Article published In:
The Mental LexiconVol. 17:2 (2022) ► pp.300–324
Structural markedness and depiction
The case of lower sequential predictability in cantonese ideophones
Ideophones are marked words that depict sensory imagery and are hypothesized to be structurally marked, i.e., exhibiting unique structural properties. In this paper, “marked” is broadly used to mean phonologically marked (Dingemanse, 2021: Akita and Dingemanse, 2019). Using Cantonese ideophones as our case study, this paper measures sequential predictability within ideophones and non-ideophones, as a way to test their relative degree of structural markedness. We created a database of non-ideophones and ideophones from the Hong Kong Cantonese Corpus (HKCC) (Luke and Wong, 2015) and Mok (2001) and calculated the sequential predictability of each phoneme in various phonological contexts. The results indicate that Cantonese ideophones exhibit lower degrees of sequential predictability than non-ideophones, lending empirical support to the structural markedness of ideophones. We argue that non-ideophones exhibit a higher degree of sequential predictability because they follow the phonotactic regularities of Cantonese, whereas ideophones, to some degree, flout these regulations in favor of sequences of sounds that might better depict a given referent or percept.
Keywords: ideophones, phonology, markedness, Cantonese
Article outline
- Introduction
- Data
- Analysis
- Results
- Discussion
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgement
- Notes
-
References
References
Akita, K.
(2011) Toward a phonosemantic definition of iconic words. Semblance and Signification, 1–18.
Akita, K., Imai, M., Saji, N., Kantartzis, K., & Kita, S.
(2013) Mimetic vowel harmony. In B. Frellesvig & P. Sells (Eds.), Japanese/Korean linguistics, vol. 20 (pp. 115–129). CSLI Publications.
Akita, K. & Dingemanse, M.
(2019) Ideophones (Mimetics, Expressives). In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics (ed. Mark Aronoff). Oxford University Press. 
Baayen, R. H., Chuang, Y. Y., Shafaei-Bajestan, E., & Blevins, J. P.
(2019) The discriminative lexicon: A unified computational model for the lexicon and lexical processing in comprehension and production grounded not in (de) composition but in linear discriminative learning. Complexity, 2019.
Bailey, T. M., & Hahn, U.
(2001) Determinants of wordlikeness: Phonotactics or lexical neighborhoods? Journal of Memory and Language,
44
(4), 568–591.
Beck, D.
(2008) Ideophones, adverbs, and predicate qualification in Upper Necaxa Totonac. International Journal of American Linguistics,
74
(1), 1–46.
Chae, W.
(2003) Hankwukeuy uysengewa uythaye [Korean onomatopoeia and mimetic words]. Seoul: Seoul National University.
Chan, H.-K.
(2001) Guangzhouhua ABB-shi xingrongci yanjiu 廣州話 ABB 式形容詞研究 [A study of ABB adjectives in Cantonese]. Zhongguo Yuwen Tongxun 中國語文通訊 [Newsletter of Chinese Language],
58
1, 16–26.
Clark, H. H., & Gerrig, R. J.
(1990) Quotations as Demonstrations. Language, 66(4), 764–805.
Dellert, J., & Buch, A.
(2018) A new approach to concept basicness and stability as a window to the robustness of concept list rankings. Language Dynamics and Change,
8
(2), 157–181.
Denistia, K., Shafaei-Bajestan, E., & Baayen, R. H.
(2021) Exploring semantic differences between the Indonesian prefixes PE-and PEN-using a vector space model. Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory.
Diffloth, G.
(1972) Notes on expressive meaning. In P. M. Peranteau, J. N. Nevi, & G. C. Phares (Eds.), Chicago linguistic society. Papers from the eighth regional meeting (pp. 440–447). Chicago linguistic society.
(1979) Expressive phonology and prosaic phonology in Mon-Khmer. In Studies in Tai and Mon-Khmer Phonetics and Phonology In Honour of Eugénie J.A. Henderson (pp. 49–59). Chulalongkorn University Press. [URL]
Dingemanse, M.
(2012) Advances in the cross-linguistic study of ideophones. Language and Linguistics Compass,
6
(10), 654–672.
(2014) Making new ideophones in Siwu: Creative depiction in conversation. Pragmatics and Society,
5
(3), 384–405.
(2018) Redrawing the margins of language: Lessons from research on ideophones. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics,
3
(1), Article 1.
(2019) ‘Ideophones’ as a comparative concept. In K. Akita & P. Parudeshi (Eds.), Ideophones, mimetics and expressives (pp. 13–33). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
(2021) Ideophones (Oxford Handbook of Word Classes). PsyArXiv.
Dingemanse, M., Blasi, D. E., Lupyan, G., Christiansen, M. H., & Monaghan, P.
(2015) Arbitrariness, iconicity, and systematicity in language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences,
19
(10), 603–615.
Dingemanse, M., Schuerman, W., Reinisch, E., Tufvesson, S., & Mitterer, H.
(2016) What sound symbolism can and cannot do: Testing the iconicity of ideophones from five languages. Language,
92
(2), e117–e133.
Dingemanse, M., & Akita, K.
