The pattern of category assignment as well as the syntactic distribution of mimetic words seems to be predictable when we take into consideration the nature of mimetic words from the point of view of iconicity. Akita (2009), for example, makes the generalization in (27) in an attempt to capture the correlation between the iconicity of mimetics and their morphosyntactic distribution. This generalization is based on the hierarchy of iconicity of words, and at the same time follows the principle of diagrammatic iconicity, according to which“less linguistic”items are kept out of language core.
(27) The iconicity-based generalization of mimetic morphosyntax
The more iconic a mimetic is, the more likely it is realized in the periphery (i.e. adjunct) or outside (i.e. interjection-like) of the clause; the less iconic a mimetic is, the more likely it is realized in the core of the main clause (i.e. predicate and its argument).
(adapted from Akita 2009: 268–269) Phonomimes, which mimic physical sounds by means of linguistic sounds, are more iconic than phenomimes and psychomimes.
(28) a. Phonomimes:
i. Ai ga geragera {*-si-te/warat-te} ita.
Ai NOM MIM {do-GER/laugh-GER} was
‘Ai was {guffawing/laughing with great guffaws}.’ ii. Kaze ga pyuupyuu {*-si-te/hui-te} ita.
wind NOM MIM {-do-GER/blow-GER} was
‘A wind was {*whistling/blowing whistlingly}.’ b. Phenomimes:
i. Ai ga tobotobo {*-si-te/arui-te} ita.
Ai NOM MIM {-do-GER/walk-GER} was
‘Ai was {*plodding/walking ploddingly}.’
ii. Ai ga burabura {-si-te/arui-te} ita.
Ai NOM MIM {-do-GER/walk-GER} was
‘Ai was {strolling/walking strollingly}.’ c. Psychomimes:
i. Ai wa atama ga zukizuki {-si-te/?itan-de} ita.
Ai TOP head NOM MIM {-do-GER/hurt-GER} was
‘Ai felt her head {throb/hurt throbbingly}.’
ii. Ai wa ukiuki {-si-te/?ukare-te} ita.
Ai TOP MIM {-do-GER/make.merry-GER} was
‘Ai was {light-hearted/?light-heartedly in high spirits}.’
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Most phonomimes cannot form a verb (i.e. are realized as an adjunct or an interjection-like element), whereas about half of the phenomimes and most psycho- mimes can (i.e. are realized as a predicate) (cf. Toratani 2015). For instance, the acceptability judgment in (28)6is consistent with the generalization in (27). A similar observation has been made crosslinguistically, confirming the regularity of the role that iconicity plays in accounting for the categorial status and morphosyntactic distribution of mimetics across languages (Sohn 1994; Kilian-Hatz 1999, 2001).
A related crosslinguistic generalization could be made based on token frequency.
Drawing on a relatively small set of field data in Siwu (Niger-Congo), Dingemanse (2011) proposes the generalization that frequently occurring mimetics (e.g.ɖɔbɔrɔɔ
‘soft’) tend to be morphosyntactically entrenched and thus are likely to appear in categorial forms like verbs and adjectives, while infrequent mimetics are distributed as categorially independent forms like adverbs. This generalization is supported by a quantitative analysis of Japanese mimetics provided in Akita (2013). Figure 1 below shows that out of fifty randomly chosen Japanese mimetics, those with relatively high token frequency are used as a part of mimetic verbs at a higher rate. That is, there is a positive correlation between the token frequency of mimetics and their categorial status as verbs, although not all frequent mimetics can surface as verbs withsuru(e.g.*ahaha-to-suru‘laugh’(273 occurrences)) and some relatively infrequent mimetics can form verbs (e.g.guNnari-suru‘be dispirited’(only 2 occurrences)).
Figure 1:The frequency and verbalizability of Japanese mimetics (Akita 2013: 355)
[Note: Thefifty mimetics were divided into three groups based on their relative frequency in the Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese (NINJAL).]
6The degree of acceptability of the examples in (28) seems to vary depending on the speaker, and may also depend on the contextual information that could be associated with them.
