ABSTRACT
Onomatopoeia refers to the use of sounds that supposedly echo or suggest the meaning. The domain of onomatopoeia is much vaster than it seems to have been generally believed: it is not limited to imitation of animal sounds such as miao-w imitating the sound of a cat or bow-wow imitating the bark of a dog. Instead, it encompasses any natural or other sounds which may be imitated in some way, such as hiccup imitating the sudden involuntary stopping of the breath with a sharp gulp-like sound.
