Maïa Ponsonnet
Biographic Data
| ID | 77203 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Maïa Ponsonnet |
| GIVEN NAMES | Maïa |
| FAMILY NAME | Ponsonnet |
| SIGNATURE | PONSONNET M |
| AFFILIATIONS | The University of Western Australia |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8879-9798 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 18 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 25 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The semantic typology of expressive interjections: Colexifications in pain, disgust and joy interjections across languages
‘Reflexemes’ – a first cross-linguistic insight into how and why reflexive constructions encode emotions
This article presents the first study on reflexive expressions having lexicalized an emotional meaning, as in the English example enjoy oneself . Such lexicalized forms, which we call ‘reflexemes’, occur in a number of genetically unrelated languages worldwide. Here we interrogate the cross-linguistic distribution and semantics of reflexemes, based on a sample of 58 languages from 6 genetic groups throughout Europe, Australia, and Asia. Reflexeme…
Event plurality and the verbal suffix ‐ (a)bad in Australian Kriol
The verbal suffix ‐ (a)bad is a frequent form in Australian Kriol and is well attested across all described varieties of the language. Despite the prevalence of this suffix, its precise semantics have so far gone undescribed in the literature. In this article, we present a semantic analysis of this suffix, drawing on data from a variety of Kriol spoken in the north-east Kimberley region of Western Australia. We argue that the diverse set of readi…
A semantic typology of emotion nouns in Australian Indigenous languages
In this article, we analyze lexicographic material for emotion nouns in a sample of 57 Australian Indigenous languages, with a view to understanding the lexical prevalence of different emotions. Several prominent semantic clusters can be identified in the sample, centred around the notions: ANGER; FEELING; SHAME; LOVE; FEAR; and SORROW. After presenting the semantics and shared features of these clusters, we look to colexifications between emotio…
How Linguistic Data Can Inform Archaeological Investigations: An Australian Pilot Study Around Combustion Features
We present an interdisciplinary collaboration whereby linguistic data are explored with the aim of gaining new insights on archaeological features to enrich investigations of the past. Archaeology on its own relies on a very discontinuous record and here we argue that a fuller use of linguistic resources can offer more nuanced insights of the cultural context, and thus a more comprehensive reconstruction of both archaeological histories in genera…
Synthèse: Les langues autochtones australiennes. Écologie et idéologies
National audience
The Linguistic Embodiment of Emotions. A Study of the Australian Continent
This article describes how particular emotions map figuratively onto body parts in Australian Indigenous languages. While most languages use expressions involving body parts to talk about emotions-as in "broken-hearted," for instance-Australian Indigenous languages do it to a remarkable extent. After identifying the figurative tropes-metaphors and metonymies-that recur most frequently in such expressions across the continent, the article discusse…
Constraints on subject elision in northern Australian Kriol: Between discourse and syntax
Kriol is an English-lexified creole spoken throughout the northern regions of Australia since the beginning of the twentieth century. With documentation and description of the language commencing only in the later decades of the twentieth century, many aspects of Kriol grammar remain under-described, especially within the domains of syntax and pragmatics. This study documents and describes subject elision in Kriol, a process where subject NPs are…
The role of the body in descriptions of emotions: A typology of the Australian continent
This article presents the first systematic typological study of emotional expressions involving body parts at the scale of a continent, namely the Australian continent. The role of body parts in figurative descriptions of emotions, a well-established phenomenon across the world, is known to be widespread in Australian languages. This article presents a typology of body-based emotional expressions across a balanced sample of 67 languages, where we…
Ear and belly in Warlpiri descriptions of cognitive and emotional experience
Like most other Australian languages, Warlpiri – a Pama-Nyungan language of the Ngumpin-Yapa group – is rich in figurative expressions that include a body-part noun. In this article we examine the collocations involving two body parts: langa ‘ear’, which mostly relates to cognition; and miyalu ‘belly’, which mostly relates to emotion. Drawing on an extensive Warlpiri database, we analyse the semantic, figurative and syntactic dimensions of these …
Discourse and Pragmatic Functions of the Dalabon ‘Ergative’ Case-marker
