A pragmatic and typological analysis of ideophones and evolution of language with special reference to Japaense and English

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K00681
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Review Section: Basic Section 02080:English linguistics-related
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba
• Principal Investigator: Kanetani Masaru 筑波大学, 人文社会系, 准教授 (50547908)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-04-01 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: イディオフォン / 言語進化 / 構文文法 / 日英語対照 / 語用論 / 表出機能

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Based on John Haiman's (2018) hypothesis that ideophones developed as a bridging element between current human language and its precursors, this research aims to elucidate the process of evolution of language by analyzing idiophones from the perspective of pragmatic typology. First, the depictive and multimodal expressive function that ideophones bear was described within the framework of a multimodal construction grammar. Next, based on the privateness of ideophones, the distributive difference of idiophones in Japanese and English was explained. Lastly, by observing the use of ideophones during children's language development, it was indirectly shown that ideophones served as a bridge between gesture and spoken language in the evolution of language.

Free Research Field

英語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

イディオフォンは、通言語的に分布の多寡はある（日本語には豊富で英語には少ないなど）ものの普遍的に観察されるカテゴリーである（Voletz and Kilian-Hatz 2001）。一方、言語分析においては、おそらくその有標性から周辺的な現象として研究が限定的であった。そこに近年研究が進展している言語進化という学際的研究領域の観点から光を当てることで、言語研究（とくに構文文法理論と語用論）におけるイディオフォンの記述を強化するとともに、言語進化と言語獲得の過程の平行性を示す経験的な証拠を加えることで、言語進化の研究にも貢献ができた。