An ideophone (also known as a mimetic or expressive) is a member of the class of words that depict sensory imagery or sensations, evoking ideas of action, sound, movement, color, or shape. The class of ideophones is the least common syntactic category cross-linguistically; it occurs mostly in African, Australian, and Amerindian languages, and sporadically elsewhere. Ideophones resemble interjections but are different owing to their special phonetic or derivational characteristics, and based on their syntactic function within the sentence. They may include sounds that deviate from the language's phonological system, imitating—often in a repetitive manner—sounds of movement, animal noises, bodily sounds, noises made by tools or machines, and the like.
While English does have ideophonic or onomatopoetic expressions, it does not contain a proper class of ideophones because any English onomatopoeic word can be included in one of the classical categories. For example, la-di-da functions as an adjective while others, such as zigzag, may function as a verb, adverb or adjective, depending on the clausal context. In the sentence "The rabbit zigzagged across the meadow", the verb zigzag takes the past -ed verb ending. In contrast, the hypothetical example *"The rabbit zigzag zigzag across the meadow" emulates an ideophone but is not idiomatic to English.
Dictionaries of languages like Japanese, Korean, Xhosa, Yoruba, and Zulu list thousands of ideophones. Sometimes ideophones are called phonosemantic to indicate that it is not a grammatical word class in the traditional sense of the word (like verb or noun), but rather a lexical class based on the special relationship between form and meaning exhibited by ideophones. In the discipline of linguistics, ideophones have sometimes been overlooked or treated as a subgroup of interjections.
Characteristics
The word ideophone was coined in 1935 by Clement Martyn Doke, who defined it in his Bantu Linguistic Terminology as follows.Doke 1935. p. 118. Bantu Linguistic Terminology. London: Longmans, Green, and Co.
Ideophones evoke sensory events. A well known instance of ideophones are onomatopoeic words—words that imitate the sound (of the event) they refer to. Some ideophones may be derived from onomatopoeic notions. In many languages, however, ideophones do not solely represent sound. For instance, in Gbaya, kpuk '''a rap on the door' may be onomatopoeic, but other ideophones depict motion and visual scenes: loɓoto-loɓoto 'large animals plodding through mud', kiláŋ-kiláŋ 'in a zigzagging motion', pɛɗɛŋ-pɛɗɛŋ 'razor sharp'.
Ideophones are often characterized as iconic or sound-symbolic words, meaning that there can be a resemblance between their form and their meaning. For instance, in West-African languages, voiced consonants and low tone in ideophones are often connected to largeness and heaviness, whereas voiceless consonants and high tones tend to relate to smallness and lightness.Westermann 1927 Reduplication figures quite prominently in ideophones, often conveying a sense of repetition or plurality present in the evoked event.Watson in Voeltz & Kilian-Hatz 2001 The iconicity of ideophones is shown by the fact that people can guess the meanings of ideophones from various languages at a level above chance.Iwasaki et al. 2007, Dingemanse et al. 2015 However, the form of ideophones does not completely relate to their meaning; as conventionalized words, they contain arbitrary, language-specific phonemes just like other parts of the vocabulary.
Ideophones are also frequently accompanied by gesture and expressive intonational patterns (Nuckolls, 2019).
Grammar The grammatical function of ideophones varies by language. In some languages (e.g. Welayta, Yir-Yiront, Semai, Korean), they form a separate word class, while in others, they occur across a number of different word classes (e.g. Mundang, Ewe, Sotho, Hausa).Voeltz & Kilian-Hatz 2001
Despite this diversity, ideophones show a number of robust regularities across languages. One is that they are often marked in the same way as quoted speech and demonstrations. Sometimes ideophones can form a complete utterance on their own, as in English "ta-da!" or Japanese .Diffloth 1972 However, in such cases the word ideophone is used as a synonym to interjection. Proper ideophones may occur within utterances, depicting a scene described by other elements of the utterance, as in Japanese Taro wa sutasuta to haya-aruki o shita "Taro walked hurriedly' (literally 'Taro did haste-walk sutasuta'). Ideophones are more like illustrations of events than responses to events. An ideophone like Gbaya kiláŋ-kiláŋ 'in a zigzagging motion' displays a certain resemblance to the event (for instance, its irregular vowels and tones depicting the irregularity of the motion).
