A constructional account of the ‘optional’ quotative marking on Japanese mimetics

Abstract

This paper proposes a constructional account of the longstanding issue of the optional quotative to-marking on manner-adverbial mimetics (or ideophones) in Japanese. We argue that this optionality comes from the availability of two morphological constructions – the bare-mimetic predicate construction and the quotative-adverbial construction – to a set of mimetics. On the one hand, the bare-mimetic predicate construction incorporates previously identified phonological, syntactic, and semantic conditions of the bare realization of mimetics. This construction is instantiated by bare mimetics (e.g. pyókopyoko ‘jumping around quickly’) in combination with their typical host predicates (e.g. hane- ‘jump’), and they behave as loose complex predicates with more or less abstract meanings. As with ‘say’- and ‘do’-verbs, these complex predicates involve quasi-incorporation, which is a constructional strategy for the morphosyntactic integration of mimetics into sentence structures. On the other hand, the quotative-adverbial construction introduces mimetics to sentences with a minimal loss of their imitative semiotics. This fundamental function is consistent with the wide distribution of quotative-marked mimetics.

Ideophones (Mimetics, Expressives)

“…One grammatical context for ideophones found in many languages is a quotative construction (Güldemann, 2008;Akita & Usuki, 2016), as in (5). This kind of construction has the potential to bridge the semiotic gap between ideophones and more prosaic forms of speech.…”

The linguistic integration of Japanese ideophones and its typological implications

“…The sentences in (4) show that the ideophonic parts of verbal and nominal ideophones cannot be separated from their tensed parts (i.e., the verb su-'do' and the copula -da) by intervening phrases or clauses. Bare-adverbial ideophones exhibit similar but weaker resistance to separation, suggesting that they are combined more tightly with their host predicates than quotative-adverbial ideophones (Akita and Usuki 2016 Another indivisibility test using focus particles diagnoses verbal ideophones as having looser structural unity than nominal ideophones, as illustrated in (5) (see Kageyama 2007).…”

“…What is of particular relevance to the present article is the morphosyntax of Japanese ideophones. They have maximally five syntactic-categorial possibilities: acategorial, quotative-adverbial, bare-adverbial, verbal, and nominal-adjectival (or simply, nominal) (Kita 1997; Kageyama 2007; Toratani 2013, 2015; Akita and Usuki 2016; Usuki and Akita 2015). Each of these categorial realizations is illustrated in (1).…”

“…The five ideophonic constructions differ from each other in terms of the degree of morphosyntactic integration, as represented as the hierarchy in (2) (Kita 1997, 2001; Akita and Usuki 2016; Dingemanse and Akita 2016). 3 The morphosyntactic integration of ideophones in Japanese: acategorial < quotative-adverbial < bare-adverbial < verbal < nominal non-integratedintegrated …”

“…6, Tsujimura 2014). The other verbalizer is iw- ‘ say’, which combines with any onomatopoeic ideophone to represent the spontaneous emission of sound, as illustrated in (13b) (Toratani 2015, Akita and Usuki 2016). Note that, as shown in (13), the two verbalizers are in complementary distribution.…”