This article discusses the distribution and function of a suffix that has been labelled ‘ergative’ in the literature on Dalabon, a Gunwinyguan (non-Pama-Nyungan) language of south-western Arnhem Land. Our first-hand data reveal that although this marker (-yih) more frequently occurs on A arguments of multivalent clauses, it also appears with significant frequency on S arguments of monovalent clauses, particularly with the verb root yin ‘to say, t…
Do Linguistic Properties Influence Expressive Potential? The Case of Two Australian Diminutives (Gunwinyguan Family)
International audience
Expressivity and performance. Expressing compassion and grief with a prosodic contour in Gunwinyguan languages (northern Australia)
A preliminary typology of emotional connotations in morphological diminutives and augmentatives
This article presents a preliminary typology of emotional connotations in evaluative morphology, starting with diminutives and augmentatives. I inventory the emotional meanings and connotations found in a sample of nineteen languages for diminutives, and nine languages plus a few additional regional studies for augmentatives. Given the small size of the samples, this typology can only remain preliminary, but it does highlight a number of points. …
Expressive values of reduplication in Barunga Kriol (northern Australia)
This article describes the semantic values of reduplication in Barunga Kriol – an English-based creole of northern Australia –, with a focus on its expressive functions. Barunga Kriol reduplication has two types of functions. Its most frequent meaning is aspectual atelicity. In addition, it has a number of expressive meanings and connotations: hypocoristic usages; descriptions of children’s games and imitations; and a softening role in imperative…
Lexical semantics in language shift: Comparing emotion lexica in Dalabon and Barunga Kriol (northern Australia)
This article analyzes some of the lexical semantic features of Barunga Kriol, an Australian creole language (Northern Territory, Australia), in comparison with Dalabon, one of the Australian Aboriginal languages replaced by Barunga Kriol. Focusing on the semantic domain of emotions, this study offers insights into how creole languages select and organize semantic meanings, and to what extent this results in lexical loss or retention. I spell out …
Conceptual representations and figurative language in language shift
This article explores the correlations between linguistic figurative features and their corresponding conceptual representations, by considering their respective continuities and discontinuities in language shift. I compare the figurative encoding of emotions in Kriol, a creole of northern Australia, with those of Dalabon, one of the languages replaced by this creole, with a particular focus on evidence from metaphorical gestures. The conclusions…
Les conceptions de la propriété foncière à l'épreuve des revendications autochtones: Possession, propriété et leurs avatars
La question des revendications foncières autochtones représente une problématique majeure de la recherche en anthropologie. Comment les systèmes fonciers autochtones sont-ils compris, et éventuellement traduits dans les termes des états dominants ? Comment ces traductions sont-elles concrètement prises en charge – au niveau légal, ou bien au niveau symbolique ? Toutes ces questions, lourdes de conséquences juridiques et pratiques, cristallisent l…
The Body in Linguistic Representations of Emotions in Dalabon (Northern Australia)
In the Dalabon language of Northern Australia (Gunwinyguan family, non-Pama-Nyungan), body-part words are used in expressions denoting emotions. For instance, kangu-yowyow(mu), literally ‘flowing belly’ (kangu ‘belly’+ yowyow(mu) ‘flow’) means ‘feel good, be nice’. This is cross-linguistically unsurprising: most languages in Australia and around the world make use of body-parts to describe emotions. However, these body-parts can play different ro…
Nominal Subclasses in Dalabon (South-western Arnhem Land)
This paper describes a distinctive system of nominal subclasses observed in Dalabon, a non-Pama-Nyungan, Gunwinyguan language of south-western Arnhem Land, Australia. These subclasses differ from what is usually called ‘noun classes’ in Australian languages, and no such system has been described for an Australian language so far. While most Gunwinyguan languages use noun class prefixes offering an overt categorization of noun classes, Dalabon has…
Descriptive Linguistics
International audience
Results and Prospects in the Study of Semantic Change: A Review of From Polysemy to Semantic Change (2008)
The topic of this review article is a volume addressing the relationship between polysemy and semantic change, a relationship which has been important in discussions of semantic theory and method particularly in recent years, and which has the potential to unite synchronic and diachronic approaches. The first part of this article consists of thorough reviews of the fourteen chapters in the volume, entitled From Polysemy to Semantic Change , edite…
Mythes, missiles et cannibales: Le récit d'un premier contact en Australie
