Языки стран Дальнего Востока, Юго-Восточной Азии и Западной Африки

31 Stella T. Zhivkova | Sound Symbolism of Japanese Onomatopoeia as a Determining Factor... “story”; only the ingrained emotional impact of sounds borrowed from language. Thus, remembering a melody by means of kuchishōga is not a mere process of solmization, but a creative process of forging sounds with a frame of reference into a complex image packed sensorium. For the sake of brevity, analysis only of the initial mnemonic syllable of the famous Rokudan no Shirabe will be performed. The first syllable is ten . It is played by the basic forward plucking of the string with the thumb (Kawada 1986: 163). The only embellishment here is the hikiiro  1 . The initial consonant t is among the initial obstruents, which convey the idea of something light, small, fine, or thin (Hamano 1998: 83).It can be said that the role of the t sound in this syllable is to provide the melody with a mellow and elegant opening. The following vowel e , which is of particular linguistic interest, is unanimously claimed to carry connotations of vulgarity and inappropriateness (Tamori 2003: 165). In common language, there is some restraint on the usage of this vowel in onomatopoeic words. It only tends to express some negative extremity as in the examples: g e ssoriyaseru to become very thin; k e ra-k e rawarau to laugh in an impolite manner. Hamano points out that e is markedly less frequently found in gitaigo and giongo words and has an evaluative meaning that the other vowels do not possess ( Hamano 1998:47, 76). In the elegant opening of the famous melody this “vulgar” wide-open vowel is probably meant to exert a powerful inaugural impact on the listener. As a final element of the first syllable, n indicates that the direction of the motion or the quality of the sound changes toward the end. In other words, n could be said to represent the reverberation between the sounds the initial movement (Hamano 1998: 67). Pronunciation of the Japanese n is indeed a result of sonorous reverberation produced in the nasal cavity. Tamori makes an analogy between this very common in all types of mimetic words nasal sound and the deep, lingering sound of the temple bells (Tamori 2003: 136). The physical characteristic of n determines the expressive nasal quality of the sound and accounts for its usage in cases such as: pu n -pu n niou to reek (stink) aloud, ku n -ku n kagu to sniff. The sound-symbolic characteristics of the elements of the first kuchishōga syllable of Rokudan no Shirabe represent the sound of the first stroke played 1 Hikiiro is a left-hand technique which is played by pulling the string on the left of the bridge supporting the string. Played after plucking the string with the plectra, this pulling technique contributes to producing a softer after-tone.