Lexicon and Semantics
No comprehensive dictionary of an Aslian language has yet to be published, though it is already clear that their lexicons are extraordinarily rich. The Aslian languages have borrowed from each other.
Austro-Asiatic languages have a penchant for encoding semantically complex ideas into unanalyzable, monomorphemic lexemes e.g. Semai thãʔ 'to make fun of elders sexually'. Such lexical specificity makes for a proliferation of lexicon.
Lexicon elaboration is particularly great in areas which reflect the interaction of the Aslians with their natural environment (plant and animal nomenclature, swidden agriculture terminology etc.). The greatest single sweller of the Aslian vocabulary is the class of words called expressive.
Expressives are words which describe sounds, visual phenomena, bodily sensations, emotions, smells, tastes etc., with minute precision and specificity. They are characterized by special morphophonemic patterns, and make extensive use of sound symbolism. Unlike nouns and verbs, expressives are lexically non-discrete, in that they are subject to a virtually unlimited number of semantic nuancings that are conveyed by small changes in their pronunciation.
For example in Semai, various noises and movements of flapping wings, thrashing fish etc. are depicted by an open set of morphophonemically related expressives like parparpar, krkpur, knapurpur, purpurpur etc.
Read more about this topic: Aslian Languages
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