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An ideophone (also known as a mimetic or expressive) is a member of the
word class In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammatical properties. Words that are as ...
of
word A word is a basic element of language that carries semantics, meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no consensus among linguist ...
s that depict sensory imagery or sensations, evoking ideas of action, sound, movement, color, or shape. The class of ideophones is the least common
syntactic category A syntactic category is a syntactic unit that theories of syntax assume. Word classes, largely corresponding to traditional parts of speech (e.g. noun, verb, preposition, etc.), are syntactic categories. In phrase structure grammars, the ''phrasa ...
cross-linguistically; it occurs mostly in African, Australian, and Amerindian languages, and sporadically elsewhere. Ideophones resemble
interjection An interjection is a word or expression that occurs as an utterance on its own and expresses a spontaneous feeling, situation or reaction. It is a diverse category, with many different types, such as exclamations ''(ouch!'', ''wow!''), curses (''da ...
s but are different owing to their special
phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...
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. It is globally the only known word class that does not appear in English. 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 An idiom (the quality of it being known as idiomaticness or idiomaticity) is a syntactical, grammatical, or phonological structure peculiar to a language that is actually realized, as opposed to possible but unrealized structures that could have ...
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 A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic f ...
or
noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...
), but rather a lexical class based on the special relationship between form and meaning exhibited by ideophones. In the discipline of
linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
, ideophones have sometimes been overlooked or treated as a subgroup of interjections.


Characteristics

The word ideophone was coined in 1935 by
Clement Martyn Doke Clement Martyn Doke (16 May 1893 in Bristol, United Kingdom – 24 February 1980 in East London, South Africa) was a South African linguist working mainly on African languages. Realizing that the grammatical structures of Bantu languages are qu ...
, 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 Onomatopoeia (or rarely echoism) is a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias in English include animal noises such as ''oink'', '' ...
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 In linguistics, reduplication is a Morphology (linguistics), morphological process in which the Root (linguistics), root or Stem (linguistics), stem of a word, part of that, or the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The cla ...
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 Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...
), they form a separate word class, while in others, they occur across a number of different word classes (e.g.
Mundang Mundang is an Mbum language of southern Chad and northern Cameroon, spoken by the Mundang people. The Gelama dialect of Cameroon may be a separate language. Distribution Mundang, spoken in Cameroon by 44,700 speakers (SIL 1982), is mainly spoke ...
, Ewe,
Sotho Sotho may refer to: *Sotho people (or ''Basotho''), an African ethnic group principally resident in South Africa, Lesotho and southern Botswana *Sotho language (''Sesotho'' or ''Southern Sotho''), a Bantu language spoken in southern Africa, an offi ...
,
Hausa Hausa may refer to: * Hausa people, an ethnic group of West Africa * Hausa language, spoken in West Africa * Hausa Kingdoms, a historical collection of Hausa city-states * Hausa (horse) or Dongola horse, an African breed of riding horse See also ...
). 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 A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether non-fictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller ...
contexts) and are rarely encountered in written language.Noss in Voeltz & Kilian-Hatz 2001 In other languages (e.g. Ewe,
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
), 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 Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

The Japanese language has thousands of ideophones, often called ''mimetics''. The constructions are quite metrical 2-2, or 3-3, where
morae A mora (plural ''morae'' or ''moras''; often symbolized μ) is a smallest unit of timing, equal to or shorter than a syllable, that theoretically or perceptually exists in some spoken languages in which phonetic length (such as vowel length) matt ...
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 Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

The Tamil language uses many 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 * ''kaNa-kaNa'' () - warm, hot * ''giDu-giDu'' () – quickly, fast * ''Tak-Tak'' () - quickly, rapidly * ''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 (as in food), gravely (as in voice) * ''gaba-gaba'' () - wolfing down food * ''doLa-doLa'' () - hanging loose (as in loose fitting) * ''taLa-taLa'' () - lush (as in a lush plant/orchard) * ''toNa-toNa'' () - annoyingly incessant


Xhosa

In
Xhosa Xhosa may refer to: * Xhosa people, a nation, and ethnic group, who live in south-central and southeasterly region of South Africa * Xhosa language, one of the 11 official languages of South Africa, principally spoken by the Xhosa people See als ...
, 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 . Using : * – to be silent :: . 'It is time to be silent.' iterally: 'It is time to say .'* – to suddenly appear :: . 'The white people suddenly arrived in Africa.' iterally: 'The white people said in Africa.' Without using : * – exact * ''bhuxe'' – to stand motionless


See also

*
Ideasthesia Ideasthesia (alternative spelling ideaesthesia) is a neuropsychological phenomenon in which activations of concepts (inducers) evoke perception-like sensory experiences (concurrents). The name comes from the Ancient Greek () and (), meaning 'se ...
*
Sound symbolism In linguistics, sound symbolism is the perceptual similarity between speech sounds and concept meanings. It is a form of linguistic iconicity. For example, the English word ''ding'' may sound similar to the actual sound of a bell. Linguistic ...
(phonosemantics) *
Synesthesia Synesthesia (American English) or synaesthesia (British English) is a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. People with sy ...
*
Reduplication In linguistics, reduplication is a Morphology (linguistics), morphological process in which the Root (linguistics), root or Stem (linguistics), stem of a word, part of that, or the whole word is repeated exactly or with a slight change. The cla ...
*
Onomatopoeia Onomatopoeia (or rarely echoism) is a type of word, or the process of creating a word, that phonetics, phonetically imitates, resembles, or suggests the sound that it describes. Common onomatopoeias in English include animal noises such as Oin ...
*
Japanese sound symbolism The Japanese language has a large inventory of sound symbolic or mimetic words, known in linguistics as ideophones. Such words are found in written as well as spoken Japanese. Known popularly as ''onomatopoeia'', these words do not just imitat ...
*
Bouba/kiki effect The bouba–kiki effect ( ) or takete–maluma phenomenon is a non-arbitrary mental association between certain speech sounds and certain visual shapes. The most typical research finding is that people, when presented with nonsense wor ...


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * {{refend Phonaesthetics Semantics Parts of speech