Rhyme in the Chamorro language poetry of Joaquin Flores Borja (And what it tells us about poetry and language)
Humanities
Linguistics/LING 108: Poetry and Language
In this paper, I explain the rhyming patterns found in "Istreyas Marianas," a small collection of Chamorro poetry and other literature written by Joaquin Flores Borja and his brother, Manuel Flores Borja. The poetry, written by Joaquin, utilizes imperfect rhyme to a great extent. The central questions asked in this paper revolves around which sounds get to rhyme with each other (if they aren't identical); and the goal of the paper is to explain just why they get to rhyme with each other. For each exception that allows two superficially different sounds to count as the same, I tie it to a process in the language's phonology that independently considers those sounds, in some sense, to be the same. In this way, I argue that the interesting and complex rhyming patterns found in "Istreyas Marianas" are informed by the structures and processes in Chamorro grammar. This argument, and its supporting evidence, points towards a certain view of language and the form of linguistic knowledge--it is internalized and cognitively accessible--as well as a certain view of the relation between poetry and language--the elements relevant to a language's grammar are those elements that are relevant for poetic form.
