CHAPTER NUMBER 14
MORPHOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTION
FOR NEGOTIATING DIFFERENCES
IN CROSS-STRATUM WORD-FORMATION1
NATSUKO TSUJIMURA
Abstract
Mimetic words belong to one of the four major strata in the
Japanese lexicon, the other three being native, Sino -Japanese, and
foreign. The inventory of the contemporary Japanese mimetic
vocabulary is large, but not only do many o f these words have
prosaic (i.e. non-mimet ic) o rig ins, but new mimetics have
innovatively been formed out of prosaic words. Building on the
semantic characterization of mimetics as having shifting sensual
references contrastive of prosaic words’ fixed denotations, this
chapter discusses the role that a set of mo rphophonological
templates of the mimetic stratum plays in navigating the semantic
differences that can characterize prosaic-based mimetics.
Key words
construction, contextuals, Japanese, lexical strata, mimet ics,
morphophonological templates, prosaic words, prosaic-based
mimetics, semantic competition, shifting sensual references
1. Introduction
Mimetic lexemes, here subsuming what has been referred to as
“onomatopoeia” and “ideophones”, do not receive much linguistic
attention in western languages main ly due to their meager inventory of the
1
I would like to thank Kimi Akita, Yasuko Akiyama, Stuart Davis, Tom Grano,
M isato Hiraga, M isako M atsubara, Christoph Petermann, and Kozue Uzawa for
discussing with me various issues related to the materials included in this paper.
2
Natsuko Tsujimura
vocabulary. Japanese is one of the world’s languages in which mimet ics
play a significant role in linguistic investigations not only because of their
large membership but because of interesting characteristics on their own
right as well as notable ways in wh ich they interact with other word
classes of the language. The late James McCawley in h is 1968 book
insightfully advanced the idea that the Japanese lexicon be partit ioned into
four strata: native, Sino-Japanese, foreign, and mimetic 2 . Under this
premise, a body of literature elucidates a wide range of intrigu ing
properties of each stratum that range fro m phonology, morphology,
semantics, to syntax along with their interface. One of the important issues
revolves around the question of how to negotiate the differences between
two strata: a) when a new word is formed based on a member fro m each of
the two strata, or b) when a word belonging to one stratum enters into
another. The first s ituation has been discussed in the literature on
compounds, for instance, as Japanese has many hybrid co mpounds , i.e.
compounds consisting of parts that belong to different strata . The goal of
this paper is to take up the second situation by looking at the word
formation pattern in wh ich mimet ic words are derived fro m words in other
strata. I will focus specifically on the semantic co mpetition that mimet ics
originating fro m non-mimet ic (or prosaic) words face in such cross stratum wo rd formation, and show that morphophonological templates
provide a crucial path toward their proper interpretations.
Recent literature on morphology of mimetic lexemes (inclusive of
morphosyntax and morphosemantics ) focuses on the degree of interaction
that they have with the gra mmar of prosaic lexemes, while maintain ing
their own unique linguistic properties (e.g. A kita 2009, Dingemanse 2011).
For example, unzari-suru ‘be d isgusted’ and gakkari-suru ‘be
disappointed’ are conventionalized mimet ic verbs in which the mimetic
lexemes of unzari and bikkuri are morphologically integrated with the
prosaic light verb suru, achieving the full-fledged categorial status as
verbs. Another mimetic word geragera is frequently collocated with
warau ‘laugh’, together describing the manner of laughing: ‘to laugh
loudly’. But this mimet ic lexeme is less integrated at the morphological
level, not fully accepted by all speakers as geragera-suru. Underly ing
these works and others on mimetics in general seems to be an assumption
that mimetic lexemes are intrinsically categorized as such, sharing the
central role as descriptors by virtue of the specific image a mimetic lexeme
2
While the four-way stratification has been a well-accepted view, there are
scholars who do not agree that mimetics form an independent stratum and those
who do not accept the view that the lexical stratification is relevant in Japanese.
(e.g. M artin 1992, Backhouse 1993, Rice 1997, Ota 2004, Gottlieb 2005).
Morphological Construction for Negotiating Differences
3
invokes. However, there are lexemes in Japanese that have been perceived
by native speakers as mimetics but have been actually d erived fro m
prosaic words. For examp le, the word mochimochi has been frequently
used to refer to the springy texture of food items like bread as an attribute
that is associated with its desirable quality. Japanese speakers recognize
mochimochi as a mimetic expression (e.g. Ohashi 2010), but its plausible
relation to the prosaic noun mochi ‘rice cake’ has been noted (e.g.
