Chapter 2. The phonological structure of Japanese mimetics and motherese
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Haruo Kubozono
Abstract
Japanese is known to have a rich inventory of words both in mimetics and motherese (baby talk words). The purpose of this chapter is to examine interesting similarities that these two types of vocabulary exhibit in phonological structure. First of all, words in both mimetics and motherese are basically disyllabic although mimetic words also permit longer strings of syllables. Second, they are subject to a prosodic restriction by which word-final sequences of a light syllable plus a heavy one are prohibited. Third, all baby talk words are lexically ‘accented’, i.e., pronounced with an abrupt pitch fall, as opposed to ‘unaccented’. This prosodic feature is also shared by mimetic words. This fact is astonishing because a majority of native words in adult Japanese are lexically unaccented, which raises the interesting question of why mimetics and motherese are accentually different from the adult language.
By carefully analyzing various phenomena in adult phonology, this chapter presents evidence that the phonological biases commonly shown by mimetics and motherese represent unmarked phonological structures of the language that emerge in derived words in adult phonology. This allows us to link mimetics and motherese on the one hand, and adult and child phonology, on the other.
Abstract
Japanese is known to have a rich inventory of words both in mimetics and motherese (baby talk words). The purpose of this chapter is to examine interesting similarities that these two types of vocabulary exhibit in phonological structure. First of all, words in both mimetics and motherese are basically disyllabic although mimetic words also permit longer strings of syllables. Second, they are subject to a prosodic restriction by which word-final sequences of a light syllable plus a heavy one are prohibited. Third, all baby talk words are lexically ‘accented’, i.e., pronounced with an abrupt pitch fall, as opposed to ‘unaccented’. This prosodic feature is also shared by mimetic words. This fact is astonishing because a majority of native words in adult Japanese are lexically unaccented, which raises the interesting question of why mimetics and motherese are accentually different from the adult language.
By carefully analyzing various phenomena in adult phonology, this chapter presents evidence that the phonological biases commonly shown by mimetics and motherese represent unmarked phonological structures of the language that emerge in derived words in adult phonology. This allows us to link mimetics and motherese on the one hand, and adult and child phonology, on the other.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Editors and contributors vii
- Abbreviations and symbols ix
- Introduction: Ideophones, mimetics, and expressives 1
-
Part I. Phonology and morphology
- Chapter 1. ‘Ideophone’ as a comparative concept 13
- Chapter 2. The phonological structure of Japanese mimetics and motherese 35
- Chapter 3. Monosyllabic and disyllabic roots in the diachronic development of Japanese mimetics 57
- Chapter 4. Cross-linguistic variation in phonaesthemic canonicity, with special reference to Korean and English 77
- Chapter 5. Classification of nominal compounds containing mimetics 101
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Part II. Semantics and pragmatics
- Chapter 6. Towards a semantic typological classification of motion ideophones 137
- Chapter 7. The sensori-semantic clustering of ideophonic meaning in Pastaza Quichua 167
- Chapter 8. The power of ‘not saying who’ in Czech onomatopoeia 199
- Chapter 9. Mimetics, gaze, and facial expression in a multimodal corpus of Japanese 229
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Part III. Language acquisition and multilingualism
- Chapter 10. The structure of mimetic verbs in child and adult Japanese 251
- Chapter 11. Iconicity in L2 Japanese speakers’ multi-modal language use 265
- Chapter 12. Ideophones as a measure of multilingualism* 303
- Subject index 323
- Language index 325
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Editors and contributors vii
- Abbreviations and symbols ix
- Introduction: Ideophones, mimetics, and expressives 1
-
Part I. Phonology and morphology
- Chapter 1. ‘Ideophone’ as a comparative concept 13
- Chapter 2. The phonological structure of Japanese mimetics and motherese 35
- Chapter 3. Monosyllabic and disyllabic roots in the diachronic development of Japanese mimetics 57
- Chapter 4. Cross-linguistic variation in phonaesthemic canonicity, with special reference to Korean and English 77
- Chapter 5. Classification of nominal compounds containing mimetics 101
-
Part II. Semantics and pragmatics
- Chapter 6. Towards a semantic typological classification of motion ideophones 137
- Chapter 7. The sensori-semantic clustering of ideophonic meaning in Pastaza Quichua 167
- Chapter 8. The power of ‘not saying who’ in Czech onomatopoeia 199
- Chapter 9. Mimetics, gaze, and facial expression in a multimodal corpus of Japanese 229
-
Part III. Language acquisition and multilingualism
- Chapter 10. The structure of mimetic verbs in child and adult Japanese 251
- Chapter 11. Iconicity in L2 Japanese speakers’ multi-modal language use 265
- Chapter 12. Ideophones as a measure of multilingualism* 303
- Subject index 323
- Language index 325
