Jonathan Roper - Alliteration in Culture

Also by Jonathan Roper

CHARMS AND CHARMING IN EUROPE

CHARMS, CHARMERS AND CHARMING:

International Research on Verbal Magic

ENGLISH VERBAL CHARMS

abecedarius poems

actors

adjective

adverb

Agnew, Spiro

alliteration

analogies of , Ch. 14 passim

and arbitrariness

archaic feel of

average rate of

avoidance of

awkwardness of

constraints on

culture-bound conventions of

density of

as expression of values

heavy use of

imprecision of

and lexical innovation

line-external passim

line length and

mnemonic use of

native terms for, Mongolian: bse qolbolta (joining the belts), tolgoi xolboc (head joint)

and parallelism

as part and parcel of writing poetry

and semantics

stylistic connotations of

and synonymy

and syntax

terms to describe it

and text-type

word choice motivated by

and word class

working definitions of

alliterative metonymy

alliterative name-giving

alliterative phrases, as repositories of obsolete words

Germanic cognates of

alliterative prose Introduction and Chs passim

alliterative restatement

alliterative verse Introduction and Chs passim

alliterative free verse

analogues of alliteration Ch. 14 passim

apposition

Arabic

asega (Frisian legal expert)

Augustine

Baesecke, Georg

bahuvrihi compounds

Baltic languages

Balto-Finnic , Ch. 12 passim

see also

beggar as field-name element

beings, supernatural

Beowulf

Bible, The

binomials see

Borchling, Conrad

brageyra (poetic ear)

breakback as field-name element

Buma, Wybren Jan

Buryat

Bush, George W.

csura

Chamisso, Adalbert

chiasmus

Chinese

Cicero

class, social

Clinton, Bill

, Ch. 9 passim

cochlear implants

cold as field-name element

compound words

consonant

consonant, absence of initial see

consonantal clusters

Danish

derogation

devil as field-name element

diphthong

direct speech

dithematic names Ch. 6 passim

drttkvtt

Dundes, Alan

Dutch

Dutch, Middle

echo words

Edda, The Elder

Edda, The Poetic

Efik

elocution

English Introduction and Chs

English, Middle

English, Old

epic

epitheton ornans

eponymy

equivalence set see

Estonian

etymology

European Society for Phraseology

Evenki

Field, John

filler words

finger fumblers

Finnic Ch. 12 passim

Finnish

Finno-Ugric

, Ch. 6 passim

folk etymology

formulaicity

fornyrislag

free verse

French

Frisian , Ch. 5 passim

Frisian, Old Ch. 5 passim

gaudy as field-name element

German

German, Middle High

German, Old High

Germanic

gnystudul

grammatical rhyme see

grapheme

see also

graphic alliteration see

Grimm, Jacob

Hlfdanarson, Helgi

Halliwell, James Orchard

, Ch. 14 passim

as counterparts of consonants

symbolism

Httatal, The

passim

Hebrew

Helgason, Jn

Heusler, Andreas

Heyne, Moritz

Hob

hovedstav see

homonymy

homophony

Hoops, Johannes

Hungarian

hungry as field-name element

hyperbole

Icelandic rmur poetry

Icelandic

idiom-final nouns

idioms

variability of

improvisation

inaugural addresses

Indo-European

inversion

irony

Italian

Izhor-Ingrian

Jackson, Andrew

Jefferson, Thomas

Johnson, Lyndon

Jorgensen, Marilyn

Kalevala, The , Ch. 12 passim

Kalevala-metre Ch. 12 passim

Kalmyk

Karelian

kenning

Kgel, Rudolf

labourers, agricultural

language learning

Latin

Latin rhetorical training as source of alliteration

, Ch. 5 passim

believed to have been metrical

oral delivery of

liminality

Lincoln, Abraham

literacy

litotes

little as field-name element

Livonian

ljahttr

Lnnrot, Elias

love as field-name element

Manchu

merism

metaphor

metonymy

Meyer, Richard

Mieder, Wolfgang

Minkova, Donka

Mongolian

morphology

see also

movement as counterpart of vowels

names

lists of

referential character of

rhetorical character of

see also

noa words

non-existent names Ch. 6 passim

noun

Obama, Barack

obscenity

Ob-Ugric

onomatopoeia

Opie, Iona and Peter

oral poetry

orality

Paczolay, Gyula

palatisation

parallelism see and

paronomasia

Persian

personification

persuasion

Pertunnen, Arhippa

Ptursson, Hallgrmur

phoneme

phonology

poems, placed in book according to their alliterative sound

pop lyrics

populism

preposition

pronoun

Presley, Elvis

pronunciation, native taxonomies of

message of

Puck

pudding as field-name element

pun

radio, alliteration overheard on the

Ray, John

Reagan, Ronald

Rebsamen, Frederick

reduplication

register

remoteness

rhetorical devices

avoidance of

right justification see

Roosevelt, Franklin

rotten as field-name element

Russian

sacrality

, Ch. 9 passim

Smi

Sanskrit

sarcasm

Saxon, Old

semantic field

semantics

Sepp, Rein

Seto

Shakespeare

shibboleth

Siebs, Theodore

Sievers, Eduard

sign language

linearity in

poetry Ch. 14 passim

see also

silver as field-name element

simile

skaldic verse Chs passim

Slavic

slurs

Somali , Ch. 13 passim

sound-patterning

sound repetition

see also

sound symbolism

see also

sound vs sense

sounds, alternation of

speech, alliteration in overheard

stress

initial syllable

Sturluson, Snorri

stylistics

Swedish , Ch. 6 passim

Szadrowsky, Manfred

taboo words

rymskvia, The Ch. 7 passim

Tibetan

titles

of books

of poems

translation, alliteration in

triads

Tungusic

Turkic

Turkic, Old

complementary twin f.s

contrastive twins f.s

unfixed metres

Uygur see

Vepsian

verb

Votic

vowel

Warburg Institute

Washington, George

wergeld

word class

see also

words

content

grammatical

Zwillingswrter see

Jeremy Harte

The use of alliteration in place-names, especially the field-names coined by nineteenth-century farm workers, is one of many rhetorical structures employed in the creation of names. These confound ordinary models of place-name formation since they do not offer a literal description of their referents; instead, the alliterative names are often lengthy and cumbersome. The social role of these names extended beyond that of simply labelling their referents. They preserve for us the views of an otherwise unrepresented social class on the difficulties of working land and the value set on its productivity, coupled with the denigration of poor places, other communities and socially excluded outsiders. Comparison with other rhetorical practices, such as the transfer of foreign names to denote local places, shows that alliteration was a deliberate practice to mark out names which expressed values as well as facts.