Hayakawa 2004, Yamaguchi 2015). The number o f mimet ic lexemes that
have their origins in prosaic words is higher than one might think, and it is
often the case that the language users do not realize the derivational
history. (e.g. Izu mi 1976, Hayakawa 2003, 2004, Yamaguchi 2015)
Furthermore, innovative mimetics, their longevity notwithstanding, are
formed based on prosaic vocabulary as is frequently observed in the
literary field of Japanese poetry and in many specialized fields such as
food, fashion, and cosmetics, for instance.
Prosaic words generally exh ibit a limited nu mber of decontextualized
denotations. In contrast, what mimetic words mean can be enormously
underspecified, which accordingly makes it possible for them to be
interpreted in mult iple ways (Tsujimura 2014a, to appear). Furthermo re,
their semantic nature can be captured, in Samarin’s (1970) terms, by
“sensual (as opposed to cognitive) reference”, leading to the language
user’s subjective interpretations that are h ighly context sensitive. It is
important, then, to examine how this semantic difference co mes to be
negotiated when a prosaic word (or some part of it) is adapted to and
perceived as a mimetic word in both form and meaning. To this end, I will
examine contemporary Japanese mimet ic lexemes that orig inate fro m (or
related to) prosaic words diachronically or synchronically, and illustrate a
possible path through which prosaic words can be transformed into
mimetic words.
2. Underlying assumptions
Descriptive works on Japanese mimet ics have a long history, and there has
been a rich body of literature on their theoretical treat ments particularly in
the past 30 years. Space limitation does not allow me to give a detailed
survey of them, but I briefly summarize a set of assumptions related to so called meaning of mimetics that are relevant to the discussion below.
First and foremost, as I have argued independently and in agreement
with others (e.g. Samarin 1970, Diffloth 1972, Kita 1997), I take the
4
Natsuko Tsujimura
position that mimetic and prosaic lexemes have fundamentally very
different semantic p roperties (Tsujimu ra 2003, 2014a, to appear). I adopt
Kita’s (1997) two d imensional approach, according to which mimetic
words belong to the affecto-imagistic d imension wh ile prosaic words are
part of the analytical d imension. The two dimensions are defined as
follows:
i)
ii)
affecto-imag istic dimension (mimetic): “the level at wh ich language
has direct contact with sensory, motor, and affective informat ion ”
(Kita 1997, 380), and
analytical dimension (prosaic): the level o f “deco mpositional and
hierarchical representation in terms of decontextualized semantic
partials” (Kita 1997, 409).
The characterization of mimetics in connection with the affecto -imagistic
dimension shares Samarin’s (1970) insight underlying the term “sensual
(as opposed to cognitive) reference”, appealing to our five senses.
Second, sensual references of a mimetic word are highly subjective
because one’s perceptions and personal experiences that underlie those
sensual references can vary widely fro m one individual to anothe r
(Tsujimura 2014a, to appear). This is why mimet ic expressions can be
interpreted in mult iple ways. It is often co mmented that a given mimetic
word has a specific meaning. However, such a meaning should not be
paralleled with a decontextualized definition on par with a prosaic word
because a given mimetic exp ression can receive a wide range of unrelated
interpretations based on the individual language user’s perceptive mode
and experiences.
Third, following up on the first two aspects above, the semantics of
mimet ics is similar to what Clark and Clark (1979, 768) call “contextuals”.
In providing an analysis of the innovative lexicon and specifically creative
senses that English denominal verbs like those in (1) have, Clark and
Clark argue that these innovative denominal verbs, call it “contextuals”,
have “[…] a shifting sense and denotation – one that depends on the time,
place, and circumstances of their use” (emphasis as in the original).
(1)
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
He wristed the ball over the net.
Will you cigarette me?
We all Wayned and Cagneyed.
She would not try to stiff-upper-lip it through.
They timbered off the hills in the 1880’s.
(Clark and Clark 1979, 767-768)
Morphological Construction for Negotiating Differences
5
f. My sister Houdini’d her way out of the locked closet
‘escape by trickery’
Joe got Houdini’d in the stomach yesterday.
‘hit hard without warning’
I would love to Houdini those ESP experiments.
‘expose as fraudulent by careful analysis ’
(Clark and Clark 1979, 784)
Contrastive with contextuals, purely denotational and indexical expressions
“[…] have a fixed sense and denotation” (Clark and Clark 1979, 768,
emphasis as in the original). The semantic properties of contextuals are
likened by Japanese mimet ics regarding a shifting sense because varying
contexts could lead to multiple and often creative interpretations of a given
mimetic exp ression. (Tsujimura 2003, 2005, 2014a, to appear) Throughout
this paper, then, I will consider the fundamental semantic nature of mimetic
expressions to be characterized as shifting sensual references that vary
according to the time, place, and circumstances of their use and according to
their users’ subjective experiences .
