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Japanese has a large inventory of sound symbolic or mimetic words, known in linguistics as ideophones. Sound symbolic words are found in written as well as spoken Japanese. Known popularly as onomatopoeia, these words are not just imitative of sounds but cover a much wider range of meanings; indeed, many sound-symbolic words in Japanese are for things that don't make any noise originally, most clearly demonstrated by しいんと ''shiinto'', meaning "silently". ==Categories== The sound-symbolic words of Japanese can be classified into four main categories: *Animate phonomime (擬声語 ''giseigo'') :words that mimic sounds made by living things, like a dog's bark. *Inanimate phonomime (擬音語 ''giongo'') :words that mimic sounds made by inanimate objects, like wind blowing or rain falling. *Phenomime (擬態語 ''gitaigo'') :words that depict states, conditions, or manners of the external world (non-auditory senses), such as "damp" or "stealthily". *Psychomime (擬情語 ''gijōgo'') :words that depict psychological states or bodily feelings. These divisions are not always drawn: sound-symbolism may be referred to generally as onomatopoeia (though strictly this refers to imitative sounds, phonomimes); phonomimes may not be distinguished as animate/inanimate, both being referred to as ''giseigo''; and both phenomimes and psychomimes may be referred to as ''gitaigo''. In Japanese grammar, sound symbolic words primarily function as adverbs, though they can also function as verbs (verbal adverbs) with the auxiliary verb する (''suru'', "do"), often in the continuous/progressive form している (''shiteiru'', "doing"), and as adjectives (participle) with the perfective form of this verb した (''shita'', "done"). Just like ideophones in many other languages, they are often introduced by a quotative complementizer と (''to''). Most sound symbolic words can be applied to only a handful of verbs or adjectives. In the examples below, the classified verb or adjective is placed in square brackets. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Japanese sound symbolism」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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