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Waddling, Wandering and Waving: Literary Chinese
Ideophones and the Motion Semantic Grid
Thomas Van Hoey
thomas_van_hoey@outlook.com
Abstract
) to analyze the
analysis (
Keywords
ideophone – motion – Chinese – iconicity –
1 Introduction
) to equipollently
(
瓶子 從 石頭 旁邊 漂 過
píng.zi cóng shí.tou guò
bottle from side float past
飛 出 一 隻 貓頭鷹
yì
fly out one owl
一 塊 石頭 從 山上 滾下來
yí kuài shí.tou cóng
one rock from
a conversion datasheet with traditional and simplified characters is provided in the
supplementary materials on the
pánghuáng 徬徨 輾轉 ‘toss and
滾滾
to encounter sound depictions () that contribute to a holistic
) but
(4)
ドヤドヤ 入って来る
doyadoya
)
漾漾 泛 菱荇 澄澄 映 葭葦。
yàngyàng fàn chéngchéng yìng
float waterweed reflect reed
王維 青谿)
洶湧 潮水 你 聽 明白
míng.bái
tide hear understand
不 是 浪 而 是 淚海
bú shì làng shì
but
珊瑚海
appear in the Chinese Ideophone Database (
2 The Motion Semantic Grid
Talmy
narratives (
;
;
(
ad hoc vocalizations but must meet a certain thresh
Key for the analysis is that it looks at salient aspects of such motion ide
nents (
(4)
to ) that
moves or is situated () with respect to another object ()
motion to happen () is also identi
also
‘noise of appearance of birds in
means
calculation of those (sub)components that are salient for motion ideophone
has at least salient elements for
Type (
In
clusion of that introductory chapter is that motion semantics of ideophones
(
1st level 2nd level 3rd level
Totonac
liŋʃiliŋʃi
3rd level
Semai
parparpar 1
3rd level
Semai
parparpar 2
plural plural
Animacy
size
Type liquid
Contour
Direction
Deixis
Causer causer
Reason
move move move
Phase resultative
Aspect
Contour
Direction
Deixis
walk fly swim
Rate
forceful forceful
Instrument
Posture
Casualness sudden sudden
sound sound
physical
3 Materials and Methods2
3.1 Materials
of typical onomatopoeias (; ; )
include 咕咕 哐哧哐哧 ‘wheels of
嗡嗡
ophones ( ; ; línlí 淋漓
霏霏 mángmáng 茫茫
known as words (; ;
兇巴巴 綠油油
香噴噴
cisely because colloquial ideophones tend to primarily involve sound depic
words are also
)
and adaptions advanced later by ) and
Chinese Ideophone Database () was queried for
A student’s dic
(
in
of these words are not always immediately interpretable to native speakers of
3.2 Methodology
Analysis () that uses
;
(
Levshina
Chinese Pinyin Definition
蜿蜿
潎潎 pìpì
踥跌
沸渭 fèiwèi
颲颲 lièliè fierce wind
翂翂
conduct the
(
by
under the hood works with a complete disjunctive table
() to impute miss
R Core
) and () for the
versions can be found in the
Before we impute and conduct the
3.3 Annotation
( ;
翂翂
Animacy (
) or
) were all
and
the semantic nature of ideophones (
hood () and is part and parcel of iconic inventories across
the world (;
include
Database (
of the word is situated in ( ; ;
霏霏
⻗
非
(such radicals provide a semantic cue as to
霏霏
洶湧
氵
línglì 凌歷 ‘traverse and
氵足
亻
and ) and Reason (
not clearly illustrated in
and
)
1. FIGURE
2. GROUND
3. CAUSE
4. MOTION
5. EVENT EXTENSION
A. MORPHOLOGICAL TEMPLATE
B. SEMANTIC RADICAL SUPPORT
Quanta
Physical characteristics
Physical characteristics
Reason
{?}
{size, shape, other}
{place, shape, size}
{one, two, mass, plural multiplex, polynomial}{before, beginning, middle, end, after}
{accidental, accomplishment, attenuative,
causative, continuative, defective, durative,
frequentative, habitual, imperfective, intensive,
intentional, iterative, moderative, momentane,
