How flexible should the grammar of mimetics be? A view from Japanese poetry

Emotive language activates right temporoparietal junction, while referential language activates the left hemispheric network

“…In addition, entropy, which is a measure of uncertainty in the occurrence of another word collocated with a given word (Tang and Chow 2014) was calculated for each of the adverbs, using the balanced corpus of contemporary written Japanese (BCCWJ) (Maekawa, Yamazaki et al 2014). The pADVs and cADVs did not differ significantly in pain intensity (4.27(0.562), 4.34(0.439), t = 0.386, p = 0.702) and familiarity (5.41(0.711), 5.57(0.452), t = -0.768, p = 0.45), but they did in entropy (2.67(1.47), 6.70(1.13), t = 7.94, p < 0.01), imageability (6.02(0.494), 4.76(0.528), t = 6.62, p < 0.01)), and AOA (3.43(0.488), 4.58(0.427), t = -7.25, p < 0.01), in line with the nature of psychomimes as invoking vivid bodily sensation (Tsujimura 2016) and being acquired early (Laing 2019).…”

“…Japanese pADVs for pain are used exclusively for modification of pain, and they enable a vivid and finegrained expression of pain regarding the body parts, intensity, manner, etc., while having distinguishing phonological forms such as onomatopoeia, typically the repetition of two morae (zukizuki, chikuchiku, etc.) (Tsujimura 2016). For the referential sentences, 'I' describe an event of unintentional painful physical contact of a body part to an environmental object, e.g., 'I cut my index finger with a kitchen knife.'…”

Silence, Cessation and Stasis: The Ethnopoetics of “Absence” in Bit Expressives

“…Expressives of silence are of course not unknown in other languages (see for example Dingemanse 2009; Kanu 2008; Sasamoto 2019; Tsujimura 2017), and the sound‐meaning mappings are complex. For example, Tsujimura (2017) discusses the cross‐modal poetic usage of the Japanese mimetic ziiNziiN , explaining how the non‐reduplicated base ziiN can mean both a ringing sound in the ears as well as the stimulation of senses or emotions, and by poetic extension ambient silence. The possibility of an expressive semantics in which the reduplicated form ziiNziiN embodies a specific summer silence, may be related to another mimetic siiN , which can depict not only silence, but also experiencing heavy snow, or even a socially awkward situation (Sasamoto 2019).…”

“…The implication is that they had sat down in hunger and exhaustion, and now remain still in the undesirable state. The interplay between motion/stillness, as seeming opposites on a semantic continuum of "irregular polysemy" (Tsujimura 2017), is possible because of the perceived inertia of the static form of the expressive and evokes a range of possible socio-environmental conditions in which the episode occurs. The intertwined semantics of stop/start show how expressives maintain a balance of "minimal difference" (Rudge 2021, 6), demonstrating how the intimate relationship between absence and presence, motion and statis are depicted through speech practices.…”

“…Expressives of silence are of course not unknown in other languages (see for example Dingemanse 2009; Kanu 2008; Sasamoto 2019; Tsujimura 2017), and the sound‐meaning mappings are complex. For example, Tsujimura (2017) discusses the cross‐modal poetic usage of the Japanese mimetic ziiNziiN , explaining how the non‐reduplicated base ziiN can mean both a ringing sound in the ears as well as the stimulation of senses or emotions, and by poetic extension ambient silence.…”