Download or read book The Sound-symbolic System of Japanese written by Shoko Hamano and published by Stanford Univ Center for the Study. This book was released on 1998-01-01 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is the first theoretical study of sound-symbolic expressions in Japanese commonly known as mimetic words. It identifies stringent linguistic constraints on these expressions and demonstrates that they form an intricate linguistic system rather than a collection of ad hoc expressions. It then carefully identifies the sound-symbolic meanings of sound units so as to make the elusive meaning of each sound-symbolic expression fully comprehensible. In addition, this book describes a number of interesting facts about the history of the Japanese language which mimetic words reveal.