On some phonological properties of the mimetic vocabulary component of Japanese

要旨

Japanese is noted for having a structured lexicon with well defined sub-sections.These sections are etymological in origin, but continue to manifest themselves through their phonological properties.Itô and Mester (1999, 2008) have shown that several of these sub-sections, including the oldest native vocabulary, the Sino-Japanese, as well as more recent loanwords, obey a consistent regularity.This paper considers a further sub-section, the expressive mimetic vocabulary.A database was constructed in order to get a better understanding of the phonological constraints on mimetics.Using this database it can be shown that a restriction on non-geminate p which is active in the general phonology of Japanese and that on its face seems completely disregarded by the mimetic component, nevertheless has a significant e ect.

主題