Gestalt Iconicity in EkeGusii Adjective Vowel Lengthening

Abstract

In this paper, I seek to demonstrate three key points. That vowel lengthening in EkeGusii, a Kenyan Bantu language, is iconized. That the extent of vowel lengthening in the adjectives shows isomorphic relations between durative vowels and meaning impressions in the sense of structural degrees of adjective intensity. That iconic vowel length cannot be accounted for without appealing to theoretical arguments that perceive durativity as an elastic concept of timespans, and not mora positions. To achieve this, I explain the concept gestalt iconicity, explore vowel lengthening, clarify why I treat long vowels as concepts of chronemity, and highlight the structure of EkeGusii adjectives, following Nash [1]. I then present primary data collected from native speakers, analysed in tabular form. I proceed to discuss iconized vowel lengthening, and finally use samples of spectrographic analyses to show why vowel lengthening may not be a matter of mora positions in iconized forms, neither a concept explainable under vowel sequencing nor syllabic weight for that matter. A wider discussion regarding iconic vowel lengthening in EkeGusii can be found in Mariera [2].