Although there are limitations and room for adjustments, the crosslinguistic data strongly suggest that iconicity and token frequency play an important role in accounting for the range of categorial status and morphosyntactic distribution of mimetic words.
Another area of crosslinguistic investigation in which mimetics prove to be of relevance is found in the lexicalization patterns or event integration. Talmy (1991, 2000) and Slobin (1996, 1997, 2000), among others, extensively discuss typological patterns in which components of motion events, including manner of motion and path of motion, are expressed in the world’s languages. Speakers of “satellite- framed languages,”such as Germanic, Finno-Ugric, and Slavic languages, frequently refer (and attend) to manner of motion by means of manner-of-motion verbs (e.g.
float, fly,rush), which cannot be omitted when realized in the clause head. On the other hand, speakers of“verb-framed languages,”including Romance and Semitic languages, often omit manner-of-motion information in their description of motion events, because the clause head is normally occupied by a path verb (e.g. salir
‘exit’in Spanish) while manner is encoded in optional elements. However, as Slobin (2004, 2006) notes, the frequency of manner expressions (or “manner salience”) depends not only on the two-way typology of verb-framed vs. satellite-framed lan- guages but also on other features that are available in a given language, including richness of mimetic vocabulary and iconic gesture (see also Beavers, Levin, and Sham 2010; Toratani 2012). Slobin’s observation has been further examined by some psycholinguistic methods, such as lexical comparison between originals and trans- lations of novels (Ohara 2002; Sugiyama 2005) and speech elicitation tasks using a picture book and short videos (Akita, Matsumoto, and Ohara 2010). It has been reported in these studies that speakers of English (a satellite-framed language) are indeed more frequent users of manner expressions, particularly manner verbs such aswalk. In contrast, speakers of Japanese (a verb-framed language) use more emphatic manner expressions by way of mimetic adverbs with expressive morphology (e.g.piiiiiQ te tobi-mawat-te‘flying around with apiiiiiQsound’) (Akita, Matsumoto, and Ohara 2010). This demonstrates that even verb-framed languages may find linguistic (and extra-linguistic) expressions that make manner of motion salient.
Precisely which mechanism is to be used depends on the language, but mimetic words appear to play an important role in descriptions of motion events in lan- guages with a rich mimetic inventory.
4 Recent developments
Recent methodological advancements in linguistics and psycholinguistics have both confirmed the validity of some previously proposed generalizations about mimetics and have led to newfindings about them. Research on Japanese mimetics has been growing hand in hand with this trend in general linguistics, with corpus-based and
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experimental studies at its core. Specific issues in more recent literature include the definition and collocation of mimetics and their L1 and L2 acquisition.
By virtue of the clear and often vibrant images of mimetic words that link to specific characteristics of narrowly conceived eventualities, mimetic adverbs cross- linguistically show strong collocation with constituents in the same sentence, such as verbs and subject NPs (Hirose 1981; Childs 1994; Kita 1997; Schaefer 2001; Watson 2001; Toratani 2007, 2012). For example, Kita (1997) demonstrates that the adverbial gorogoro to, which describes“movement of a heavy round object with continuous rotation”(p. 403), is restricted in its selection of cooccurring verbs and subjects.
(29) a. Tetu no tama ga gorogoro to {korogat-ta/*subet-ta}.
iron GEN ball NOM MIM QUOT {roll-PST/slide-PST}
‘An iron ball {rolled/*slid}.’
b. {Tetu no tama/*Hitotubu no sinzyu} ga gorogoro to {iron GEN ball/one.piece GEN pearl} NOM MIM QUOT korogat-ta.
roll-PST
‘{An iron ball/*A pearl} rolled on.’ (Kita 1997: 403)
The mimetic specifies the manner of motion (i.e. rolling), and therefore is not com- patible with the verbsuberu‘slide’in (29a). Moreover, the voiced initial consonant (i.e. /g/) of the mimetic specifies the rolling object as heavy and large. This explains why the cooccurrence with the NPhitotubu no sinzyu‘a pearl’is unacceptable while an iron ball is a suitable match for the mimetic word in (29b).