Les figures du doute en langue dalabon (Australie du Nord)
Cet article décrit les principales racines lexicales ou tournures rhétoriques qui permettent d'exprimer, en langue dalabon d'Australie du Nord, le doute qui renvoie ici, d'après le sens du terme en langue française, à la famille d'expériences recouvrant l'incertitude quant au savoir, le manque de confiance, l'hésitation, les expériences déstabilisantes... Après avoir présenté ma méthode et ses fondements théoriques, j'analyse deux racines verbale…
Aspects of the semantics of emotions and feelings in Dalabon (South‐Western Arnhem Land, Australia)
This article describes two of the principal roots allowing the expression of emotions and feelings in Dalabon, an endangered language of South‐Western Arnhem Land. The first root, kangu , ‘belly’, is depicted linguistically as the location of emotions induced by interpersonal relationships. The belly is thus presented as the locus of good and bad moods generally and of conflict more specifically. Furthermore, the material properties of the belly—…
Do Linguistic Properties Influence Expressive Potential? The Case of Two Australian Diminutives (Gunwinyguan Family)
International audience
Nominal Subclasses in Dalabon (South-western Arnhem Land)
This paper describes a distinctive system of nominal subclasses observed in Dalabon, a non-Pama-Nyungan, Gunwinyguan language of south-western Arnhem Land, Australia. These subclasses differ from what is usually called ‘noun classes’ in Australian languages, and no such system has been described for an Australian language so far. While most Gunwinyguan languages use noun class prefixes offering an overt categorization of noun classes, Dalabon has…
Les figures du doute en langue dalabon (Australie du Nord)
Cet article décrit les principales racines lexicales ou tournures rhétoriques qui permettent d'exprimer, en langue dalabon d'Australie du Nord, le doute qui renvoie ici, d'après le sens du terme en langue française, à la famille d'expériences recouvrant l'incertitude quant au savoir, le manque de confiance, l'hésitation, les expériences déstabilisantes... Après avoir présenté ma méthode et ses fondements théoriques, j'analyse deux racines verbale…
The Linguistic Embodiment of Emotions. A Study of the Australian Continent
This article describes how particular emotions map figuratively onto body parts in Australian Indigenous languages. While most languages use expressions involving body parts to talk about emotions-as in "broken-hearted," for instance-Australian Indigenous languages do it to a remarkable extent. After identifying the figurative tropes-metaphors and metonymies-that recur most frequently in such expressions across the continent, the article discusse…
Constraints on subject elision in northern Australian Kriol: Between discourse and syntax
Kriol is an English-lexified creole spoken throughout the northern regions of Australia since the beginning of the twentieth century. With documentation and description of the language commencing only in the later decades of the twentieth century, many aspects of Kriol grammar remain under-described, especially within the domains of syntax and pragmatics. This study documents and describes subject elision in Kriol, a process where subject NPs are…
How Linguistic Data Can Inform Archaeological Investigations: An Australian Pilot Study Around Combustion Features
We present an interdisciplinary collaboration whereby linguistic data are explored with the aim of gaining new insights on archaeological features to enrich investigations of the past. Archaeology on its own relies on a very discontinuous record and here we argue that a fuller use of linguistic resources can offer more nuanced insights of the cultural context, and thus a more comprehensive reconstruction of both archaeological histories in genera…
Aspects of the semantics of emotions and feelings in Dalabon (South‐Western Arnhem Land, Australia)
This article describes two of the principal roots allowing the expression of emotions and feelings in Dalabon, an endangered language of South‐Western Arnhem Land. The first root, kangu , ‘belly’, is depicted linguistically as the location of emotions induced by interpersonal relationships. The belly is thus presented as the locus of good and bad moods generally and of conflict more specifically. Furthermore, the material properties of the belly—…
Brainwash from English: Barunga Kriol Speakers' Views on Their Own Language
This article deals with the sociolinguistics of Kriol, an English-lexifier creole widely used among Aboriginal people in the north of the Northern Territory in Australia. Some views and ideologies about their own language expressed by four first-language Barunga Kriol speakers in a series of speech interactions are presented, and possible interpretations are suggested, based on understanding of speakers' local and personal backgrounds as well as …
Les figures du doute en langue dalabon (Australie du Nord)