(2017) An inverse relation between expressiveness and grammatical integration: on the morphosyntactic typology of ideophones, with special reference to Japanese. Journal of Linguistics, 53(3), 501–532.
Dingemanse, M., Perlman, M., & Perniss, P.
(2020) Construals of iconicity: Experimental approaches to form–meaning resemblances in language. Language and Cognition,
12
(1), 1–14.
Do, Y., & Lai, R. K. Y.
(2021) Accounting for Lexical Tones When Modeling Phonological Distance. Language.
Emmorey, K.
(2014) Iconicity as structure mapping. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences,
369
(1651), 20130301.
Ferrara, L., & Hodge, G.
(2018) Language as Description, Indication, and Depiction. Frontiers in Psychology, 91.
Goldin-Meadow, S.
(2007) Gesture with speech and without it. In S. D. Duncan, J. Cassell, & E. T. Levy (Eds.), Gesture and the dynamic dimension of language: Essays in honor of David McNeill (pp. 31–49). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Güldemann, T.
(2008) Quotative Indexes in African Languages. A Synchronic and Diachronic Survey.
Hamano, S.
(1998) The sound-symbolic system of Japanese. CSLI Publications.
Hatton, S. A.
(2016) The onomatopoeic ideophone-gesture relationship in Pastaza Quichua [Master’s thesis, Brigham Young University]. [URL]
Hinton, L., Nichols, J., & Ohala, J. J.
(1994) Sound symbolism. Cambridge University Press.
Hollander, M., & Wolfe, D. A.
(1973) Nonparametric Statistical Methods. John Wiley & Sons.
Imai, M., Kita, S., Nagumo, M., & Okada, H.
(2008) Sound symbolism facilitates early verb learning. Cognition, 109(1), 54–65.
Iwasaki, N., David, P. V., & Gabriella, V.
(2007) What do English Speakers Know about gera-gera and yota-yota?: A Cross-linguistic Investigation of Mimetic Words of Laughing and Walking. Japanese language education around the globe,
17
1, 53–78.
Iwasaki, N., Vinson, D. P., & Vigliocco, G.
(2007) How does it hurt, kiri-kiri or siku-siku? Japanese mimetic words of pain perceived by Japanese speakers and English speakers. In M. Minami (Ed.), Applying theory and research to learning Japanese as a foreign language (pp. 2–19). Cambridge Scholars Publishing. [URL]
Johansson, N. E., Anikin, A., Carling, G., & Holmer, A.
(2020) The typology of sound symbolism: Defining macro-concepts via their semantic and phonetic features. Linguistic Typology, 24(2), 253–310.
Johnson, M. R.
(1976) Toward a definition of the ideophone in Bantu. In A. M. Zwicky (Ed.), Papers in nonphonology (pp. 240–253). The Ohio State University.
Kantartzis, K., Imai, M., & Kita, S.
(2011) Japanese Sound-Symbolism Facilitates Word Learning in English-Speaking Children. Cognitive Science,
35
(3), 575–586.
Kendon, A.
(2004) Gesture: Visible action as utterance. Cambridge University Press.
Kita, S.
(1997) Two-dimensional semantic analysis of Japanese mimetics. Linguistics,
35
(2), 379–415.
Kita, S., de Condappa, O., & Mohr, C.
(2007) Metaphor explanation attenuates the right-hand preference for depictive co-speech gestures that imitate actions. Brain and Language,
101
(3), 185–197.
Kunene, D. P.
(1965) The ideophone in Southern Sotho. Journal of African Languages,
4
1, 19–39.
Kwon, N.
(2018) Iconicity correlated with vowel harmony in Korean ideophones. Laboratory Phonology: Journal of the Association for Laboratory Phonology,
9
(1), 1.
Lai, C.
(2015) A quantitative study of information structure and right dislocation in Cantonese spoken discourse [Doctoral dissertation, The University of Hong Kong]. [URL].
Lockwood, G., Dingemanse, M., & Hagoort, P.
(2016) Sound-symbolism boosts novel word learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition,
42
(8), 1274–1281.
Lockwood, G., Hagoort, P., & Dingemanse, M.
(2016) How Iconicity Helps People Learn New Words: Neural Correlates and Individual Differences in Sound-Symbolic Bootstrapping. Collabra,
2
(7).
Luke, K. K., & Wong, M. L. Y.
(2015) The Hong Kong Cantonese corpus: Design and uses. Journal of Chinese Linguistics Monograph Series,
25
1, 312–333.
Matthews, S., & Yip, V.
(2011) Cantonese: A comprehensive grammar (2nd ed). Routledge.
McNeill, D.
(1992) Hand and mind: What gestures reveal about thought. University of Chicago Press.
Mihas, E.
(2012) Ideophones in Alto Perené (Arawak) from Eastern Peru. Studies in Language. International Journal Sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language”,
36
(2), 300–344.
Mithun, M.
(1982) The Synchronic and Diachronic Behavior of Plops, Squeaks, Croaks, Sighs, and Moans. International Journal of American Linguistics – INT J AMER LINGUIST,
48
1.
