Figurative (onomatopoeic) vocabulary of sound-mimic origin: Comparative analysis

The article compares figurative (onomatopoeic) words of sound-mimic origin in Yakut and Japanese. The study aims to determine the relationship patterns between semantics and phonetic structure of Yakut figurative words and Japanese onomatopoeics using the example of a group of words of sound-mimic origin. Based on L. N. Kharitonov’s idea about the sound-mimic origin of some figurative words in the Yakut language and on S. V. Chironov’s idea about articulatory symbolism of Japanese onomatopoeic words, this paper attempts to supplement the list of figurative words of sound-mimic origin from Yakut and Japanese funds. The study uses dictionary definition analysis, linguistic description and comparative-contrastive method to process the material. As a result, the identified figurative (onomatopoeic) words of sound-mimic origin in both languages were divided into thematic subgroups according to their referential features and semantics: “face”, “mouth” (“smile”), “lips” in Yakut and “facial expression”, “smile”, “speech”, “eat”, “tongue” in Japanese. It was found that “sound-mimicry” is manifested by the initial nasal consonants м, нь in Yakut and n in Japanese. Meanwhile, vowels in Yakut figurative words of sound-mimic origin can determine the form of the depicted object while in Japanese onomatopoeic words they determine the dynamism of the action.