The significance of the grammatical study of Japanese mimetics

要旨

This chapter provides a succinct overview of Japanese mimetics within the universal category of the ‘ideophone.’ The verbal use of a mimetic seems to be fairly straightforward; it is a structure of the mimetic immediately combined with a ‘light’ verb, typically suru , in which the mimetic provides the semantic content and the light verb supports the grammatical morphemes. In the context of Japanese, mimetics are typically assigned with respect to four categories: Adjective, Adverb, Noun, and Verb. The key semantic distinction seems to be whether the mimetic is used referentially or predicationally. The notion of an ‘adverbial’ use of a mimetic typically considers a bare form or a mimetic followed by the adverbial marker to; this is well documented, and the conditions on the appearance of to are being thoroughly investigated by several scholars. The mimetic will be a prenominal modifier in Japanese, used with some supporting morpheme, such as the copula.

主題