89142
I am currently reading a recently released remake of 月姫, and I encountered the
following sentence:

> 指で触ってみたら、つぷり、と指先が沈みこんだ

The context is that the character can see lines that no one else can, and he
is describing here what happens if he tries touching them.

I assume its supposed to be the sound that is made, but I can't find anything
about it, so I assume this is one is made by the author.

What kind of rules exist when creating these and understanding what they are
supposed to indicate?

Also, as a minor thing, for what reason would the author put a comma between
the sound and と? It looks odd to me.
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2021-08-30T16:52:04.740
89123
2021-08-31T04:56:52.077
38831
question
onomatopoeia
How are custom onomatopoeia made?
つぷ (or つぷり, つぷっ) is not a new or rare onomatopoeia at all. You can google it
(results may contain materials that are NSFW). It's basically a lighter
variant of ずぶ (or ずぶり,
[ずぶずぶ](https://jisho.org/word/%E3%81%9A%E3%81%B6%E3%81%9A%E3%81%B6), ずぶっ).

Only a very few creative writers try to make totally new onomatopoeias in
their works, and there is no "rule" for such creative activities. Most can be
understood as variations of existing ones (e.g.,
[わきゃわきゃ](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/42931/5010)). Mangaka may tend
to play on onomatopoeias more often because they can explain the situation
using a picture. [This
page](https://sp.comics.mecha.cc/free/mechamaga/articles/onomatopoeia-manga)
introduces some unique onomatopoeias and how they were made.

Rules around commas are generally fairly loose in Japanese, and it's not
uncommon to insert a comma before と. Here, that comma may help the
onomatopoeia stand out from its surroundings. They could have used brackets
(`触れてみたら「つぷり」と`) as well, but commas are less distracting.
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answer
As for creating onomatopoeia in general, I don't think there are anything
clear enough that can be called rules. On rare occasions when they are made,
they are most probably based on existing ones + super fuzzy associations
between sounds and actions or objects, in the following sense. They may well
be based on the sounds that the onomatopoeia describes, but how they sound
(and how they are transcribed) are likely to be affected by existing
onomatopoeia.

===

The rest is about つぷり in particular.

For me, つぷり sounds like you are putting something into water which is kind of
thick and has honey-like tension on the surface. You don't feel any real push
back, but do feel you touch something, then push the finger inside. The
following at least partially explains why I understand it that way.

Apparently there is research on what I called _association_ above. The
following table is from [this
article](https://www.anlp.jp/proceedings/annual_meeting/2019/pdf_dir/D4-8.pdf).

[![onomatopoeia](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2JdJQ.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2JdJQ.png)

つぷ has _t_ as C1 and _p_ as C2, so following this table, it describes
something with weak tension (弱い張力) is breaking/bursting （破裂）.

Of course, it is not that we think in terms of these individual sounds, but
the above 'bursting of something with weak tension' is not too far from the
impression I get to see つぷり.

つぷり may not be completely new, as naruto says, but is not very common either.
Still we see how it sounds because of the kind of associations given above,
and existing onomatopoeia: ちゃぷ（putting slowly something into water),
ぽちゃ（dropping something in water), どぼん（dropping with splash). Note all have
_t,d_ and _b,p_ sounds like many others related to water.

Another thing regarding why つ (instead of other タ行 character): An onomatopoeia
used for moving the tip of your finger along some surface (like swiping on
iPad) is つー(っ).
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answer