Onomatopoeia

How do languages capture and represent the sounds of the world? Is this a universal phenomenon? Drawing from data taken from 124 different languages this innovative book offers a detailed exploration of onomatopoeia that are imagic icons of sound events. It provides comprehensive analysis from both theoretical and empirical perspectives and identifies the prototypical semiotic phonological morphological syntactic word-formation and socio-pragmatic features of onomatopoeia. Supported with numerous examples from the sample languages the book highlights the varied scope of onomatopoeia in different languages its relationship to ideophones and interjections and the role of sound symbolism particularly phonesthemes in onomatopoeia-formation. It introduces an onomasiological model of onomatopoeia-formation identifies onomatopoeic patterns and specifies the factors affecting the similarities and differences between onomatopoeias standing for the same sound event. Filling a major gap in language studies it is essential reading for researchers and students of phonology morphology semiotics poetics and linguistic typology.