Abstract Phonaesthemes are a common phenomenon, but they are generally not in paradigmatic opposition like morphemes are ( Svantesson 2017 : 6). Reta, however, has a phonaesthemic contrast /l/~/r/, where /r/-colouring of neutral base words signifies an increase in vulgarity, intensity, size or severity (e.g. ɓela ‘bad’ vs. ɓera ‘terrible’, -ool ‘penis’ vs. -oor ‘cock’). This paper describes this phenomenon in detail, and provides a discussion as to whether it is best classified as morphological, phonaesthemic, or otherwise. We argue that, although some of the cross-linguistic criteria for phonaesthesia exclude phonaesthemic /r/ from being classified as such, it is not straightforwardly classified as either phonological or morphological. Using Kwon & Round’s (2015) criteria for phonaesthesia and derivational morphology, we compare Reta phonaesthemic alternations to similar phenomena in other languages. We argue that such alternations differ fundamentally from both non-alternating phonaesthemes and morphology, and are best construed as a distinct cross-linguistic category.

中文翻译：

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粗俗、力量、严重程度和大小的表达

摘要 Phonaesthemes是一种普遍现象，但它们通常不像语素那样处于范式对立中（Svantesson 2017：6）。然而，Reta 具有音韵对比 /l/~/r/，其中中性基词的 /r/-着色表示粗俗、强度、大小或严重程度的增加（例如 ɓela '坏' vs. ɓera '可怕'， -ool '阴茎' vs. -oor '公鸡'）。本文详细描述了这种现象，并讨论了是否最好将其归类为形态学、音素或其他。我们认为，尽管声音的一些跨语言标准将声音 /r/ 排除在外，但它并没有直接归类为音位学或形态学。使用 Kwon & Round (2015) 的声音感觉和派生形态标准，我们将 Reta 音韵交替与其他语言中的类似现象进行比较。我们认为这种交替从根本上不同于非交替的音素和形态，最好将其解释为一个独特的跨语言类别。