Registers Languages may differ in the context in which ideophones are used. In some languages, ideophones are primarily used in spoken language (e.g. narrative contexts) and are rarely encountered in written language.Noss in Voeltz & Kilian-Hatz 2001 In other languages (e.g. Ewe, Japanese), ideophones can be freely used in all registers. In general, however, ideophones tend to occur more extensively in spoken language because of their expressive or dramaturgic function.Kunene in Voeltz & Kilian-Hatz 2001
Examples
Japanese
The Japanese language has thousands of ideophones, often called mimetics. The constructions are quite metrical 2-2, or 3-3, where morae play a role in the symmetry. The first consonant of the second word of the reduplication may become voiced if phonological conditions allow. Japanese ideophones are used extensively in daily conversations as well as in the written language. doki doki () – heart-pounding kira kira () – glittery shiin () – silence niko niko () – smile jii () – stare run run () – cheerful
Tamil The Tamil language uses many ideophones, both in colloquial and formal usage. Ideophones are often, but not always, in the form of irattaik kilavi (இரட்டைக் கிளவி), meaning-free words that are only used in double succession. busu busu () – soft and bushy chattunu (சட்டுனு), also chattu buttunu (சட்டு புட்டுனு) -- instantly, speedily choda choda () – marshy, waterlogged chuDa chuDa () – piping hot DamAl Dumeel (டமால்டுமீல்) -- bursting sound doLa doLa () - hanging loose (as in loose fitting) gaba gaba () -- wolfing down food gama gama (கமகம) -- fragrant, as in food gaNeer (கணீர்) -- deep baritone gappu chippu (கப்புசிப்பு) -- silent gara gara () – crunchy (as in food), gravelly (as in voice) giDu giDu () – quickly, fast; also fearful gubu gubu (குபுகுபு) -- rapid flow of, e.g., smoke, blood, etc. jAm jAm (ஜாம்ஜாம்) -- posh, as in a wedding kaDak maDak (கடக்மடக்) -- chewing something hard kaNa kaNa () -- warm, hot kasa kasa (கசகச) -- uncomfortably humid kozha kozha () – slimy, gooey kozhu kozhu () – plump kusu kusu (குசுகுசு) -- secretive lap Dap (லப்டப்) -- heartbeat labo thibo (லபோதிபோ) -- loudly lokku lokku (லொக்கு லொக்கு) -- cough longu longu (லொங்குலொங்கு) -- exhausted mAngu mAngu () – laboriously maDa maDa () – quickly masa masa () – sluggish, lethargic mozhu mozhu () – smooth (surface) noi noi (நொய்நொய்) -- nagging paDa paDa (படபட) -- fluttering paLa paLa () – glittering, shiny paLAr (பளார்) -- slap paLich (பளிச்) -- bright pattu pattunu (பட்டு பட்டுனு) -- rapidly pisupisuppu (பிசுபிசுப்பு) -- viscous greasiness saDa saDa (சடசட) -- rain sala sala (சலசல) -- water ripples sara sara (சரசர) -- snake-like movement sora sora () – rough suRu suRu (சுறுசுறு) -- spirited, keen Tak Tak () -- rapidly thai thai (தைதை) -- nimble, as in dance thaLa thaLa () -- lush (as in a lush plant/orchard) thillu mullu (தில்லு முல்லு) -- mischief thiru thiru (திருதிரு) -- suspicious looks thoNa thoNa () - annoyingly incessant thuRu thuRu (துறுதுறு) - brisk, fervent vaalu vaalu (வாலு வாலு) -- scolding vala vala (வலவல) -- fearful vazha vazha () – smooth, slippery veDa veDa () – shaking, trembling vinnu vinnu (வின்னுவின்னு) -- pain viru viru () – energetically (also, spicy) visuk visuk (விசுக்விசுக்) -- express, brisk
Xhosa
In Xhosa, as in closely related Zulu, ideophones can convey very complex experiential impressions or can just strengthen meanings of other words. The ideophone is often introduced using the verb .
Using : – to be silent . 'It is time to be silent.' [literally: 'It is time to say .'] – to suddenly appear . 'The white people suddenly arrived in Africa.' [Literally: 'The white people said in Africa.'])
Without using : – exact
bhuxe – to stand motionless
Mundari Expressives form a major lexical category in Mundari, even though this language seems to lack fundamental distinction between parts of speech. A Mundari expressive contains two phonologically-mimicking elements in which both have no independent lexical meanings. According to Osada (2008), "the syntax of expressives has never been described. Expressives can occupy any place, that is, in a predicate, complement, or argument slot. As the head of a predicate, expresives can take derivational suffixes, for example, passive, reflexive, benefactive, and aspect markers. Expressives can also form serial verb constructions."
hayam hayam "to talk in whispers" kase kase "to look askance at (a person)" mogo mogo "the smell of flowers" rada bada onomatopoeia of hail, dry fruit or other hard and dry things falling all about in rapid succession, also of rather numerous drops of water falling all about. rigi migi "a cloth variegated with parallel lines or squashes of various colours" haʈi kuʈi "to do the opposite action" mane gane "want of punctuality in starting dilatoriness" rawa dawa "opportunity to do something reprehensible, because there is nobody to interfere" roka toka "quickly" isiɽi sikiɽi'' "to laugh coquettishly"
See also Ideasthesia Sound symbolism (phonosemantics) Synesthesia Reduplication Onomatopoeia Japanese sound symbolism Bouba/kiki effect
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