The high degree of collocation with verbs is demonstrated more extensively by thorough examinations of major corpora of novels, newspapers, and conversations (Tamaoka, Kiyama, and Miyaoka 2011; Akita 2012). It has been argued that mimetics generally enrich the manner information provided by general manner verbs (see Section 3.2). The high semantic specificity at issue also accounts for many other phenomena that have been pointed out for mimetics in the literature, such as the absence of hyponymy between mimetics (Watson 2001; Bodomo 2006; Kita 2008), the incompatibility of two mimetics in one clause (Kita 1997), the omissibility of predicates modified by mimetics (Tamori 1988, 2002), and the unavailability of short paraphrases for mimetics (Fortune 1962; Diffloth 1972). Moreover, the same semantic property suggests the uneven organization of the mimetic lexicon, which consists of several highly productive semantic clusters, such as motion, laughing, crying, tactile sensation, pain, and emotion. In contrast, Japanese appears to have no single mimetic word specifically designated for smell, taste, or color (Izumi 1976). Further- more, the cooccurrence of adverbial mimetics and iconic gestures, which has been partially observed across languages (Childs 1994; Kita 1997), has been demonstrated by a quantitative investigation of a multimedia corpus (Son 2010). Audiovisual
records of natural conversations are what we have sought for a fuller understanding of this lexical class for highly specific eventualities.
Although the majority of research on mimetics has long been centered on adult language, children’s acquisition of this lexical class is a remarkably valuable area of investigation. Earlier studies already show the richness of mimetics in child Japanese (Okubo 1967; Fernald and Morikawa 1993); the questions concerning the range of their mimetic vocabulary and the nature of their acquisition are important in and of themselves but are yet to be fully investigated. It is, furthermore, interest- ing to pursue the question as to whether the acquisition of mimetics could help children learn non-mimetic lexical items. Noji’s (1973–1977) longitudinal speech records of a monolingual male child have been a useful data source to investigate some of these issues in some recent studies. It has been observed that Noji’s son, Sumihare, started to use mimetic verbs of the form [mimetic-suru] but then gradually shifted to more frequent use of mimetic words as adverbs modifying verbs. For example, Sumihare usedpaaN-sita‘broke [it]’as a verb early on ([1;9]) and similar verbal patterns, many of which are unconventional in adult Japanese; but this pattern then developed to a more adult-like form [mimetic adverb + non-mimetic verb], such as putuN to kirete ‘cut off and’ later on ([2;4]) (Tsujimura 2005b; see also Murasugi and Nakatani 2013). In another quantitative investigation, it has been revealed that children do not learn all types of mimetic words randomly; instead, mimetics with higher iconicity (e.g. phonomimes) are acquired earlier than those with lower iconicity (e.g. psychomimes) (Akita 2009). This observation may have some bearing on Imai et al.’s (2008) experimentalfindings concerning sound sym- bolism (i.e. phonetic/phonological iconicity) of mimetics. They report that in a video-based forced-choice task, 3-year-olds successfully generalized novel mimetic verbs (e.g. nosunosu-suru ‘walk heavily’(intended)) but failed to generalize novel verbs without reduplication or clear sound symbolism (e.g. nekeru). The results suggest that sound symbolism may help children to attend to the dynamic aspect of an event, which they have to conceptualize separately from the event participants in order to fully understand the semantic nature of verbs. Although the developmental relevance of mimetics (and iconic expressions in general) has been recognized, empirical investigations into it are still at their initial stage.
In contrast with children’s high degree of access to mimetics, L2 learners of Japanesefind it particularly difficult not only to understand the precise meaning of mimetic words but to put them into actual use even when they become familiar with their general meanings. This question is addressed in recent experimental studies.
