Onomatopoeic Verbs and Onomatopoeic Nouns

• Main Authors: Noriko Fujimoto, 藤本紀子
• Other Authors: Ting-chih Tang
• Format: Others
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/50190546673374452857

碩士 === 東吳大學 === 日本語文學系 === 97 === Onomatopoeic Verbs and Onomatopoeic Nouns English Abstract The Japanese language, next to the Korean language, is said to be richest in onomatopoeic and mimesic expressions (in Japanese they are called gitai/gion-go). The previous literature, however, mainly deals with their semantic content, grammatical function, subcategorization, phonological structure, and little research has been done with regard to how verbs have been derived or nouns have been converted from these expressions. The present thesis, therefore, how verbs are derived from, and nouns are converted from, Japanese onomatopoeic and mimesic expressions. Verbs are derived by suffix, e.g. mimesic expressions such as "yoroyoro (meaning “in stagger manner”in English)" take light-verb "-suru (meaning “do” in English)" and become an intransitive verb "yoroyoro-suru (meaning “to stagger” in English)", take the verbalizing suffix "-tuku (meaning “to attach” in English)", "-meku (meaning “to have a feeling” or “become” in English)" and become "yoro-tuku (meaning “to stagger” or “to lurch” in English)" and "yoro-meku (meaning “to totter” in English)", or, the ending of a word comes to make to the verb like "yorokeru (meaning “to stumble”in English)". Onomatopoeic and mimesic nouns can be analyzed as conversions or zero-affixations from these expressions, often occurring in baby talks and young peoples slangs. With detailed examples and preliminary research, the present thesis hopes to make some small contribution to further research.