i was reading monster recently (perfect edition vol. 6 pictured above) when i came across this instance of an onomatopoeia that caught my eye. here's how we can probably interpret these two panels:
upper middle: カタカタ = shaking, trembling
upper left: ガタガタ ガタガタ = trembling harder, shuddering
there are two basic differences here:
amount of onomatopoeia: four moras (カタカタ) vs. eight moras (ガタガタ ガタガタ)
quality of consonant: カ vs. ガ
now if you know me, you know i'm going somewhere with this vague "quality" term, but let's hold off on that for just a second to state the obvious: more is more!
well, duh, right? but it's still worth saying! compare these two sentences:
どんどん暖かくなっていく。 = it's getting warmer.
どんどんどんどん暖かくなっていく。 = it's getting warmer and warmer.
the difference carries over into english pretty nicely. it's a little redundant, or even childish-sounding, but it makes sense! so we can apply the same principle to the monster panel above:
カタカタカタカタ = shaking and shaking
so, with more of the onomatopoeia, we get more of the action, because it's lasting longer or getting stronger or for whatever other reason. but what about the other change in the onomatopoeia...?
let's take a dip into romaji here: these two kana are ka and ga. thinking about it phonologically, they're a consonant+vowel group. let's look at the consonants:
/k/ = voiceless velar plosive
/g/ = voiced velar plosive
"velar plosive" sounds complicated, but it's just a scientific description of where the consonant is made (the velum = back of mouth) and how the consonant is made (by "exploding" = closing something, in this case your tongue, and then releasing it). what's important here is the voiceless and voiced distinction!
if you've never encountered this distinction before, here's your fun first-timer's experiment: touch your throat and say ssssssss. now do zzzzzzz. feel the difference? your vocal cords (yes, it's spelled cords) vibrate when you do zzzzzzz, but not ssssssss. that's the voicing distinction! sounds that vibrate (like /z/ and /g/) are voiced. sounds that don't (like /s/ and /k/) are voiceless.
ok, sure, but what of this voiced/voiceless distinction? well...you guys remember kiki and bouba? part of the difference between them is voicing: /k/ is voiceless and /b/ is voiced. as it turns out, the physical impression created by voicing is theorized to be universal in humans. in other words, voiced sounds "look" different than voiceless sounds! hence why kiki (voiceless /k/) is spiky and bouba (voiced /b/) is round.*
so what other impressions can voicing make? in general, voiceless sounds give a softer, lighter impression, while voiced sounds give a harder, heavier impression. this can even extend metaphorically to voiceless sounds giving a "good" impression and voiced sounds giving a "bad" impression. let's compare some pairs of onomatopoeiae with /k/ and /g/:
キラキラ /kirakira/ = glittering
ギラギラ /giragira/ = glaring
here's a famous one! the onomatopoeia /kirakira/ (with voiceless /k/) gives the impression of something light and pretty, while /giragira/ (with voiced /g/) gives the impression of something so bright it hurts to look at. we can even do a similar comparison in english: the double /t/ in glittering is voiceless, while the /r/ in glaring is voiced!
here's one that gives a physical impression instead of a visual impression:
our voiceless option, /konkon/, sounds like a polite knock on someone's office door. the voiced option, /gongon/, sounds like rapping a metal knocker as hard as you can (or like, a siege engine, lol). again, we can observe a similar pattern in english, with banging containing way more voiced sounds--in fact, in my english, that word is entirely voiced! (put your hand on your throat and test it!)
we can even have sensations playing out this way:
ギンギン /gingin/ = throbbing
honestly, i would say neither pulsing nor throbbing is a particularly good sensation, but i definitely know throbbing is worse (or at least stronger...). again, for the english, the /p/ and /s/ in pulsing (the マシな option) are voiceless, while the double /b/ in throbbing is voiced.
last of all, let's return to the example from our monster panel above:
カタカタ /katakata/ = shaking
ガタガタ /gatagata/ = shuddering
i'm sure it's now blindingly obvious what's going on here, but let's spell it out for thoroughness's sake: if you're shaking or trembling a bit, that's カタカタ, but if it gets worse and bigger and harder to control, that's ガタガタガタガタ! basically, as poor detective suk gets more and more scared, his shakes get worse and worse. 可哀想にね。suk刑事、頑張れよ...!!
*there are other reasons for this specific case, too, so look it up if you're interested!
there's only so many sounds out there!
so, what did we learn? well, possibly we learned some useful new onomatopoeia, especially ones that you're likely to see in manga. but also, we learned how, on a very high level, sounds sound the same to everyone who can hear them. the human vocal organs are restricted in size, shape, and acoustic power, so more or less everyone is making the same sounds as each other (compared to, for example, birds or whales or stars...). that means everyone's brain computes sound similarly, too, and we end up with strong, shared impressions like "/g/ is hard and heavy" or "/b/ is round and buoyant." this is phonology, but it's also phonetics and acoustics, and it's also even neuroscience and cognitive science!
of course, if we want to look at the matter through another lens--especially a cross-linguistic lens--sounds don't actually sound to same to anyone, but that's a story for another time. as always, feel free to send a message with any questions or comments :) みんなで言語学を楽しんでよう！
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