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In:Ideophones, Mimetics and Expressives
Edited by Kimi Akita and Prashant Pardeshi
[Iconicity in Language and Literature 16] 2019
► pp. 77–100

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Chapter 4
Cross-linguistic variation in phonaesthemic canonicity, with special reference to Korean and English

Published online: 6 May 2019
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.16.05kwo
This study compares the canonicity values of Korean paradigmatic phonaesthemes (e.g., pɛŋpɛŋ: pʰɛŋpʰɛŋ ‘a neutral: stronger and more violent motion of circling’; piŋkɨl: pɛŋkɨl ‘twirling of a bigger: smaller object’) and of English non-paradigmatic phonaesthemes (e.g., gl- ‘vision, light’ in glisten, glitter, gleam, glow). Measured against Kwon and Round’s (2015) seven canonical criteria for phonaesthemes, it reveals that they are differentiated only in terms of the strict restriction of one meaning per form. The contribution of the current canonical analysis of variations in phonaesthemic phenomena is twofold: (i) it empirically clarifies the relationship between English and Korean phonaesthemes; and (ii) it demonstrates the utility of the proposed canonical criteria for phonaesthemes, for cross-linguistic comparisons of phonaesthemic phenomena.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Canonical Typology
    • 2.1Essential components of the framework: base, core, and criteria
    • 2.2Previous study on phonaesthemic canonicity: Kwon and Round (2015)
  • 3.Overview of Korean phonaesthemes in ideophones
  • 4.Data
  • 5.Canonical analysis of Korean paradigmatic phonaesthemes
    • 5.1Frequency among lexical stems
    • 5.2Frequency among parts of speech
    • 5.3Image iconicity
    • 5.4One form, one meaning
    • 5.5Non-recurrent residues
    • 5.6Transparency of form
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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