This article introduces the Chinese Ideophone Database (CHIDEOD), an open-source dataset, which collects 4948 unique onomatopoeia and ideophones (mimetics, expressives) of Mandarin, as well as Middle Chinese and Old Chinese. These are analyzed according to a wide range of variables, e.g., description, frequency. Apart from an overview of these variables, we provide a tutorial that shows how the database can be accessed in different formats (.rds, .xlsx, .csv, R package and online app interface), and how the database can be used to explore skewed tonal distribution across Mandarin ideophones. Since CHIDEOD is a data repository, potential future research applications are discussed.

From a typological perspective, Chinese meteorological expressions are argument-oriented. However, using a lexical semantic approach, based on corpus data as well as dictionaries and Chinese WordNet, a taxonomical lexical field can be established to further analyze the basic level items. Five main clusters of meteorological expressions are identified: precipitation, wind, thunder, sunshine and cloud. A comparison of these clusters with frames derived from the English FrameNet shows that Chinese has a narrower conception of weather phenomena than English. There is significant influence from the script on the linguistic system, at least in relation to meteorological expressions. It is shown that Chinese uses iconicity in its writing system where it is lacking in its phonology. A special case study are weather-related ideophones, where two strata are found: those that are phonologically and semantically motivated and receive iconic support from the writing system vs. those that do not receive this support.

This chapter studies the semantics of ideophones, alternatively known as mimetics or expressives. The surveyed approaches include Image Schemas, Idealized Cognitive Models, Frame Semantics and Diachronic Prototype Semantics. These are compared to a cross-linguistic implicational hierarchy for the sensory domains, depicted by ideophones: SOUND < MOVEMENT < VISUAL PATTERNS < OTHER SENSORY PERCEPTIONS < INNER FEELINGS AND COGNITIVE STATES. After charting the impact of this hierarchy on ideophone studies, a case is made for a semantic map approach. This involves the development of a conceptual space with four contiguous zones: (I) SOUND, (II) VISION, (III) SOMATOSENSATION, (IV) INNER SENSE. The zones contain subschemas: (I) HUMAN, ANIMATE, INANIMATE; (II) MOVEMENT, SIZE, SHAPE, BRIGHTNESS, COLOR, POSITION, CONFIGURATION; (III) TOUCH, SMELL, TASTE, KINAESTHESIA, TEMPERATURE, PAIN; (IV) INNER FEELINGS, EVALUATION, TIME. Subsequently, the semantic maps of ten different languages are drawn and discussed.

Iconic words are supposed to exhibit imitative relationships between their linguistic forms and their referents. Many studies have worked to pinpoint sound-to-meaning correspondences for ideophones from different languages. The correspondence patterns show similarities across languages, but what makes such language-specific correspondences universal, as iconicity claims to be, remains unclear. This could be due to a lack of consensus on how to describe and test the perceptuo-motor affordances that make an iconic word feel imitative to speakers. We created and analysed a database of 1,860 ideophones across 13 languages, and found that seven articulatory features, physiologically accessible to all spoken language users, pattern according to semantic features of ideophones. Our findings pave the way for future research to utilize articulatory properties as a means to test and explain how iconicity is encoded in spoken language. The perspective taken here fits in with ongoing research of embodiment, motivation, and iconicity research, three major strands of research within Cognitive Linguistics. The results support that there is a degree of unity between the concepts of imitative communication and the spoken forms through cross-domain mappings, which involve physical articulatory movement.

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