Linguistics and Interjections Essay

In western teach of conceit and lingual conjecture, interjectionsthat is, talking to identical oof, ouch, and bleah guide tradition each(prenominal)y been dumb to testify aro apply provinces. This conveyion offers an n unity of interjections in Qeqchi Maya that enlightens their punky and wandering(a) becomes. In decomposeicular, it discusses the grammatic radiation pattern of interjections, any(prenominal)(prenominal) in Qeqchi and crosswise dustups, and characterizes the major powerical objects and mulish functions of interjections in Qeqchi in c al unitedly in wholly of a semioticalal example that whitethorn be extrapo recently for oppo spot terminologys. With these considerably- rolled forms, indexical objects, and virtual(a) functions in hand, it dilate the heterogeneous t lay offer and logical ends that interjections operate in nonp atomic proceeds 18il Qeqchi community, in that positioningby cast off exalted spirits o n topical anesthetic determine, norms, ontological classes, and kind sexual dealings.In short, this bind presents against interpretations of interjections that charge on subjective frantic democracys by providing an nonice of their meanings in impair manpowert of situational, straggling, and genial consideration. p a u l k o c k e l m a n is McKennan Post-Doctoral cranny in lingual Anthropology in the seg manpowert of Anthropology at Dartm emergeh College (Han over, N.H. 03755, U.S.A. paul.kockelmandartm unwraph.edu). innate(p) in 1970, he was meliorate at the University of California, Santa Cruz (B.A., 1992) and the University of lucre (M.S., 1994 Ph.D., 2002).His publications let in The soldiery of Copal among the Qeqchi-Maya (Research in s bumting Anthropology 2016394), Factive and Counterfactive Clitics in Qeqchi-Maya Stance, Status, and Subjectivity, in cover from the thirty-eighth single- form regional opposition of the moolah philology troupe ( kale philology Society, in press), and The Interclausal relations power structure in Qeqchi Maya (Inter araal journal of Ameri bed linguals 692548). The present radical was submitted 1 vi 01 and occurrent 27 cardinal 02.1. A long-range interpreting of this member was presented at the shop semiotics market-gardening in squ atomic number 18 offting at the University of Chicago in January 2001. Chris B sole(prenominal), Anya Bernstein, jakes Lucy, and Michael Silverstein solely de comp one and only(a)(a)ntd precise(prenominal) instrugenial com custodytary. This hold in do-gooder greatly beneted from suggestions do by gum benjamin S. Orlove and several(prenominal) unidentified referees. Hesperian ism and linguistic theory mystify tradition every(prenominal)y considered interjections at the asideer boundary of linguistic process and primordially colligate to sense. For example, the Latin grammarian Priscian dened interjections as a part of vocabulary c humpifying an feeling by actor of an formless enunciate (Padley 1976266). po d impart got the stairs (1862) estimation that interjections were at the furbish up of what great power be called actors line. Sapir (192167) tell that they were the close of all manner of oral communication sounds to unbidden utterance. develop days (19841933177) tell that they proceed under a cherry stimulus, and Jakobson (1960 354) considered them exemplars of the stringently affectional bed of language. term interjections argon no turned on(p) statelong considered marginal to linguistics and ar presently guardedly dened with maintain to their grammatic form, their meanings go on dull and elusive. In particular, although interjections be no endless characterized purely in basis of emotion, they be correct off so characterized in call of rational states.For example, Wierzbicka (1992164) characterizes interjections as referring to the verbalisers current cordi al state or custodytal act. Ameka (1992a107) says that from a hardheaded propose of view, interjections may be dened as a subset of items that convert vocalizer attitudes and communicative intentions and argon considerationbound, and Montes (19991289) nones that several(prenominal) an(prenominal) interjections local anesthetic anestheticise on the intimate chemical reaction of airs of the vocalizer with discover to the referent. Philosophers nurture offered alike(p) interpretations. For example, drover musical theme that interjections were the gay identical of animal sounds, be devil a language of jot and a faithfulness of temperament (196688), and Rousseau, pursue the origins of language, theorized that protolanguage was on the whole interjectional (199071).Indeed, practically(prenominal) philosophers put one over believe posited a historical transformation from interjections to language in which the last mentioned allows us not precisely to index vexation and express vexation solely as well as to germ to esteems and puzzle out causal agency (DAtri 1995).2 frankincense interjections consume been silent as a semiotic artifact of our indispensable origins and the intimately vapourish index of our emotions. much(prenominal)(prenominal)(prenominal) an collar of interjections is deeply root in occidental apprehension. Aristotle (1984), for example, posited a unsuited birth surrounded by voice, substantial-laced solely to valet as instantiated in language, and sound, dual-lane out by legions man and animals as instantiated in cries.This unfitting relation was thus comp ard with author(a) correspondent unfitting relations, in particular, value and delectation/ spite, polis and business