In:Iconicity: East meets West
Edited by Masako K. Hiraga, William J. Herlofsky, Kazuko Shinohara and Kimi Akita
[Iconicity in Language and Literature 14] 2015
► pp. 143–160
A corpus-based semantic analysis of Japanese mimetic verbs
Published online: 12 February 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.14.08sug
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.14.08sug
Based on corpus data, this paper explores the unique semantic properties of tuku-verbs, a class of mimetic verbs, in comparison to reduplicative suru-verbs, which have been shown to exhibit highly systematic properties. The paper demonstrates that tuku-verbs are semantically constrained as systematically as reduplicative suru-verbs, albeit in slightly different manners. Specifically, it is shown that the suffix -tuku in these verbs inherits the meaning of ‘surface’ and the syntactic property of a contact/impact transitive verb from its source verb tuku, projecting these features in different manners depending on whether the mimetic base takes a Theme or Agent subject. It is further shown that as a result of the above processes tuku-verbs lack physiological perception verbs and exhibit a high degree of transitivity if used as agentive verbs.
References (9)
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Data source
Balanced Corpus of Contemporary Written Japanese (BCCWJ). <[URL]>
Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Sugahara, Takashi
2022. The correlation between meaning and verb formation in Japanese sound-symbolic words. In Iconicity in Cognition and across Semiotic Systems [Iconicity in Language and Literature, 18], ► pp. 351 ff.
Liu, Meichun, Tianqi He, Hongfeng He & Yifan Cao
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