Source 1 - Chapman, Don. "POETIC COMPOUNDING IN THE VERCELLI, BLICKLING, AND WULFSTAN HOMILIES." Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, vol. 103, no. 4, 2002, pp. 409–421. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43344058. Accessed 13 Feb. 2020.
This source discusses poetic compounding in several old english Homilies. Fixating on the part of that important to my topic, poetic compounding, we can take away that poetic compounding can be used to assist with many other kinds of literary devices, including alliteration, dualism, metaphor, and rhyme. By being able to replace one word with two others, you can not only add more information to a phrase, but you can make the length, stress, and sound patterns of the word fit with what a verse requires.
Because the constructed language I plan to use to write my artifact creates nouns mainly through compounding smaller morphemes, understanding how to use compounding in a poetic manner is of the utmost importance to me. This source has shown how I can use compounding to assist with poetic devices I use. this source also described certain subjects being described with a changing set of compound words, instead of one consistent compound word. this directly answers one of my original questions which was whether denoting an important concept with a metaphorical compound word could help to fortify its importance and add background and depth to its meaning.
This source is the text, translation, and commentary of a poem written by J.R.R. Tolkien in one of his constructed languages, Quenya. The poem itself asks, in a metaphor rich manner, questions like "who shall see a white ship, and "who shall see the last evening". As best I can tell the poem is asking who will be around when the end of days arrives, and who will escape from middle earth, and who will not. The commentary on the poem describes the history of its writing and versions, and the linguistics of the poem, such as the etymology of its title ("mar" meaning home or dwelling, and "cirya" meaning ship). this source also provides a recording of someone reciting the poem in Quenya.
Because this is an example of artistic literature in a constructed language, it has provided solid information about my topic. Insights this source has provided me about the Quenya language:
By using a constructed word and one of its constituent words, you can get a free alliteration or rhyme example: wilwarin wilwa - butterfly fluttering
The rhyme schemes that we are accustomed to in english are not universal. example: ABCDDEFCD in the poem
When a language has phonemic vowel length variation, rhythm has to be adjusted for it.
assonance works better when the instances of the vowel in question have the same stress.
Source 3 - Donahue, Thomas S. "A Linguist Looks at Tolkien's Elvish." Mythlore, vol. 10, no. 3 (37), 1984, pp. 28–31. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26810573. Accessed 13 Feb. 2020.
This source discusses the basic linguistic elements of Tolkien's main elvish languages, Quenya and Sindarin. the first section of the article gives an in work history of the elves, in order to inform the coming discussion as to the languages development. Then the article describes some of the sound changes that made Quenya and Sindarin two different languages, but with a common root. It also discusses how the rules used by Tolkien mirror those present in real life, such as Grimm's and Verner's laws. The article then goes on to discuss where Tolkien got inspiration for his words and how he built certain very important words like "hobbit" very carefully to give them a lot of meaning.
Because this article discusses intentional construction of a language meant to sound natural and changing, it applies very well to my topic. The article also shows how the etymology of words can grant them meaning that they didn't have before. When I work on my artifact I plan to use etymology to give words important to my story extra meaning and emotional weight.
insights into constructing naturalistic languages:
The sound of words or phrases can relate directly to their meaning (stops for things that are abrupt, liquids for things that are liquid, unvoiced fricatives for things that are rough)
The etymology of words can import them extra meaning
Using extant phonetic changes can make a language sound more natural and more believable, rather than building it from a pre-created set of phonemes.
Source 4 - Ho'omanawanui, Ku'ualoha. "He Lei Ho'oheno No Nā Kau a Kau: Language, Performance, and Form in Hawaiian Poetry." The Contemporary Pacific, vol. 17, no. 1, 2005, pp. 29–81. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23721931. Accessed 3 Feb. 2020.
This source discusses, very generally, poetry in the Hawaiian language. The part of the article from which insights were drawn analyzed lines of the Kumulipo, the poetic creation story of the Hawaiian people.The article points out poetic devices such as internal rhyming, repetition, and dualism, and how they relate to the meaning of the work, and how it is able to be read. Although this source does not involve constructed languages, it does involve Hawaiian, and language with one particular linguistic extreme that relates to the conlang in which I wish to create my artifact. Specifically, Hawaiian has a very small sound inventory. Although my conlang's sound inventory is significantly larger, its word final options are limited to a similar degree as Hawaiian. Because rhyming depends on the last syllable, that similarity becomes important Insights into Hawaiian poetry: rhyme is often focused more on the same vowels than the same consonants. repetition is common, not really of single words, but of patterns of phrase, with certain parts exchanged in different lines. Duality is a constant factor, between earth and sky, land and sea, etc. extra thought: Having a small vocabulary and a small sound inventory work together, because the lack of word options makes it hard to find rhyme, but the lack of sounds makes more of the options work.
Source 5 - Kahananui, Dorothy M., and Alberta P. Anthony. E Kama'ilio Hawai'i Kakou. Rev. ed., U of Hawaii P, 1974.
Source 6 - Yu, Pauline. "Metaphor and Chinese Poetry." Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews (CLEAR), vol. 3, no. 2, 1981, pp. 205–224. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/495429. Accessed 13 Feb. 2020. This article focuses on the incredibly broad topic of metaphor in Chinese poetry. the actual conclusions and contested discussion within the source are not where its merit lies as it pertains to this project. Instead, the pre-accepted facts, quotes and other building blocks of the arguments of the source convey a lot of information about how metaphor functions, and how it functions differently in Chinese. The ones that I plan to apply to my project are the relationship between metaphor and the amount of information transmitted by a phrase, and the amount of prior or cultural knowledge necessary to understand a metaphor, and how that varies between Chinese and English.
Chinese is a language with a well known linguistic extreme: it is highly analytic, that is, it does not combine or change morphemes, each morpheme is its own word. The conlang I plan to use to construct my artifact has some very analytic elements as well, which is why metaphor in Chinese will be able to inform metaphor in my conlang. The two biggest insights I have gained from this source are:
Metaphor in Chinese requires an immense amount of prior cultural knowledge. In the source, this is shown through a poem in which the phrases "hare and toad", "Cloudy towers" and "cassia-scented" are supposed to inform the reader that the moon is the current subject of the poem, despite the word moon never being stated. The metaphors there rely on a strong background in Chinese mythology. This style of metaphor allows for a broader range of possibilities for comparisons, as a comparison can be connected through this prior knowledge, not through the actual language of the text.
Metaphor can be thought of as a way to convey more information than by just stating something outright. by comparing something to something else, you can suggest that the two things share traits of some sort, thereby saying more about the object than you would otherwise.