A dataset of ideophone-like marked words from German children´s books

Ideophones are prime examples of linguistic iconicity, that is, the resemblance between aspects of form and meaning in language. Yet, ideophones do not merely resemble events or perceptions; they actively “depict sensory imagery” (Dingemanse 2019). This paper presents a new, openly accessible dataset of ideophone-like marked words collected from German children’s literature. Building on work reported in Ćwiek (2022, Chapter 4), I outline the motivations, data collection methods, and preliminary observations. While extensive research has documented ideophones in languages such as Japanese, Bantu languages, Quechua, and others (Akita 2009; Childs 1988; Dingemanse 2011; Nuckolls 1996; Reiter 2011; Westermann 1937), their role in German remains largely unexplored. Thus, rather than referring to these items as established ideophones, I term them “ideophone-like marked words” to acknowledge uncertainty regarding their grammatical status and iconic potential in German. The dataset is freely available on OSF at https://osf.io/6udxz/ (Ćwiek 2024), offering researchers a valuable resource for investigating the nature and function of ideophone-like expressions in German and beyond.