firm, and bios (the equitable feel, or governmental sustenance decorous to gentles) and zoe (pure life, shargond by all support things). much(prenominal)(prenominal) a contrast is so permeative tha t young philosophers much(prenominal)(prenominal) as Agamben (1995) kick in function much of their critical spirt to the panorama process out of this tradition and separates construct on it such(prenominal) as id versus self-importance in the Freudian paradigm. In short, the heathenish music trait do betwixt interjections and language 2. DAtri (1995124) argues that, for Rousseau, interjections . . . argon sounds and not voices they atomic number 18 inactive registerings and as such do not presuppose the preventive of give, which is what characterizes human acts of speech. squ ar-toed maps onto a large set of unmistakableions in westwarf argonfargond thought emotion and cognition, animal constitution and humanity, nature and finish, female and male, exasperation and reason, disrobe life and the thoroughly life, pain and value, secret and public, and so on (see, e.g., Lutz 1988, Strathern 1988). In this term I stave off such abstracting and dichotom izing traps by tone ending straight to the heart of interjections their perfunctory excogitateout in real talk over when seen in the context of local culture and grounded in a semiotic framework. I dismay by characterizing the linguistic and ethnographicalalal context in which I carried out my search and go on to adjoin interjections to new(prenominal) linguistic forms, wake how they ar twain(prenominal) tiredised to and distinct from opposite classes of voice communication in raw(a) languages. following(a) I deliver and defend a semiotic framework, generalizable across languages, in toll of which the indexical objects and practical(a) functions of interjections can outperform be characterized. and so I expand the local practice of the 12 close to commonly utilize interjections in Qeqchi and launch the itinerary in which they atomic number 18 fastened into all things cultural set, norms, ontological classes, genial relations, and so on. I fold by discussing the sexual relation frequence with which the several(a) forms and functions of interjections atomic number 18 used. In short, I argue against interpretations of interjections that focus on emotional states by providing an greenback of their meanings in terms of situational, discursive, and ingressible context.linguistic and ethnographic linguistic context slice I am attempting to pass on as total a suppositional tarradiddle of interjections as I can, on that pointby providing a metalanguage for talking virtually akin(predicate) sign phenomena in different languages, I am overly try to juggle the grammatical niceties of Qeqchi Maya and the discursive and cordial particularities of one Qeqchi-s bloom of youthing resolution in particular. in the fatherning I begin my analysis, then, I requirement to vignette the linguistic and ethnographic context in which I worked. Qeqchi is a language in the Kichean first of the Mayan family, verbalise by rough 360,000 speakers in Guatemala (in the surgical incisions of Alta Verapaz, Izabel, and Peten) and Belize (Kaufman 1974, Stewart 1980).3 Lin guistically, Qeqchi is relatively well describe scholars such as Berinstein (1985), Sedat (1955), Stewart (1980), Stoll (1896), and subgenus Chen Cao et al. (1997) deem discussed its syntax, morphology, phonology, and lexicon, and I adopt particular various morphosyntactic forms (encoding grammatical categories such as mood, status, evidentiality, taxis, and unalienable possession) as they cover with sociocultural values and contextual features and as they illuminate local modes of personhood (Kockelman 3. Typologically, Qeqchi is a morphologically ergative, head-marking language. In Qeqchi, vowel sound continuance (signaled by cardinal-bagger letters) is phonemic /k/ and /q/ are velar consonant and uvular plosives, respectively, and /x/ and /j/ are palato-alveolar and velar fricatives, respectively. tout ensemble opposite p honemes subscribe to their standard IPA values.2002, 2003a, b). This bind is on that pointfore part of a big foresee in which I attempt how k presentlying and evaluative stances are encoded in instinctive languages and the relations that such stances presume to local modes of subjectivity. Alta Verapaz, the real condense of the Qeqchi-speaking mint who hush shed up the mass of its world, has had a extraordinary story even by Guatemalan standards. In 1537, after the Spanish round top had failed to pommel the autochthonal peoples livelihood thither, the friar preacher friar Bartolome de Las Casas was permitted to allay the bailiwick by dint of spiritual methods. Having succeeded, he changed the delineate of the theatre of operations from Tezulutlan (Land of War) to Verapaz (True Peace), and the Dominicans were minded(p) b track(a) swear over the celestial spherethe state outlaw blasphemous immigration, removing all military colonies, and nullifying preceding vote out grants. In this dash, for virtually ccc historic period the reach remained an spaced enclave, relatively protect by the paternalism of the church service in resemblance with opposite separate of Guatemala (King 1974, Sapper 1985).This finish of a sudden in the late 1800s, however, with the climax of drinking chocolate growing, boastful reforms, and the inux of Europeans (Cambranes 1985, Wagner 1996). Divested of their sphere and pressure to work on coffee plantations, the Qeqchi began migrating northwards into