perfective, prospective, protractive, punctual,
resultative, segmentative}
{durative, imperfective, intensive,
iterative, perfective}
{reduplicated, not fully reduplicated}
bird, cloud, horse, human, insect, leaf,
liquid, mountain, plant, rain, wave, wind, other
{gaseous, liquid, slippery, solid, viscous}
{articial, natural, causer not salient}
{animate, inanimate}
{motion, stationary, halfmove}
Phase
Template
Radical
Aspect - 2
[Aspect]Animacy
Type
Causer
Motion
Basic level
{氵 water, 足 foot, 亻 person, 艹 grass, 風 wind,
山 mountain, 彳go, 羽 wing, 虫 bug/snake,
女 woman, 糸 silk, NA, other*}
*other consists of: 扌(hand), 方 (direction), 辶 (walk), 雨 (rain), 馬 (horse), 車 (cart), 彡
(bristle),
忄
(heart),
月
(moon/esh),
木
(tree),
犭
(hound),
言
(speak),
走
(run), followed by hapaxes
6. PATH
Contour {circle, straight, zigzag, contour, crisscross, curve, expansive}
Energy {low, medium, high} Motor pattern
Figure-induced behaviour
[Posture]
[Step]
[Leg]
[Instrument]
{attitude, ph
ysical, purpose}
{crouched, erect, hanging, horizontal,
leaning, sitting, posture}
{size, type}
{one, two, three, four, four+, leg}
{object, transport}
{full body motion, obstructed, swim, blow, fall
,
low, lutter, y, hang, jump, oscillate, roll, run,
walk, wind/wrap}
Rate {very fast, fast, medium, slow, very slow, none}
Force{smooth, forceful, controlled, unrestrained, force}
Regularity {regular, irregular, once}
Casualness {expected, sudden}
Sound {mute, quiet, sound, loud, sound not salient}
{andative, venitive}
{along, all directions, away, around, backforth, downward, upward,
forward, inward, outward, through, toward, back, from, of, direction}
Deixis
Direction
7. MANNER
Nuckolls
Aspect ) or Croft
(
events (
inal Animacy (
) with values like
and
method ( ) is
applied to the variable
4 Results
4.1 First- and Second-Level Components
anal
shows that Direction () is correlated moderately well to all three dimen
η2
Dim1=0.42, η2
Dim2=0.39, η2
Dim3=0.48
equally salient in
with aspects of
Radical (
) is relatively
) was primary in the
)
but does not necessarily exclude other accounts that analyze Chinese motion
(
) and Causer (
(
Template (
(
4.2 Third-Level Components
shows the snapshot of
and
the levels that contribute more than the expected contribution under the null
)
氵
(
(
亻足
The bottom of
山 糸) associated with
Compare these observations with
) section are contrasted with a top half of
move (
by the 羽
(風
Let us now focus on the expressions as shown in
namely that of
4.3 Motion Ideophones Clustered
dimensions of the ) from
Cluster Chinese Pinyin Definition
plant 岺嶙 línglín
plant 旖旎
plant 綝縿
human 蹉跌 trip and tumble
human 躞蹀
human 伶俜
animal 潢潢 huàng
huàng
animal 菈擸
animal 狉狉
rain 蘂蘂
rain 嫖姚
rain 滴瀝
wind 蔌蔌 sùsù
wind 歊歊
wind 飂飂 liáoliáo
water 橈橈 náonáo
easily
water 浼浼
water 泱灢
bird 翂翂
bird 誂越
bird 屏營 bíngyíng
a
Chinese literary ideophones (supplementary variables)
dimensional scatterplot (
5 Conclusion and Outlook
(
(
亻
foot 足氵山糸羽風
口
radical (;
to dimensionality reduction techniques like
tions that enable direct distance comparisons between motion ideophone
; )
Acknowledgments
action at
References
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曹瑞芳普通话式形容词的定量分析《语文研
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Quantitative Studies in Polysemy and Synonymy
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R Core Team
Systems
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