Amy and the vocative

[pne]

When Amy calls somebody or something, she uses two syllables and a descending minor third(? — roughly from G to E on a C-major scale, I think).

If what she's calling only has a one-syllable name, she'll repeat the syllable in order to call it. This means that some nouns are homophones in the vocative but not the nominative case, I suppose :)

This is most noticeable with "Ma-ma" and "Fi-fi", since the first can be either "Mama" (Mummy) or "Ma" (Martin; he of the default userpic), and the second can be either "Fi" (a Miffy doll that Stella sewed for her) or "Fifi" (Sophie, a… hand-puppet might be the name for it; a big doll where you can put your arms into hers to move them or your hand into the mouth).

Comments

[darth-spacey.livejournal.com]

Not only that, but it sounds like that are some proper nouns that differ in the nominative and vocative by a toneme instead of a "proper" phoneme. I'd be tempted to pay attention to other possible uses of phonemic tone...

[pne.livejournal.com]

it sounds like that are some proper nouns that differ in the nominative and vocative by a toneme instead of a "proper" phoneme.

You know what -- I think you're right.

I'd be tempted to pay attention to other possible uses of phonemic tone...

Heh :)