ABSTRACT
Japanese and Korean, considered to form the closest subgroup among Eurasian languages, are both well known for having an extensive system of ideophones. Ideophones in these languages show similar morpho-syntactic properties, but phonologically, their differences are more pronounced than their similarities. Furthermore, while Japanese ideophones form a relatively closed vocabulary class, Korean ideophones are closely intertwined with prosaic words. The hallmarks of Korean ideophones, consonant mutation and vowel ablaut, make prosaic words more like ideophones (Lee 1992). Prosaic words can also become full-fledged ideophones if they undergo certain structural changes. There seems little to suggest a historical connection between Japanese and Korean in the phonological patterns of these two ideophonic systems. However, this chapter reveals peculiar correspondences between Japanese and Korean ideophonic roots that have a liquid in non-initial position and proposes that the systematic use and shared abstract semantics of the liquid in ideophones may be explored as a candidate for a feature uniquely connecting these two languages.
