Original scientific paper

https://doi.org/10.22210/govor.2023.40.01

An acoustic analysis of a sample of English and Ukrainian onomatopoeias: A pilot study

Renáta Gregová orcid.org/0000-0003-4743-2559 ; Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice *
Dmytro Hrytsu orcid.org/0000-0002-6238-0833 ; Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice

* Corresponding author.

Abstract

Much has been written about the position of onomatopoeias in languages nevertheless, sources dealing with the phonetic nature of these sound-echoing words are very rare. Some notes about the phonetic substance of onomatopoeias can be found in the work of Bredin and also Tsur who offers a more detailed phonetic investigation of sound-imitating expressions in relation to real sounds. On the basis of acoustic analysis of the onomatopoeic expression /ku:ku:/ and of the real sound the cuckoo produces, Tsur comes to the conclusion that such speech sounds are used as equivalents of natural sounds/noises whose phonetic properties best fit the imitated natural sounds. To evaluate this assumption, this pilot study includes acoustic analysis of onomatopoeias from English and Ukrainian. The selected English and Ukrainian verbal imitations of natural sounds (a cat’s meowing, an owl’s hooting, hitting two metal objects together and knocking on a door) were acoustically analyzed in terms of the structure of their sound spectra for comparison with the sound spectra of the natural sounds they imitate.

Keywords

onomatopoeia; sound spectrum; acoustic analysis; English, Ukrainian

Hrčak ID:

309042

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/309042

Publication date:

20.10.2023.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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