhenvald;Anthropological Linguistics,2009
3. Round Women and Long Men: Shape, Size, and the Meanings of Gender in New Guinea and Beyond
4. Possession and ownership in Manambu, a Papuan language from New Guinea;Aikhenvald,2013
Cited by
5 articles.
订阅此论文施引文献
订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献
1. Chapter 6. Conceptions of the make-up of a human person in Ewe;Culture and Language Use;2024-02-15
2. Grammaticalised and non-grammaticalised conceptualisations of liyil ‘head’ in Likpakpaln (Konkomba);Language & Communication;2022-03
3. Gender, shape, and sociality;International Journal of Language and Culture;2021-12-10
4. Personal names in Kusaal: A sociolinguistic analysis;Language & Communication;2020-11
5. Longgu;Heart- and Soul-Like Constructs across Languages, Cultures, and Epochs;2019-01-14