The literature on this topic has demonstrated that mimetic expressions in
Japanese appear in a closed set of morphophonological templates of specific
prosodic structures (e.g. Hamano 1998, Akita 2009). Furthermore, as will be
elaborated on below, it has been shown in the literature that the
morphophonological makeup of each of these templates has been asso ciated
with semantic characteristics such as repetition and forcefulness. These
previous works, thus, implicitly and exp licit ly have suggested that mimetic
vocabulary instantiates form-meaning pairing, namely, a grammatical
construction (Goldberg 1995, Booij 2010). Akita (2014, 12), for one, offers
a brief discussion of prosaic-based mimetics within the construction
framework:
[i]t is important in terms of productivity that the mimetic lexicon contains
several entries with non-mimetic origin, such as mómimomi ‘crumpling’ (<
mom- ‘crumple’), hiyáQ/hiyári ‘feeling a chill’ (< hiyas- ‘make cool’), and
hossóri ‘slender’ (< hoso- ‘thin’). The mimetic status of these words is
primarily guaranteed by their morphophonological shapes (i.e. the formal
aspects of the mimetic constructions).
The discussion in the next section will be built upon such constructionist line
of work. In addition, as outlined above, the discussion will highlight a
particular emphasis that subjective sensual references that are highly
sensitive to the context are the heart of the general semantic property that
mimetic templates make available to their exponents. In the case of prosaicbased mimetic expressions, templatic representations serve as a vehicle by
6
Natsuko Tsujimura
which a prosaic word receives its formal and semantic identification as a
mimetic vocabulary item. Once a prosaic word appears in a mimetic-specific
template, it no longer has a fixed denotation; instead, it is now subject to
multip le interpretations that emerge from sensual images that are invoked by
the expression used in context-rich environments.
3. Mimetics with prosaic origin
The temp latic structures in (2) represent some of the most common
morphophonological temp lates 3 . I list only a typical definit ion of each
example, the majority of which are taken from Kakehi et al. (1996)4 .
(2)
3
a. CVCV-CVCV
pika-pika: ‘The manner of shining or reflecting light brightly.’
kera-kera: ‘The sound of high-pitched, unrestrained laughter.’
b. CVCVri :
sururi:
‘The manner of sliding quickly and smoothly.’
huwari:
‘The state of being light and soft.’
c. CV(CV)Q
suQ:
‘The manner o f doing something quickly or easily, or
of something occurring quickly or easily.’
gabaQ:
‘The manner of doing something suddenly and
vigorously.’
d. CV(CV)N
pan:
‘A single exp losive sound such as that made by firing
a pistol or by slapping something with force.’
doron:
‘The state in which a liquid is thick and sticky.’
e. CVNCVri
donyori: ‘The state of being dull, clouded, or gloomy.’
manjiri:
‘The state in which one is unable to sleep.’
f. CVQCVri
saQkuri: ‘A single or intermittent crisp, crunching sound
produced when cutting or biting something.’
toQpuri: ‘The state of the sun having set and darkness set in.’
More extensive illustrations and discussions of mimetic t emplates/constructions that
are specific to the mimetic vocabulary are found in Hamano (1998) and Akita (2009),
among others. The notations Q and N stand for geminate and moraic nasal, respectively.
4
There are a number of mimetic words whose conventionalized entries are listed
in regular and mimetic dictionaries. It also appears that a significant amount of
dialectal variation exists although not all officially recorded.
Morphological Construction for Negotiating Differences
7
It has been observed that the morphophonological differences among the
templates amount to meaning-related distinctions. Example (3)
summarizes Hamano’s (1998, 104-107) semantic characterization of the
reduplication (her “repetition”), coda nasal, geminate consonants, and the
presence of -ri when they are added to a CVCV base.
(3)
a. CVCV-CVCV: continuous, stative, distributive, or repetitive
movement 5
b. CVCVN:
involvement of elastic objects or acco mpaniment
of a reverberation
c. CVCVQ:
movement in one direction with forcefu lness or
vigorousness
d. CVCVri :
quiet ending of the movement
In construction terms, the templat ic representation of each construction in
(3) is paired with the respective semantic characterization along with the
general sensual reference shared by these family members of a mimetic
construction.
Many mimetic words that have their orig ins in the prosaic vocabulary
take the morphophonological shapes listed in (2)-(3). Their prosaic origin
can be obscured by the formal property of the morphophonological
templates that serve as a hallmark of the mimetic stratum and, for that
reason, their prosaic origin may not always be obvious to even native
speakers. I will d iscuss three types of mimet ics with prosaic orig in,
ranging from a more conventionalized group to innovative formation.
