Linguistic Mimesis

Ideophone is a word class evoking ideas in sound imitation or onomatopoeia to express action, manner of property. Ideophone is the least common syntactic category cross-linguistically occurring mostly in African, Australian and Amerindian languages, and sporadically elsewhere. It is globally the only known word class exotic to English. Ideophones resemble interjections but are unclassifiable as such owing to their special phonetic or derivational characteristics, and based on their syntactic function within the sentence. They may include sounds that deviate from the language's phonological system, imitating—often in a repetitive manner—sounds of movement, animal noises, bodily sounds, noises made by tools or machines, and the like.

While English does have ideophonic or onomatopoetic expressions, it does not contain a proper class of ideophones because any English onomatopoeic word can be included in one of the classical categories. For example, ''la-di-da'' functions as an adjective while others, such as ''zigzag'', may function as a verb, adverb or adjective, depending on the clausal context. In the sentence 'The rabbit zigzagged across the meadow", the verb zigzag takes the past –''ed'' verb ending. In contrast, the reconstructed example *"The rabbit ''zigzag zigzag'' across the meadow" emulates an ideophone but is not idiomatic to English.

Dictionaries of languages like Japanese, Korean, Xhosa, Yoruba, and Zulu list thousands of ideophones. Sometimes ideophones are called ''phonosemantic'' to indicate that it is not a grammatical word class in the traditional sense of the word (like verb or noun), but rather a lexical class based on the special relationship between form and meaning exhibited by ideophones. In the discipline of linguistics, ideophones have sometimes been overlooked or treated as a subgroup of interjections.

Characteristics

The word ideophone was coined in 1935 by Clement Martyn Doke, who defined it in his ''Bantu Linguistic Terminology'' as follows.Doke 1935 as cited in Voeltz & Kilian-Hatz 2001

Ideophones evoke sensory events. A well known instance of ideophones are onomatopoeic words—words that imitate the sound (of the event) they refer to. Some ideophones may be derived from onomatopoeic notions. In many languages, however, ideophones do not solely represent sound. For instance, in Gbaya, ''kpuk a rap on the door' may be onomatopoeic, but other ideophones depict motion and visual scenes: ''loɓoto-loɓoto'' 'large animals plodding through mud', ''kiláŋ-kiláŋ'' 'in a zigzagging motion', ''pɛɗɛŋ-pɛɗɛŋ'' 'razor sharp'.

Ideophones are often characterized as iconic or sound-symbolic words, meaning that there can be a resemblance between their form and their meaning. For instance, in West-African languages, voiced consonants and low tone in ideophones are often connected to largeness and heaviness, whereas voiceless consonants and high tones tend to relate to smallness and lightness. Reduplication figures quite prominently in ideophones, often conveying a sense of repetition or plurality present in the evoked event. The iconicity of ideophones is shown by the fact that people can guess the meanings of ideophones from various languages at a level above chance. However, the form of ideophones does not completely relate to their meaning; as conventionalized words, they contain arbitrary, language-specific phonemes just like other parts of the vocabulary.

Grammar

The grammatical function of ideophones varies by language. In some languages (e.g. Welayta, Yir-Yiront, Semai, Korean), they form a separate word class, while in others, they occur across a number of different word classes (e.g. Mundang, Ewe, Sotho, Hausa).

Despite this diversity, ideophones show a number of robust regularities across languages. One is that they are often marked in the same way as quoted speech and demonstrations. Sometimes ideophones can form a complete utterance on their own, as in English "ta-da!" or Japanese .Diffloth 1972 However, in such cases the word ideophone is used as a synonym to interjection. Proper ideophones may occur within utterances, depicting a scene described by other elements of the utterance, as in Japanese ''Taro wa sutasuta to haya-aruki o shita'' "Taro walked hurriedly' (literally 'Taro did haste-walk ''sutasuta'''). Ideophones are more like illustrations ''of'' events than responses ''to'' events. An ideophone like Gbaya ''kiláŋ-kiláŋ'' 'in a zigzagging motion' displays a certain resemblance to the event (for instance, its irregular vowels and tones depicting the irregularity of the motion).

Registers

Languages may differ in the context in which ideophones are used. In some languages, ideophones are primarily used in spoken language (e.g. narrative contexts) and are rarely encountered in written language.Noss in Voeltz & Kilian-Hatz 2001 In other languages (e.g. Ewe, Japanese), ideophones can be freely used in all registers. In general, however, ideophones tend to occur more extensively in spoken language because of their expressive or dramaturgic function.Kunene in Voeltz & Kilian-Hatz 2001

Examples

Japanese

The Japanese language has thousands of ideophones, often called ''mimetics''. The constructions are quite metrical 2-2, or 3-3, where morae play a role in the symmetry. The first consonant of the second word of the reduplication may become voiced if phonological conditions allow. Japanese ideophones are used extensively in daily conversations as well as in the written language.

* ''doki doki'' () – heart-pounding
* ''kira kira'' () – glittery
* ''shiin'' () – silence
* ''niko niko'' () – smile
* ''jii'' () – stare
*''run run'' () – cheerful

Tamil

The Tamil language uses a lot of ideophones, both in spoken (colloquial) and in formal usage. Ideophones are called irattaik kilavi (இரட்டைக் கிளவி) in Tamil grammar.

* ''sora sora'' () – rough (the sound produced when rubbing back and forth on a rough surface)
* ''vazha-vazha'' () – smooth, slippery
* ''mozhu-mozhu'' () – smooth (surface)
* ''kozhu-kozhu'' () – plump
* ''kozha-kozha'' () – slimy, gooey
* ''busu-busu'' () – soft and bushy
* ''giDu-giDu'' () – quickly, fast
* ''maDa-maDa'' () – quickly, fast
* ''masa-masa'' () – sluggish, lethargic
* ''viru-viru'' () – energetically (also, spicy)
* ''choda-choda'' () – marshy, waterlogged
* ''paLa-paLa'' () – glittering, shiny
* ''veDa-veDa'' () – shaking, trembling
* ''chuDa-chuDa'' () – piping hot
* ''mAngu-mAngu'' () – laboriously
* ''gara-gara'' () – crunchy, gravely (as in voice)
* ''doLa-doLa'' () - hanging loose (as in loose fitting)
* ''taLa-taLa'' () - lush (as in a lush plant/orchard)
* ''toNa-toNa'' () - annoyingly incessant

Xhosa

In Xhosa, as in closely related Zulu, ideophones can convey very complex experiential impressions or can just strengthen meanings of other words. The ideophone is often introduced using the verb ''thi'' 'say'.

Using ''thi'':

* ''cwaka'' – to be silent
:: ''Lixesha lokuthi cwaka''. 'It is time to be silent.' iterally: 'It is time to say ''cwaka''.'* ''gqi'' – to suddenly appear
:: ''Bathi gqi abelungu eAfrika''. 'The white people suddenly arrived in Africa.' iterally: 'The white people said ''gqi'' in Africa.'

Without using ''thi'':

* ''ncam'' – exact

* ''bhuxe'' – to stand motionless

Further reading

Voeltz, F. K. E., and C. Kilian-Hatz (eds.) 2001. ''Ideophones''. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

See also

*Ideasthesia
*Sound symbolism (phonosemantics)
*Synesthesia
*Reduplication
*Onomatopoeia
*Japanese sound symbolism
*Bouba/kiki effect

References

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Phonaesthetics
Semantics
Semiotics
Parts of speech