A typology of depiction marking
The prosody of Japanese ideophones and beyond
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.
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