What is an ideophone?

Definition
	An ideophone is a member of a set of words that
	are phonologically distinguishable from other words in a language are often onomatopoeic, and form one or more syntactic classes or subclasses, most typically adverbial.

Examples (Hausa)
	Hausa adverbs have a distinctive obstruent-vowel-obstruent pattern, as in the following: kaf ‘completely’ kas ‘specklessly’ kat ‘with a snapping sound’

Generic
	An ideophone is a kind of
	What is a word?

Source
	Schachter 1985 21

Context for this page:

Concept module: ideophone
In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): I
In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004

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