6. A constructional approach to mimetic verbs

Tsujimura, Natsuko

doi:10.1075/cal.4.09tsu

Cited by 14 publications

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“…Moreover, the Collocational construction is far less likely than the Quotative construction to allow atypical collocations, such as (7c) The two Predicative constructions -'do'-verbal and Nominal -are more tightly integrated with the predicate. The 'do'-verbal construction consists of an ideophone and the dummy verb su-'do' (Tsujimura 2005, Kageyama 2007, and the Nominal construction consists of an ideophone and a copula (Kita 1997, Toratani 2015. These ideophonic constructions are not syntactically optional, as illustrated in (9) …”

Section: Predicate Integration Hierarchymentioning

confidence: 99%

An inverse relation between expressiveness and grammatical integration: On the morphosyntactic typology of ideophones, with special reference to Japanese

2016

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Words and phrases may differ in the extent to which they are susceptible to prosodic foregrounding and expressive morphology: their expressiveness. They may also differ in the degree to which they are integrated in the morphosyntactic structure of the utterance: their grammatical integration. We describe an inverse relation that holds across widely varied languages, such that more expressiveness goes together with less grammatical integration, and vice versa. We review typological evidence for this inverse relation in ten spoken languages, then quantify and explain it using Japanese corpus data. We do this by tracking ideophones -vivid sensory words also known as mimetics or expressivesacross different morphosyntactic contexts and measuring their expressiveness in terms of intonation, phonation and expressive morphology. We find that as expressiveness increases, grammatical integration decreases. Using gesture as a measure independent of the speech signal, we find that the most expressive ideophones are most likely to come together with iconic gestures. We argue that the ultimate cause is the encounter of two distinct and partly incommensurable modes of representation: the gradient, iconic, depictive system represented by ideophones and iconic gestures, and the discrete, arbitrary, descriptive system represented by ordinary words. The study shows how people combine modes of representation in speech and demonstrates the value of integrating description and depiction into the scientific vision of language.

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Section: Predicate Integration Hierarchymentioning

confidence: 99%

An inverse relation between expressiveness and grammatical integration: On the morphosyntactic typology of ideophones, with special reference to Japanese

2016

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“…Impact/contact verbs are transitive verbs that do not entail a change of state (Kageyama 2007: 53, Toratani 2013. Reflexive verbs cooccur with body-part NPs (Tsujimura 2005(Tsujimura : 148-149, 2014Kageyama 2007: 47;Toratani 2013: 54-57).…”

Section: Descriptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The linguistic integration of Japanese ideophones and its typological implications

Akita

2017

Can. J. Linguist.

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This article proposes that two linguistic systems (that is, two languages or registers) with different degrees of morphosyntactic integration of ideophones may apply the same restrictions on ideophones in different ways. In Study 1, the author shows quantitatively that the sentence-type restrictions reported for ideophones in several languages also constrain Japanese ideophones, but to a lesser extent. In Study 2, the author argues that two previously identified restrictions on Japanese ideophonic verbs appear to apply only partially to ideophonic verbs in baby talk and highly playful discourse. It is concluded that the strength of these restrictions is negatively correlated with the overall degree of morphosyntactic integration of ideophones in the language or register.Keywords: ideophone typology, morphosyntactic integration, sentence-type restrictions, verbtype restrictions, Japanese RésuméCet article propose que deux systèmes linguistiques (c'est-à-dire deux langues ou deux registres d'une langue) dans lesquels les idéophones sont morphosyntactiquement intégrés à des degrés différents peuvent appliquer les mêmes restrictions aux idéophones, mais de façon différente. Dans une première étude, l'auteur montre de manière quantitative que les restrictions sensibles au genre de phrase qui ont été observées dans plusieurs langues contraignent aussi les idéophones japonais, mais dans une moindre mesure. Dans une deuxième étude, on An earlier version of section 4 was presented at the "Structuring sensory imagery: Ideophones across languages & cultures" workshop (University of Rochester, 2 May 2014). An earlier version of section 5 was presented at the "Typology of event semantics and argument encoding" workshop at the Thirtieth Conference of the English Linguistic Society of Japan (Keio University, Mita Campus, 11 November 2012). I thank both audiences for their insightful comments. My sincere gratitude also goes to the editors of this special issue as well as the two anonymous CJL reviewers. Any remaining inadequacies are my own. This study was partly supported by three JSPS Grants-in-Aid (no. 24720179, no. 25370425, no. 15K16741) and by a Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation grant (no. FFI2013-45553-C3).

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“…Although the primary category of Japanese mimetics is the adverb, many of them can also be realized as part of complex verbs, most notably in the [mim + su-'do'] construction (Tsujimura 2005(Tsujimura , 2014Kageyama 2007;Akita 2009;Toratani 2015;Akita and Usuki, to appear). Mimetic verbs are also classified by their event-structural types.…”

Section: Event-structural Types Of Mimetic Verbsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gradability and Mimetic Verbs in Japanese: A Frame-Semantic Account

Tsui¹

2015

bling_proceedings

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6. A constructional approach to mimetic verbs

Cited by 14 publications

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An inverse relation between expressiveness and grammatical integration: On the morphosyntactic typology of ideophones, with special reference to Japanese

An inverse relation between expressiveness and grammatical integration: On the morphosyntactic typology of ideophones, with special reference to Japanese

The linguistic integration of Japanese ideophones and its typological implications

Gradability and Mimetic Verbs in Japanese: A Frame-Semantic Account

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