Paralinguistic use of clicks in Chad
Résumé
This chapter gives a preliminary phonetic and pragmatic description of four clicks used as verbal gestures in Laal, a language isolate of southern Chad whose regular phonemic inventory does not include click consonants. The four clicks are: dental, lateral, back-released velar, and a bilabial-alveolar/lateral click known as “tchip” in the francophone African diaspora, “suck-teeth” in African American communities. The first three have both affective and logical (yes/no, backchannel) uses, while the last one is only affective. These clicks, or variants thereof, seem to be attested in a vast region extending at least from the Atlantic coast to Chad and Cameroon. A preliminary comparison with similar clicks in Wolof is given, showing both strong similarities and systematic differences.
Domaines
Linguistique
Origine :
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