Examples of the first type are given in (4), wh ich are grouped into the
three frequent morphophonological patterns that are typical of mimetics.
Their conventionalized interpretations as adverbs are taken p rimarily fro m
one of the largest mimet ic dictionaries (Kakeh i et al. 1996); and the
secondary sources analyzing diachronic orig ins of their corresponding
prosaic words are indicated in parentheses.
(4)
5
a. CVCV-CVCV
sukasuka:
‘The state of lacking moisture’ (< suku V ‘having a
gap, not filled’, Hayakawa 2003)
mochimochi: ‘Having the right degree of stickiness and
elasticity’
(< mochi N ‘rice cake’, Yamaguchi 2015)
Hamano (1998, 105) gives this characterization in contrast with a single CVCV
sequence, whose semantic content is explained as “momentary or single
movement”.
8
Natsuko Tsujimura
torotoro:
tsuyatsuya:
uneune:
b. CVNCVri
kongari:
tanmari:
shinmiri:
honnori:
yanwari:
c. CVQCVri
maQtari:
aQsari:
moQchiri:
‘The state of being soft and g lutinous ’ (< torokeru V
‘a solid object becoming a liquid, losing its shape’;
cf. < toro ‘slo w water flo w deep in a river’,
Hayakawa 2004)
‘The state in which something has a smooth, glossy
surface’ (< tsuyu N ‘dew’, Hayakawa 2004)
‘The state of being undulating or winding’ (< uneN
‘ridge’, Yamaguchi 2015)
‘The state in which food is cooked to a nice b rown’
(< kogasu V ‘burn’, Yamaguchi 2015)
(< tamaru V ‘accumulate’, Yamaguchi 2015)
(< shimiru V ‘soak’, Yamaguchi 2015)
‘The manner in wh ich something is sensed or
appears only slightly or fa intly’ (< honokaADJ ‘just
a little; not clear’, Hayakawa 2004)
‘The manner of speaking or behaving gently or indirectly’
(< yawa-ADJ ‘soft, weak’, Hayakawa 2004)
‘The state of being mild in taste; mild in taste with
a rich flavour’ (< mata-ADJ ’comp lete, without any
shortcoming’, Hayakawa 2004)
‘The state in which co lor, taste, make -up, etc., is
simp le or light’ (< asaiADJ ‘shallow’, Yamaguchi
2015)
[see mochimochi in (4a)]
Ranging fro m nouns, verbs, to adjectives, the original prosaic words have
entered into the mimetic vocabulary at different diachronic periods.
Crucially, the morphophonological schema in (4) clearly overlap with
those in (2)-(3), fitting the temp lates typical of mimetics. To go over just a
few examp les, mochimochi in the reduplicated pattern of (4a) is based on
the prosaic noun mochi ‘rice cake ’, and describes the texture of food items
that have the combination of stickiness and elasticity, resemb ling a fresh
rice cake. Mochimochi thus has a sensual reference based on one of our
five senses, i.e. touch. Hayakawa (2004) exp lains that, prior to the
emergence of mochimochi, there is a similar-sounding mimetic word
muchimuchi, which means ‘the state of being voluptuous or enticingly
plump ’ (Kakehi et al. 1996, 776). She goes on to say that muchimuchi
primarily refers to physical features of hu man beings and is not suitable or
accurate enough to describe the “rice-cake -like” texture of bread and
Morphological Construction for Negotiating Differences
9
noodles as their ideal quality. Detailed descriptions of food are key to the
Japanese food culture, and mochimochi has come to be widely used to
refer to food texture since the late 20th century.
Although she includes mochimochi as an entry in her mimetic
dictionary and assumes its connection to the prosaic noun mochi ‘rice
cake’, Yamaguchi (2015) g ives a different estimate of the nature of the
reduplicated form. She attributes mochimochi to another reduplicated
pattern of N-N-suru (‘N-N-do’), which is used to refer to a typical
property of the noun that is reduplicated, as in kodomo-kodomo-sita kao
child-child-do face ‘a face that is typical of a child’ (Oho and Yamada
2011, Akita 2014). Although detailed investigations are needed, this
pattern seems to be further characterized by a set of accentuation
properties that may take into consideration the original accent placement
of the noun that is being reduplicated. Mochi in isolation as a prosaic noun
is accentless, but other accentless nouns do not seem to pattern
consistently the same as mochimochi as a mimetic. Fo r instance, kaki
‘persimmon’ and ame ‘candy’ are both accentless, but when used in the
reduplication pattern to express the noun’s typical property (i.e. Akita’s
“reduplicated attributive construction”, see footnote 7), native speakers
who could accept them demonstrate non-uniform accentuation patterns for
them. The patterns of kaki-kaki(-site) and ame-ame(-site) are: a) the HLLL contour, b) place a pause between the two nouns and pronounce them
in the LH-LH p itch pattern, or c) the LH-LL pitch pattern without a pause
between the repetition. Each speaker also exh ibits variation among these
three patterns. This is contrastive with mochimochi as a mimet ic (i.e. the
schemata in (4a)), which is pronounced with the HL-LL contour by all
speakers. Importantly, the HL-LL pattern has been considered the typical
pitch assignment for mimet ic adverbs of the CVCV-CVCV structure.
