Ideophones in Khaling Rai

Abstract

In Khaling Rai, a number of lexemes have been found which can be considered ideophones, according to Dingemanse’s ( 2012 : 654) definition of the latter as “marked words depictive of sensory imagery.” This article will describe the different types of ideophones found in Khaling. These ideophones not only manifest a range of different morphological patterns, they cover the entire spectrum of sensory modalities found in Dingemanse’s implicational hierarchy ( 2012 : 663), namely sound, movement, visual patterns, other sensory perceptions (such as texture and taste) and cognitive states. The more than 400 ideophones collected to date in Khaling present a sound symbolic landscape which appears to be considerably richer than that found in other Kiranti languages with which the author is familiar.