El arpa, agua que cae: Metáfora y simbolismo sonoro como estrategias de formación de palabras en el léxico de instrumentos musicales en guaraní

Abstract

El campo semántico de los instrumentos musicales, a diferencia de la nomenclatura etnobotánica y etnozoológica, representa un área aún poco explorada por los estudios etnolingüísticos. El presente trabajo parte del análisis de tres lexemas primarios; mbaraka, angu’a y mimby, que originalmente en mbya guaraní designaban instrumentos musicales de origen indígena y, posteriormente, en guaraní antiguo y guaraní moderno, o bien fueron re-semantizados o incluidos en compuestos para designar instrumentos introducidos por la población de origen europeo. Cada fuente consultada, entonces, representa un distinto grado de contacto con la cultura envolvente, factor que se refleja en las relaciones de hiperonimia e hiponimia entre los lexemas primarios y las incorporaciones o desarrollos más recientes. El análisis lingüístico asimismo revela que las estrategias de formación de palabras en este campo resultan en nombres morfológicamente complejos que encuentran su motivación en relaciones de base analógica o metafórica con otros elementos del mundo, así como instancias de simbolismo sonoro, fenómenos usualmente asociados a la nomenclatura biológica.

The semantic field of musical instruments, unlike ethnobotanical and ethnozoological nomenclature, still represents an underexplored area in ethnolinguistic studies. The present work is based on the analysis of three primary lexemes; mbaraka, angu’a and mimby, which originally in Mbya Guarani designated musical instruments of indigenous origin and, later, in Old Guarani and Modern Guarani, were either re-semantisized or included in nominal compounds in order to designate instruments introduced by the population of European origin. Each source, then, represents a different degree of contact with the creole culture, a fact that is reflected in the hyponymy and hypernymy relations between these primary lexemes and the more recent incorporations or developments. Furthermore, this linguistic analysis reveals word-formation strategies in this field result in morphologically complex names motivated by metaphorical or analogical relations with other elements of the world, as well as instances of sound symbolism, phenomena which are usually associated with biological nomenclature.

The semantic field of musical instruments, unlike ethnobotanical and ethnozoological nomenclature, still represents an underexplored area in ethnolinguistic studies. The present work is based on the analysis of three primary lexemes; mbaraka, angu’a and mimby, which originally in Mbya Guarani designated musical instruments of indigenous origin and, later, in Old Guarani and Modern Guarani, were either re-semantisized or included in nominal compounds in order to designate instruments introduced by the population of European origin. Each source, then, represents a different degree of contact with the creole culture, a fact that is reflected in the hyponymy and hypernymy relations between these primary lexemes and the more recent incorporations or developments. Furthermore, this linguistic analysis reveals word-formation strategies in this field result in morphologically complex names motivated by metaphorical or analogical relations with other elements of the world, as well as instances of sound symbolism, phenomena which are usually associated with biological nomenclature.