Hans-Ingolf Weier: Tonrelationen in Luba-Sprichwörtern – Reimformen auf suprasegmentaler Ebene bei den Baluba und Beena Luluwa in Zaïre [PDF]

1992
X, 272 pp.

Text language: German

This study tries to elaborate a structure principle for proverbs. The basis therefore is given in the present tonality of the (Ci-)Luba language (C.31). Tonal rhyme relations are identifiable with argument comparison, a method which was successfully applied in Generative Phonology before. The relations base upon ‘iteration’, a principle already known in traditional poetry, and used either complete or partial.

Complete tonal iteration proves the simple tone parallelism already described by Stappers, partial iteration is depending on position, and leads to additional, now defineable tonal rhyme patterns in proverbs. They deal with initial, internal, ending, and external rhymes as well as with tonal chain alignment and chiasmus. Additionally, nearly every rhyme relation shows reversity, a form of appearance in which the harmonising relations behave contrarily according to their tone. The itemised rhyme forms can be combined, too.

The used method is alienable to other languages without further difficulties, and so opens an additional comparative research field.