On the diminutive morpheme -gama in Ikema, a Ryukyuan language

• Kiyono Fujinaga ^[1]
  1. [1] University at Buffalo, State University of New York

     University at Buffalo, State University of New York

     City of Buffalo, Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Studies in language: International Journal Sponsored by The Foundation "Foundations of Language", ISSN 0378-4177, Vol. 42, Nº 3, 2018, págs. 734-753
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Ikema is defined as ‘definitely endangered’ by UNESCO (2009). The study examines an evaluative morpheme -gama used by old Ikema speakers aged 64 to 86 when speaking between Ikema speakers and when speaking Standard Japanese with outsiders. Descriptive grammar of Ikema (Hayashi 2010; Hayashi 2013 inter alia) has treated -gama as diminutive morpheme, representing smallness such as tui-gama ‘small bird’ or showing the affections to the base noun. The observations on naturally occurring data, however, revealed that the Ikema speakers barely used -gama by means of describing smallness: the most frequent use of -gama was found to be non-supplementary (Shetter 1959) and carries various socio-pragmatic functions. The related meanings/functions of -gama are presented in radial category (Lakoff 1987).