Cet article décrit les principales racines lexicales ou tournures rhétoriques qui permettent d'exprimer, en langue dalabon d'Australie du Nord, le doute qui renvoie ici, d'après le sens du terme en langue française, à la famille d'expériences recouvrant l'incertitude quant au savoir, le manque de confiance, l'hésitation, les expériences déstabilisantes... Après avoir présenté ma méthode et ses fondements théoriques, j'analyse deux racines verbale…
Descriptive Linguistics
International audience
Results and Prospects in the Study of Semantic Change: A Review of From Polysemy to Semantic Change (2008)
The topic of this review article is a volume addressing the relationship between polysemy and semantic change, a relationship which has been important in discussions of semantic theory and method particularly in recent years, and which has the potential to unite synchronic and diachronic approaches. The first part of this article consists of thorough reviews of the fourteen chapters in the volume, entitled From Polysemy to Semantic Change , edite…
Mythes, missiles et cannibales: Le récit d'un premier contact en Australie
The Body in Linguistic Representations of Emotions in Dalabon (Northern Australia)
In the Dalabon language of Northern Australia (Gunwinyguan family, non-Pama-Nyungan), body-part words are used in expressions denoting emotions. For instance, kangu-yowyow(mu), literally ‘flowing belly’ (kangu ‘belly’+ yowyow(mu) ‘flow’) means ‘feel good, be nice’. This is cross-linguistically unsurprising: most languages in Australia and around the world make use of body-parts to describe emotions. However, these body-parts can play different ro…
Nominal Subclasses in Dalabon (South-western Arnhem Land)
This paper describes a distinctive system of nominal subclasses observed in Dalabon, a non-Pama-Nyungan, Gunwinyguan language of south-western Arnhem Land, Australia. These subclasses differ from what is usually called ‘noun classes’ in Australian languages, and no such system has been described for an Australian language so far. While most Gunwinyguan languages use noun class prefixes offering an overt categorization of noun classes, Dalabon has…
Les conceptions de la propriété foncière à l'épreuve des revendications autochtones: Possession, propriété et leurs avatars
La question des revendications foncières autochtones représente une problématique majeure de la recherche en anthropologie. Comment les systèmes fonciers autochtones sont-ils compris, et éventuellement traduits dans les termes des états dominants ? Comment ces traductions sont-elles concrètement prises en charge – au niveau légal, ou bien au niveau symbolique ? Toutes ces questions, lourdes de conséquences juridiques et pratiques, cristallisent l…
Conceptual representations and figurative language in language shift
This article explores the correlations between linguistic figurative features and their corresponding conceptual representations, by considering their respective continuities and discontinuities in language shift. I compare the figurative encoding of emotions in Kriol, a creole of northern Australia, with those of Dalabon, one of the languages replaced by this creole, with a particular focus on evidence from metaphorical gestures. The conclusions…
Expressivity and performance. Expressing compassion and grief with a prosodic contour in Gunwinyguan languages (northern Australia)
A preliminary typology of emotional connotations in morphological diminutives and augmentatives
This article presents a preliminary typology of emotional connotations in evaluative morphology, starting with diminutives and augmentatives. I inventory the emotional meanings and connotations found in a sample of nineteen languages for diminutives, and nine languages plus a few additional regional studies for augmentatives. Given the small size of the samples, this typology can only remain preliminary, but it does highlight a number of points. …
Expressive values of reduplication in Barunga Kriol (northern Australia)
This article describes the semantic values of reduplication in Barunga Kriol – an English-based creole of northern Australia –, with a focus on its expressive functions. Barunga Kriol reduplication has two types of functions. Its most frequent meaning is aspectual atelicity. In addition, it has a number of expressive meanings and connotations: hypocoristic usages; descriptions of children’s games and imitations; and a softening role in imperative…
Lexical semantics in language shift: Comparing emotion lexica in Dalabon and Barunga Kriol (northern Australia)
This article analyzes some of the lexical semantic features of Barunga Kriol, an Australian creole language (Northern Territory, Australia), in comparison with Dalabon, one of the Australian Aboriginal languages replaced by Barunga Kriol. Focusing on the semantic domain of emotions, this study offers insights into how creole languages select and organize semantic meanings, and to what extent this results in lexical loss or retention. I spell out …
Discourse and Pragmatic Functions of the Dalabon ‘Ergative’ Case-marker