(Hamano 1998, A kita 2009) 6 . That is, native speakers seem to agree
uniformly with the HL-LL accentuation pattern of the mimetic
mochimochi without showing other individual variation 7 8 .
6
Hamano (1998) analyzes that the location of accent in mimetic adverbs is largely
predictable from their prosodic structure given the general metrical theory, while
Akita (2009) treats accent as part of morphophonological properties of mimetic
constructions.
7
Akita (2014) calls the pattern exemplified by kodomo-kodomo-sita kao ‘a face
that is typical of a child’ “reduplicated attributive construction”, whose
morpholophonological property is in i), where σ and μ stand for syllable and mora,
respectively, and the diacritic accent * is meant to fall on the syllable that has the
antepenultimate mora. He further designates “typical of N i” and “colloquial” as the
semantic and register properties of the construction.
10
Natsuko Tsujimura
It is of further note that many reduplicated mimetics have their variants
in the form of CVQCVri of (2f), as in pikapika vs. piQkari ‘sparkling’ and
sakusaku vs. saQkuri ‘crisp, crunchy’. Fo llowing this pattern, mochimochi
indeed has its variant moQchiri. In a similar vein, torotoro in (4a) has its
variant torori, taking the morphophonological form o f (2b ) and (3d). So,
not only instances of prosaic-based mimet ic formation but also related
patterns of variants are consistent with the morphophonological templates
of the inherently mimet ic vocabulary, further confirming the general
morphophonological schema of the mimetic stratum.
Another examp le of a mimetic word having its origins in prosaic
vocabulary is mattari under (4c), which has a stable entry in mimetic
dictionaries (e.g. Kakeh i et al. 1996). The word, however, can
diachronically be traced back to the 8th century prosaic adjective mata‘comp lete, lacking nothing’, which has further developed into matari, and
then into mattari with a similar meaning (Hayakawa 2003, 42). In the
culinary field, mattari was a word of superlative praise but has spread
more generally in the advent of the first wave of gurume-buumu ‘gourmet
boom’ of the 1980s. The contemporary interpretation of the word refers to
a mild, deep and rich taste with a hint of sweetness, such as in custard
*
i) [[[…]Ni-[…σμμ]Ni-si]Vroot-{te i-/ta}]
As is clear from this schematic representation, two-mora nouns are outside the
scope of i), and their accentuation pattern in the construction is not dealt with.
Additionally, the construction analysis of the “reduplicated attributive
construction”, if it is productive enough to be considered a grammatical
construction at all, seems to require further modification, especially in its
characterization of the accentuation property. Based on an informal consultation
with native speakers, the accent placement does not appear to be as clear-cut as
what i) indicates, and there seems to be much individual variation. The
accentuation pattern may also be sensitive to the original accent location of the
noun in isolation as well as the length of the noun, neither of which is evaluated in
i). M oreover, although the syllable containing the penultimate mora is a notion
important to the accentuation system of Japanese in general ( M cCawley 1968), the
schematic representation of “σμμ” in i) may not properly reflect the interaction of
the syllable and mora as it is relevant to the phonological structure of the language.
For instance, for words taking the prosodic structure of […] CVVCV, the notation
in i) could ambiguously interpret the penultimate V as the independent penultimate
mora or as part of the syllable that contains the antepenultimate mora. These two
possible interpretations are indeed not trivial as syllable and mora have both an
independent and interrelation role in Japanese phonology (cf. Tsujimura 2014b).
8
Additional discussions of reduplicated mimetic words are found in Nishimura
(2013) and Vance (2014).
Morphological Construction for Negotiating Differences
11
cream and wh ip cream. The old prosaic adject ival form of mattari seems
to have been morphophonologically reanaly zed as the mimet ic temp late of
the CVQCVri pattern in (2f). Mattari has been recognized as mimetic, as
is evidenced by its entry in mimetic dict ionaries , and semantically it
invokes the taste and texture in the mouth felt after eating food like custard
cream and whip cream.
The second type of prosaic-based mimetics is characterized by their
Chinese origin. I will single out shinshin as an examp le of this type in my
discussion.
