Zur Vorsubstantivischen Verwendung von Ideophonen im Japanischen: Attributivsätze vs. Nominaladjektive (The prenominal usage of ideophones in Japanese: attributive clauses vs. nominal adjectives)

Abstract

Japanese has an abundance of ideophones, ranging from onomatopoeia that describe sounds and voices, to mimetic expressions of the visual, auditory, sensory or emotional qualities of an entity, object or abstract concept. However, despite the large vocabulary of ideophones in Japanese, there is little academic consensus on their semantic classification and grammatical usage.

In general, Japanese ideophones may function as adverbs, verbs, adjectives, nominal adjectives and nouns depending on their syntactic position and optional grammatical markers such as the quotation particle TO, the genitive marker NO and the nominal adjective linker NA. However, dictionaries often disagree on the categorisation of ideophones as various parts of speech, in particular regarding attributive usage. This paper explores the syntactic range of mimetic expression in Japanese, while taking into account their semantic classification and extra-linguistic factors, such as a possible generational shift in their grammatical usage.