This article discusses the distribution and function of a suffix that has been labelled ‘ergative’ in the literature on Dalabon, a Gunwinyguan (non-Pama-Nyungan) language of south-western Arnhem Land. Our first-hand data reveal that although this marker (-yih) more frequently occurs on A arguments of multivalent clauses, it also appears with significant frequency on S arguments of monovalent clauses, particularly with the verb root yin ‘to say, t…
Do Linguistic Properties Influence Expressive Potential? The Case of Two Australian Diminutives (Gunwinyguan Family)
International audience
The role of the body in descriptions of emotions: A typology of the Australian continent
This article presents the first systematic typological study of emotional expressions involving body parts at the scale of a continent, namely the Australian continent. The role of body parts in figurative descriptions of emotions, a well-established phenomenon across the world, is known to be widespread in Australian languages. This article presents a typology of body-based emotional expressions across a balanced sample of 67 languages, where we…
Ear and belly in Warlpiri descriptions of cognitive and emotional experience
Like most other Australian languages, Warlpiri – a Pama-Nyungan language of the Ngumpin-Yapa group – is rich in figurative expressions that include a body-part noun. In this article we examine the collocations involving two body parts: langa ‘ear’, which mostly relates to cognition; and miyalu ‘belly’, which mostly relates to emotion. Drawing on an extensive Warlpiri database, we analyse the semantic, figurative and syntactic dimensions of these …
Constraints on subject elision in northern Australian Kriol: Between discourse and syntax
Kriol is an English-lexified creole spoken throughout the northern regions of Australia since the beginning of the twentieth century. With documentation and description of the language commencing only in the later decades of the twentieth century, many aspects of Kriol grammar remain under-described, especially within the domains of syntax and pragmatics. This study documents and describes subject elision in Kriol, a process where subject NPs are…
The Linguistic Embodiment of Emotions. A Study of the Australian Continent
This article describes how particular emotions map figuratively onto body parts in Australian Indigenous languages. While most languages use expressions involving body parts to talk about emotions-as in "broken-hearted," for instance-Australian Indigenous languages do it to a remarkable extent. After identifying the figurative tropes-metaphors and metonymies-that recur most frequently in such expressions across the continent, the article discusse…
How Linguistic Data Can Inform Archaeological Investigations: An Australian Pilot Study Around Combustion Features
We present an interdisciplinary collaboration whereby linguistic data are explored with the aim of gaining new insights on archaeological features to enrich investigations of the past. Archaeology on its own relies on a very discontinuous record and here we argue that a fuller use of linguistic resources can offer more nuanced insights of the cultural context, and thus a more comprehensive reconstruction of both archaeological histories in genera…
Synthèse: Les langues autochtones australiennes. Écologie et idéologies
National audience
‘Reflexemes’ – a first cross-linguistic insight into how and why reflexive constructions encode emotions
This article presents the first study on reflexive expressions having lexicalized an emotional meaning, as in the English example enjoy oneself . Such lexicalized forms, which we call ‘reflexemes’, occur in a number of genetically unrelated languages worldwide. Here we interrogate the cross-linguistic distribution and semantics of reflexemes, based on a sample of 58 languages from 6 genetic groups throughout Europe, Australia, and Asia. Reflexeme…
Event plurality and the verbal suffix ‐ (a)bad in Australian Kriol
The verbal suffix ‐ (a)bad is a frequent form in Australian Kriol and is well attested across all described varieties of the language. Despite the prevalence of this suffix, its precise semantics have so far gone undescribed in the literature. In this article, we present a semantic analysis of this suffix, drawing on data from a variety of Kriol spoken in the north-east Kimberley region of Western Australia. We argue that the diverse set of readi…
A semantic typology of emotion nouns in Australian Indigenous languages
In this article, we analyze lexicographic material for emotion nouns in a sample of 57 Australian Indigenous languages, with a view to understanding the lexical prevalence of different emotions. Several prominent semantic clusters can be identified in the sample, centred around the notions: ANGER; FEELING; SHAME; LOVE; FEAR; and SORROW. After presenting the semantics and shared features of these clusters, we look to colexifications between emotio…
Linguistics (20 works) · Philosophy (18 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (13 works) · Categorization, perception, and language (12 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (9 works) · Linguistic Variation and Morphology (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works)