Iwasaki, Vinson, and Vigliocco (2007), for instance, conducted a questionnaire-based study in which English speakers were asked to rate Japanese mimetics for laughing and walking on a set of semantic-differential scales. They found that English speakers were more successful in guessing the meaning of mimetics for laughing (i.e. phono- mimes) than those of mimetics for walking (i.e. phenomimes). On the other hand, English speakers failed to share the evaluative aspect of the mimetics (e.g. graceful-
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ness of laughter). These results suggest that high iconicity helps not only L1 but also L2 learners of Japanese in their acquisition of mimetics, and that sound symbolism for subjective evaluation is especially arbitrary and language-specific. (cf. Oda (2000) for another experimental study of the L2 acquisition of mimetics; Osaka et al.
(2003, 2004) for a series of neuropsychological studies of mimetics.) It is worth pointing out that the generalization regarding iconicity in (27) above bears intriguing implications, ranging from crosslinguistic morphosyntactic observations to language acquisition.
Finally, the longstanding issue of how to define mimetics has also been examined experimentally. Many studies discuss the absence of necessary or sufficient conditions of the membership in the mimetic category of Japanese and other languages (Newman 1968; Hamano 1998; Tamori and Schourup 1999; Dingemanse 2011). A relatively clear definition is possible for Japanese mimetics, which are primarily given by their productive morphophonological constructions discussed in Section 3.1. The role of the word-level constructions has further been experimentally confirmed.7 For Japanese mimetics, Akita (2009) adopted a rating task that used audio-recorded mimetic words, both existing and novel, that do and do not illustrate one of the morphophonological constructions, including those in (19). This study shows that native Japanese speakers judged words with a mimetic construction (e.g.pusipusi) as much more mimetic than those that do not conform to the construction patterns (e.g. metoa). The same study additionally demonstrates that the sound-symbolic effects (voicing-size/intensity associations) of construction-satisfying words are clearer and more systematic than those that are formed outside of constructions.
5 Conclusion and future research perspectives
We will conclude this chapter by considering a few issues that future research needs to address. First, we have observed with (22–26) that mimetic verbs can potentially extend beyond their conventionalized meaning and argument structure properties, but it will be interesting to find out whether such an extension is subject to lin- guistically well-defined conditions. For instance, can any mimetic verb potentially receive an indefinite number of distinguishable interpretations or can it be asso- ciated with any argument structure type available to non-mimetic verbs (Toratani 2013)? And, if there is a preferred interpretation or an argument structure pattern, is it just a matter of the speaker’s individual preference, or is there any underlying linguistic generalization to be captured?
7Dingemanse (2011: 25) arrives at the following general definition of mimetics (or ideophones in his terminology) that is meant to apply crosslinguistically:“Ideophones are marked words that depict sensory imagery”.
Second, as we discussed in Section 3.2, we need to consider Japanese mimetics within a broader context of crosslinguistic/typological comparison. Recent field linguists have uncovered the pragmatic and anthropological features of sound- symbolic words in Niger-Congo and Quechua languages. For example, Nuckolls (1996) points out the reflection of animism, among others, in Quechua ideophones, which is viewed as an instance of the cultural significance of sound-symbolic words.
Moreover, Dingemanse (2011) pursues the pragmatic nature of ideophonic words based on conversation analysis in Siwu. He discusses the mode of signification of ideophones as “depiction,” which is most typically illustrated by pictures and is contrasted with“description,” arbitrary coding, typical of prosaic words. He also observes the“unexpected”occurrence of ideophones in some culturally burdened linguistic contexts, such as greetings and funeral dirges. Furthermore, a typological study will certainly shed light on the still unsolved question of the factors that contribute to the richness of mimetics in a language. Nuckolls (2004) observes that sound-symbolic words typically abound in relatively non-urban areas of the world, such as Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Amazon. Japanese stands as an interesting exception to this remark. Nuckolls speculatively ascribes this to the animistic culture of Japan. It is hoped that placing Japanese mimetics in typological contexts will help answer some of these essential questions about sound-symbolic words in general.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the editors, Taro Kageyama and Hideki Kishimoto, for care- fully going over multiple drafts of this chapter. Each time their helpful comments have improved the content and readability. We also thank Professor John Haig for his editorial comments. Part of this work derives from the collaborative research project “Syntactic, Semantic, and Morphological Characteristics of the Japanese Lexicon”(Project leader: Taro Kageyama, National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, 2010–2015).
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