(5)
a. shinshin < 深深 or 沈沈
b. shin
‘the state of being perfectly still and quiet’
shiin
‘[emphatic form of shin] the state of being perfectly
still and quiet’
Shinshin, shin, and shiin in (5) are all recognized as mimetic expressions
to symbolize silence. Shin and its emphatic form by vowel lengthening,
shiin, appear in mimetic d ictionaries wh ile shinshin does not. However, it
is shinshin that has a direct connection to the Chinese origin, shinshin, as
is written in Chinese characters in ( 5a). Nakazato (2005) and Ono (2007)
state that shinshin is not a mimetic exp ression in Chinese. Nakazato
further analy zes that, since the reduplicated form as in (2a) is one of the
most frequent morphophonological patterns of Japanese mimet ic words, it
is natural that shinshin has come to be perceived and acknowledged as a
membe r of the mimetic word class. As we have observed with mochimochi
and moQchiri, variat ion among a CVN base, its emphatic form by vowel
lengthening, and its reduplicated form CVN -CVN is commonly observed:
typical examp les include pan~paan~panpan and don~doon~dondon. Thus,
it is natural to view that by analogy, shinshin, shin, and shiin are
morphophonologically connected, all invoking subjective sensual images
related to silence. A lthough shinshin is not placed in any of the mimetic
dictionaries that I have consulted, it is undeniable that shinshin has been
recognized and co mmon ly used as a mimetic word 9 . As a side point, the
existence of mimetic words that describe silence may seem like an
9
For example, the literature on the Japanese poetry confirms that tanka poets such
as M okichi Saito are known to make frequent use of shinshin as a mimetic
expression of silence in their poems. Furthermore, referring to shinshin as a
mimetic word, professional commentaries on the Japanese poetry of haiku and
tanka note that poets like M okichi Saito and others use the word to achieve
rhetorical effects. Thus, Japanese speakers dependably regard shinshin as well as
shin and shiin as part of the mimetic vocabulary.
12
Natsuko Tsujimura
oxy moron especially in light of the co mmon view that mimet ics are iconic
and iconicity in language generally assumes the presence of the tangible.
Shinshin, shin, and shiin do not mimic the absence of sounds, but taking
full advantage of their lexical status as mimetics, they invoke images of
silence that need not be fixed in a defined way among language users.
Given that silence is inherently intangible, shinshin and its variants help to
transform that which is intangible into the tangible by appealing to our
senses, often resulting in synesthetic experien ces. Such an effect is
triggered at least in part by the morphophonological structures into which
they are molded 10 11 .
The third type of prosaic-based mimetic words consists of expressions
that are newly and innovatively created. As such, they may not have a
permanent lexical status, but the pattern of innovation of this sort is widely
observed. They often appear in Japanese tanka and haiku poetry and in
advertisements as a rhetorical tool to appeal to the relevant audience.
Examples (6)-(8) present examples of this third type.
(6)
10
a. Muishikini
sareru sabetu-wa
washiwashi-to
unconsciously done
discrimination-Top washiwashi-quot.
kokoro-no shin-o
yokeini
eguru
heart-GEN core-Acc all the more
penetrate
‘Unconscious discrimination excessively pierces into the center
of the heart.’ (tanka by Kozue Uzawa)
b. Kotoshi mata paseri mebukite haru-to nari
hi-no
this year again parsley bud
spring-to become sun-GEN
naka
seriseri seriagarikuru
middle seriseri rise gradual.
‘Once again spring has come and parsley starts to bud; it grows
energetically in the sun.’ (tanka piece by Kozue Uzawa)
c. Kakukaku-to
kaisho-nite
kaku kyuukanji
ware-no
kakukaku-quot. block style-in write old style kanji I-GEN
myoozi-wa
kakusuu
ooku.
family name-Top number of strokes many
‘My last name, as is written in the block style of the old Chinese
characters, has many strokes.’ (tanka piece by Kozue Uzawa)
See Tsujimura (2015) for a further discussion of this topic.
As Kimi Akita correctly pointed out to me, shinshin(-to) (shinshin(-quot.)) as a
mimetic adverb is pronounced with the LHHH accent melody rather than with the
initial accent pattern of HLLL, the latter of which is typical of reduplicated
mimetic words. In this case, then, reduplication of the base shin is sufficient for
shinshin to be recognized as a mimetic expression.
