Article published in:
Studies in Language
Vol. 45:4 (2021) ► pp. 865–886

A typology of depiction marking

The prosody of Japanese ideophones and beyond

| Nagoya University

Ideophones and direct quotations are “depictive” signs, or vivid re-enactments of what they signify. Pursuing the typology of linguistic depiction, the current study proposes a three-way classification of depiction marking strategies: framing, foregrounding, and backgrounding. While well-known formal characteristics of ideophones, such as prosodic prominence and quotative constructions, illustrate framing and foregrounding, this paper discusses low-pitched quotative indexes in Japanese as backgrounding-type depiction markers. These quotatives immediately follow ideophones and exclamatory quotations and set them off. They also underlie the exceptional pitch pattern of heavy syllables in ideophones.

Keywords: depiction, ideophones, Japanese, prosody, quotations
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Depiction and description
  • 3.Three types of depiction marking
  • 4.Prosodic backgrounding in Japanese
    • 4.1Exclamatory quotations
    • 4.2Ideophones
  • 5.Exceptional pitch pattern in Japanese ideophones
    • 5.1Issues
    • 5.2Experimental methods
    • 5.3Experimental results
    • 5.4Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 30 November 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.17029.aki
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