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Ideophones, Mimetics and Expressives
Edited by Kimi Akita and Prashant Pardeshi
[Iconicity in Language and Literature 16] 2019
► pp. 167–198

Chapter 7
The sensori-semantic clustering of ideophonic meaning in Pastaza Quichua

| Brigham Young University
I formulate an approach to ideophone semantics which, though based on a corpus from Pastaza Quichua, a South American indigenous language, has potential for analyzing the semantics of ideophone systems more generally. Research on ideophones’ formal properties has preoccupied an increasing number of scholars, while systematic semantic analyses are lagging. Ideophones’ semantics pose challenges because of their intonation and gesture, sound symbolism, and sensory complexity. These qualities require an approach going beyond the traditional mono-sensory classifications, which have dominated ideophones’ semantic descriptions. Using a sensory cluster diagram featuring an implicational logic based on 10 super- and subcategories of sensory experience, this paper analyzes a sample of ideophones drawn from an online corpus featuring 500 archived ideophones.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methodology
  • 3.Unpacking sensory categories
  • 4.Sensori-semantics of Pastaza Quichua ideophones
    • 4.1VISUAL
    • 4.2MOVEMENT
    • 4.3SOUND
  • 5.Low sensory ideophones
  • 6.Discussion and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
  • URL’s for examples
Published online: 6 May 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ill.16.08nuc
References (60)
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URL’s for examples
1.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=chem
2.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=shinki
3.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=win
4.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=kingung
5.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=kingung
6.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=aki
7.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=sa
8.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=tyak
9.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=tyam
10.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=dzing
11.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=rupax.
12.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=kukuli
13a, 13b.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=tar
14.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=gyawng
15.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=pis
16.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=chik
17.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=chikwang
18.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=tay
19.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=day
20.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=chun-2
21.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=chun-2
22.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=tas
23.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=tas
24.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=tas
25.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=dzas
26.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=dzas
27.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=tsuping
28.http://quechuarealwords.byu.edu/?ideophone=tsuping
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2023. The information status of iconic enrichments: modelling gradient at-issueness. Theoretical Linguistics 49:3-4 ► pp. 167 ff. DOI logo
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2023. Iconicity in Ideophones: Guessing, Memorizing, and Reassessing. Cognitive Science 47:4 DOI logo
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2022. Chapter 4. Innovative binomial adjectives in Japanese food descriptions and beyond. In The Language of Food in Japanese [Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research, 25], ► pp. 112 ff. DOI logo
McLean, Bonnie
2021. Revising an implicational hierarchy for the meanings of ideophones, with special reference to Japonic. Linguistic Typology 25:3 ► pp. 507 ff. DOI logo
Thompson, Arthur Lewis, Thomas Van Hoey & Youngah Do
2021. Articulatory features of phonemes pattern to iconic meanings: evidence from cross-linguistic ideophones. Cognitive Linguistics 32:4 ► pp. 563 ff. DOI logo
Nuckolls, Janis B.
2020. “How do you even know what ideophones mean?”. Gesture 19:2-3 ► pp. 161 ff. DOI logo

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