11
Morphological Construction for Negotiating Differences
(7)
(8)
13
nakami-ga michiQ-to
michiteiru
jikan
content-Nom michiQ-quot. be filled
time
‘time that is completely filled with activities’ (an ad in a women’s magazine)
a. yuruQ-to
sekushii
< yurui (A) ‘loose’
yuruQ-quot. sexy
‘(looking) sexy in loose (clothes)’ (an ad in a fashion magazine)
b. kumikumi-sita shokkan;
gumi-o
kumikumi-did
feel in the mouth; gummy bear-ACC
tabete-iru
yoona
kumikumi
eating
as if
kumikumi
‘(It has the) ‘kumikumi’ feel in the mouth; the ‘kumikumi’ feel as
if I were eating gummy bear’ (a TV reporter commenting on udon
noodles)
The mimet ic washiwashi in (6a) appears in an entry of at least one
mimet ic d ictionary (e.g. Ono 2007) referring to a rough or forcefu l
movement. According to Kozue Uzawa (personal commun ication, 2013),
the mimetic is common among tanka poets, but she used washiwashi in
(6a) somewhat creatively based on washi as in washizukami-ni suru ‘grab
with force’. The co mpound washizukami consists of the noun washi
‘eagle’ and the deverbal noun tsukami ‘grabbing’ (< tsukamu ‘pick, grab’),
and means a rough and forceful manner of grabbing just as an eagle
snatches something. The prosaic base washi ‘eagle’ is reduplicated so that
it fits the co mmon mimetic pattern of CVCV-CVC V. The image o f an
eagle snatching food fro m species of lesser power, for instance, emerges
fro m washiwashi as a mimetic word, and a similar image is vividly
reflected in the tanka piece of (6a). Such a v isual image is invoked when
the poet Uzawa wrote this tanka piece and is presumably a sensual
reference that she intended for the reader to experience with her as directly
as possible 12 .
Innovative use of mimet ics can be motivated by rhyming purposes, as
is frequently attested in the Japanese poetry and advertisements. In (6b),
Ms. Uzawa created the new mimet ic word seriseri to refer to the healthy
growth of parsley13 . The use of seriseri in this tanka is intended to rhyme,
in the sense of Tsujimura and Davis (2009), with paseri ‘parsley’ as well
12
I have been unable to find a possible origin of the mimetic washiwashi,
especially whether it is related to or originated from the expression washizukami
‘grabbing with force’ or even washi ‘eagle’.
13
Ono (2007) includes seriseri as its mimetic entry, referring to rushed, noisy, and
disorderly attitude and movements, but notes that all the examples are based on
usages in older periods.
14
Natsuko Tsujimura
as with the verb seriagaru ‘rise gradually’ (confirmed by the poet). Once
again, taking the reduplicated form, it fits the typical mo ld of mimetic
words, i.e. (4a). The four repetitions of the sound “seri” (paseri … seriseri seri (agaru)) make the tanka rhyth mic, leading to the image that the
growth of the parsley is energetic particularly boosted by the spring sun.
Similarly, in (6c), kakukaku in the reduplicated template is crafted so that
the sound kaku is juxtaposed with the prosaic verb kaku ‘write’ and a part
of a prosaic noun kaku(suu) ‘the number of strokes (of Kanji characters)’
with a successful rhyming outcome. The use of kakukaku is particularly
effective in this poem in the presence of the modification of kaisho ‘the
block style character’. The square image of the character style in wh ich the
poet’s last name is written is further enhanced by the repetitive sequence
of kakukaku, kaku, and kaku(suu). It is helpful to mention that upon
hearing the sound “kaku”, one may think of a homonym kaku ‘angle’,
making easier the association with the image o f an angular (Ch inese)
character as opposed to its rounder calligraphic counterpart.
The same kind of rhy ming motivation is ascertained in the innovative
mimet ics that are found in advertisements as in (7). MichiQ in (7) rhy mes
with the following verb michiru ‘fill’ 14 . Here, too, the CVCVQ in michiQ
provides a morphophonological tool to create an innovative mimet ic word
together with its rhyming with the prosaic word fro m wh ich it is orig inated.
The resulting word invokes, for examp le, a v isual image that a container is
filled with its content without any empty space in it.
The last pair of examp les in (80) follows the same path with the other
types of prosaic-based mimetics. The prosaic adject ives yurui ‘loose’ in
(8a) is put into the mimet ic construction of the CVCVQ pattern 15 . A vivid
image invoked by the prosaic-based mimet ic exp ression has more direct
appeal to the audience than using the original prosaic adjective, yuruku
‘loosely’, serving the advertisement purpose more effectively .
(9)
14
yuruku kite sekushii
loosely wear sexy
Ono (2007) lists michimichi and michiri, both describing the sound or state of a
piece of wood squeaking or breaking. The context in which michiQ(-to) appears in
(7) clearly does not fit the description of the entry in the mimetic dictionary. Given
this difference, it seems reasonable to analyze that mitchiQ(-to) is of a novel use
motivated by the rhyming effect with the prosaic word that follows it.
