ЗВУКОИЗОБРАЖЕНИЕ – КОМУНИКАТИВНО ПРИСПОСОБЯВАНЕ НА БЪЛГАРСКИТЕ ИДЕОФОНИ
SOUND DEPICTION – COMMUNICATIVE ADAPTATION OF THE BULGARIAN IDEOPHONES

Author(s): Mira Kovacheva
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Факултет по славянски филологии, Софийски университет »Св. Кл. Охридски«
Keywords: ideophones; spoken language; mimesis; semantic change
Summary/Abstract: As a typological category ideophones are phonologically and grammatically marked wordsthat depict sensory imagery. It is common to confuse ideophones with interjections but they have distinct meanings. They may be onomatopoeic but not necessarily – their iconicity may represent sensorimotor simulations, too, such as trajectory or manner of movement. They are typical of spoken language as depictions in contrast to description, which is the usual mode of linguistic expression. Bulgarian ideophones have their respective cognate verbs. Alternatively, verbs can be clipped to form ideophones. This is an interesting case of adapting lexical material as depictive tools in spontaneous spoken language. The paper discusses a case in which the interaction between the descriptive and depictive mode of communication goes one step further: the verb цъфвам/цъфна “to (burst in) flower” seems to have developed the meaning “to appear suddenly”under the influence of an ideophone with the same value.

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