Mittelberg, I.
(2019) Visuo-Kinetic signs are inherently metonymic: How embodied metonymy motivates forms, functions, and schematic patterns in gesture. Frontiers in Psychology,
10
1.
Mok, W. E.
(2001) Chinese sound symbolism: A phonological perspective [Doctoral dissertation]. University of Hawaii.
Monaghan, P., Chater, N., & Christiansen, M. H.
(2005) The differential role of phonological and distributional cues in grammatical categorisation. Cognition,
96
(2), 143–182.
Monaghan, P., Christiansen, M. H., & Chater, N.
(2007) The phonological-distributional coherence hypothesis: Cross-linguistic evidence in language acquisition. Cognitive Psychology,
55
(4), 259–305.
Nasu, A.
(2004) Sinzoo-onomatope-no on’in-koozoo-to bunsetu-no muhyoosei [Phonological structure of mimetic neologisms and segmental unmarkedness]. Japanese Linguistics, 161, 69–91.
Newman, P.
(1968) Ideophones from a syntactic point of view.
(2001) Are ideophones really as weird and extra-systematic as linguists make them out to be? Ideophones, 251–258.
Nuckolls, J. B.
(2000) Spoken in the spirit of gesture: Translating sound symbolism in a Pastaza Quechua narrative. In K. Sammons & J. Sherzer (Eds.), Translating native Latin American verbal art: Ethnopoetics and ethnography of speaking (pp. 233–251). Smithsonian Institution Press.
Nuckolls, J. B., Nielsen, E., Stanley, J. A., & Hopper, R.
(2016) The systematic stretching and contracting of ideophonic phonology in Pastaza Quichua. International Journal of American Linguistics,
82
(1), 95–116.
Pulleyblank, E. G.
(1996) The Cantonese vowel system in historical perspective. In J. Wang & N. Smith (Eds.), Studies in Chinese Phonology (Vol. 201, pp. 185–218). De Gruyter Mouton.
Saito, M., Tomaschek, F., & Baayen, R. H.
(2021) An ultrasound study of frequency and co-articulation.
Samarin, W. J.
(1967) Determining the meanings of ideophones. Journal of West African Languages,
4
(2), 35–41.
(1970) Field procedures in ideophone research. Journal of African Languages,
9
(1), 27–30.
Sohn, H.-M.
(1999) The Korean language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Taub
2001 Language from the Body: Iconicity and Metaphor in American Sign Language. Cambridge University Press.
Taitz, A., Assaneo, M., Elisei, N., Tripodi, M., Cohen, L., Sitt, J., & Trevisan, M.
(2018) The audiovisual structure of onomatopoeias: An intrusion of real-world physics in lexical creation. PLOS ONE,
13
1, e0193466.
Thompson, A. L.
(2018) Are tones in the expressive lexicon iconic? Evidence from three Chinese languages. PLOS ONE,
13
(12), e0204270.
Thompson, A. L., & Do, Y.
(2019) Defining iconicity: An articulation-based methodology for explaining the phonological structure of ideophones. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 4(1), 72.
Thompson, A. L., Van Hoey, T., & Do, Y.
(2021) Articulatory features of phonemes pattern to iconic meanings: evidence from cross-linguistic ideophones. Cognitive Linguistics, 32(4), 563.
Tsou, B. K.-Y.
(2017) Yueyu sizige guanyongyu: Chuancheng yu chuangxin [Quadrasyllabic expressions in Cantonese: Inheritance and innovation]. In B. K.-Y. Tsou & C. L. Tong (Eds.), Yueyu Yanjiu: Zhongguo Nanfang Yuyan Siyinjie Guanyongyu Yanjiu [Yue Dialect Research’s Supplementary Issue: Studies on Quadrasyllabic Expressions in Languages around South China] (pp. 109–124). Macau Yue Dialects Association.
Tufvesson, S.
(2011) Analogy-making in the Semai sensory world. The Senses and Society, 6(1), 86–95.
Van Hoey, T.
(2020) Prototypicality and salience of Chinese ideophones: A cognitive and corpus linguistics approach [Doctoral dissertation, National Taiwan University]. [URL]
Van Hoey, T., & Thompson, A. L.
(2020) The Chinese Ideophone Database (CHIDEOD). Cahiers de Linguistique Asie Orientale, 49(2), 136–167.
Voeltz, F. E., & Kilian-Hatz, C.
Westermann, D. H.
(1927) Laut und Sinn in einigen westafrikanischen Sprachen. In D. H. Westermann & E. Zwirner (Eds.), Archiv für vergleichende Phonetik 1 (pp. 154–172, 193–211). Metten. [URL]
Winter, B.
(2016) The Sensory Structure of the English Lexicon [Ph.D., University of California, Merced]. [URL]
Williams, R. F.
(2008) Gesture as a conceptual mapping tool. In A. J. Cienki & C. Müller (Eds.), Metaphor and gesture (pp. 55–92). John Benjamins Pub. Co. [URL].
Zhang, S.
(2016) Chaoyang fangyan yanjiu [Research on Chaoyang dialect]. Social Science Academic Press.