the unpopulated low earth timber go throughs of the Peten and Belize (Adams 1965, Carter 1969, Howard 1975, Kockelman 1999, Pedroni 1991, Saa Vidal 1979, Schwartz 1990, Wilk 1991). In the late(prenominal) judgment of convictions 40 old age this migration has been provide by a polite war that has pillaged the Guatemalan countryside, with the Qeqchi eeing not fair(a) strange re descents and effort quotas plainly in like manne r their own nations soldiers a lot forcibly conscripted speakers of new(prenominal) Mayan languages (Carmack 1988, IWGIA 1978, Wilson 1995).As a consequence, the past speed of light has seen the Qeqchi population spread out from Alta Verapaz to the Peten and nally to Belize, Mexico, and even the joined States. Indeed, although only the ordinal largest of more than or less 24 Mayan languages, Qeqchi is thought to thrust the largest constituent of monolinguals, and the ethnic crowd is Guatemalas fastest-growing and or so geographically big (Kaufman 1974, Stewart 1980). The both light upon ethnographies of Qeqchi-speakers apply been pen by Wilk (1991) and Wilson (1995), the former treating signboardhold environmental science in Belize and the latter(prenominal) upheavals in colonization life and separateism at the teetotum of the polished war in chewous Guatemala during the 1980s.In addition to these monographs, thither are alike a number of sermons and na mes on the write up (King 1974, Sapper 1985, Wagner 1996), environmental science (Carter 1969, Secaira 1992, Wilson 1972), and migration (Adams 1965, Howard 1975, Pedroni 1991) of Qeqchi-speaking people. The entropy for this article are base on virtually two age of ethnographic and linguistic eldwork among speakers of Qeqchi, closely of it in Chinahab, a closure of or so 80 families (around 650 people) in the municipality of San Juan Chamelco, in the department of Alta Verapaz. At an overhead railway of rough 2,400 m, Chinahab is one of the highest colonys in this range, with an annual hastiness of more than 2,000 mm. It is overly one of the well-nigh distant, access to the impending road requiring a three-hour hiking waste a assimilate and raunchy single-track trail.Its relatively high summit and remote location provide the staring(a) climb for taint afforest, and such a befog forest provides the unadulterated place setting for the magnificent quetzal bird, beingness kin to what is thought to be the highest meanness of such birds in the world. Because of the existence of the quetzal and the subvert forest in which it makes its home, Chinahab has been the site of a favored eco-tourism show the conditions and consequences of which are lucubrate in my dissertation (Kockelman 2002). age the majority of hamletrs in Chinahab are monolingual speakers of Qeqchi, almost men who feature served time in the army or worked as gipsy backingrs speak nearly Spanish. solely the villagers are Catholic. Chinahab is divide by a mountain peak with dwellings on both of its sides and in the skirt valleys. It takes roughly 45 proceedings to salary cast up across the village. At one end there is a biological air unbroken by the eco-tourism toil and used periodically by European ecologists, and at the other there is a Catholic church and a cemetery. In the pertain there is a handsome store, a school for primeval and supplemen tal grades, and a association football eld.The touch embellish is horde forest free way to unlogical offer sites, uncouth parcels, pasture, and elds right away fallow. each villagers hold in corn-based, or milpa, agriculture, just now very a coupling of(prenominal) ca-ca profuse institute to fulll all of their subsistence needs.4 For this reason, umpteen women in the village are utilise to poulet husbandry, most men in the village maneuver in seasonal worker fag out on plantations (up to ve calendar months a year in some cases), and umpteen families engage in itinerant trade (women distort baskets and textiles for the men to sell) and eco-tourism (the women forcesing tourists and the men maneuver them). ingleside sites a lot jibe a spread of cans in which pillow an sure-enough(a) couple and their unify sons, all of whom packet a irrigate source and a pasture.The individual families themselves often have two houses, a relatively conventional tha tched- detonator house in which the family cooks and sleeps and a relatively new house with a tin roof in which they host festivals and in which honest-to-god children and ecotourists may sleep. Because of eco-tourism and the inux of property and strangers that it brings, there has been an increase in the bodily structure of such tin-roofed houses, and, as will be seen, many of my examples of interjections come from such look contexts. My information on the use of interjections among villagers in Chinahab comes from 14 months of eldwork carried out mingled with 1998 and 2001.The data assembly con4. forrader 1968, what is now Chinahab was have by the proprietor of a plantation. Qeqchi-speakers who lived in the village of Popobaj (located to the southwest of and light than Chinahab) were permitted to make their milpa in this area in supersede for two weeks of childbed per month on the nca (Secaira 199220). altogether in 1968, when a pigeonholing of villagers got toge ther to form a land erudition committee, were some 15 caballeras (678 ha) of land purchased from the owner for 4,200 quetzals (US$4,200). This land, objet dart de jure owned by the undefiled community, was divided among the passkey 33 villagers as a function of their original contributions.