The rhyming discussed here is again in the sense of Tsujimura and Davis (2009).
15
Two other mimetic expression based on the prosaic adje ctive yurui ‘loose,
yuruyuru and yururi, are listed in Kakehi et al. (1996) and Ono (2007) to describe
slow, relaxed, or loose states or movements. Ono’s mimetic dictionary additionally
lists yuruQ as a dialect form to refer to a slow, carefree, or relaxed manner.
Morphological Construction for Negotiating Differences
15
The mimetic expression in (8b) is an adlibbed utterance by a TV
newscaster in his attempt to report on the taste of the udon noodles that
were advertised. It is typical to use texture vocabulary to describe the taste
of food in Japanese (e.g. Hayakawa 2003, Ohashi 2010), and especially
the springy and chewy texture is considered to be a positive quality of
noodles in general. Kumikumi was entirely novel to the reporter’s
colleagues in the studio and the audience, and thus, he had to elaborate on
the exact texture he felt in his mouth by referring to gumi ‘gummy bears’.
Instead of a potential expression gumigumi, like mochimochi discussed
earlier, he created a novel variant with the voiceless counterpart of /g/,
kumikumi. Sound-symbolis m in mimetics involving the voiced-voiceless
contrast has been exp lored by Hamano (1998), who shows that the voicing
contrast in the init ial consonant such as botabota vs. potapota and zuQpori
vs. suQpori systematically correlates with the contrastive semantic
symbolis m of heavy (voiced) vs. light (voiceless). In listening to the
utterance of (8b) and watching the e xcited reaction of the TV reporter, my
initial imp ression (before even thinking about its possible linguistic
explanations and implications ) was that the texture of the udon is at its
superior chewiness but without the toughness that I often experience in
chewing on a gu mmy bear (especially the ones that are availab le in the US
with which I am more familiar). What I thought of as the udon’s texture
based on kumikumi might as well be d ifferent fro m what the TV
newscaster tried to describe or what other listeners might have imagined.
Nevertheless, it is the invoking of the subjective textural image in my own
sense of touch (in my mouth) that the novel mimetic word has so
effectively achieved rather than conveying to the listener what the actual
speaker-intended denotation of the word kumikumi has. In fact, kumikumi
in isolation probably does not have a denotation, but the word in (8b ),
taking the mimetic mo rphophonological template, g ives rise to a sensual
reference as the listener perceives it with in the particu lar context and
circumstance of the reporter’s speech.
Sensual references of mimet ics are highly contextualized and subject to
individuals’ perceptions and experiences, as opposed to fixed
decontextualized denotations cognitively defined for prosaic words. The
path of semantic transition between t wo poles that prosaic-based mimet ics
take is made available by virtue of the morphophonological templates that
characterize the mimet ic stratum. Once a prosaic expression is cast in one
of the mimetic templates and is identified as belonging to the mimetic
vocabulary, a shifting sensual reference beco mes its fundamental semantic
property.
16
Natsuko Tsujimura
4. Summary
In this paper, I have discussed mimet ic exp ressions in Japanese that
originate fro m prosaic wo rds, focusing on a shift in semantic nature.
Prosaic words generally have fixed denotations while mimetic expressions
invoke subjective sensual references that can vary widely depending on
the individual’s perception and experiences. The nature of the semantics in
the prosaic vs. mimetic vocabularies poses a challenging question as to
how the difference may be negotiated in order for prosaic -based mimetic
words to receive the type of interpretations unique to the mimet ic stratum.
I have demonstrated that mimetic templates, or a set of grammatical
constructions, provide a vehicle for p rosaic-based mimetics to become
associated with potentially mu ltip le references by appealing to our sensory
system for their proper interpretations. The path through which prosaicbased mimetics are shown to take in order to negotiate the fundamental
semantic difference between a prosaic-based mimet ic and its origin, thus,
offers an account as to why they can be interpreted in so many different
and innovative ways despite a fixed range of meaning possibilit ies of their
prosaic origin. Although we have discussed only a handful of examples in
this paper, there seem to be a large number of exp ressions that native
speakers consider mimetics without realizing their prosaic orig in. This is
probably related to a phenomenon that Izu mi (1976, 140) refers to as “folk
etymology”. As he insightfully points out, however, “those expressions are
indeed mimetic words in the mind of the language users” (translation by
NT). Once recognized as mimet ics by their morphophonological profile,
the shift in semantic nature is a natural consequence, with their
interpretations more subjective and context sensitive than the range that
prosaic vocabulary generally observes.
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