Phenomenon-Based Perception Verbs in Swedish from a Typological and Contrastive Perspective

2.2. Sensory sound verbs
In many European languages, there is a relatively high number (around 
100 in English and Swedish) of sensory sound verbs. It is possible to 
describe such verbs with reference to psychoacoustic properties such 
as low-pitched (buzz) and high-pitched (hiss), intensity or loudness 
(boom) or the temporal characteristics: continuous (sough), frequen-
tative (rattle, clatter), and punctual (snap). Table 5 shows the system 
of temporal distinctions with examples in Swedish.
Table 5. A selection of sensory sound verbs in Swedish
Continuous
Frequentative 
-ra
Punctual 
V + till
susa
knarra
knattra
knastra
fräsa till
fräsa
smattra
tjattra
kvittra
väsa
muttra
puttra
huttra
vina
slamra
klappra
skallra
mullra
bullra
dundra
klirra
knorra
surra
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Phenomenon-Based Perception Verbs in Swedish…
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In Finnish, the temporal distinctions can be expressed systematically 
with derivational suffixes in sound verbs (Anttila 1976), see Table 6. 
What makes the number of sound verbs particularly large in Finnish is 
the possibility of forming sets of sound verb roots by varying the vowel 
between consonants as exemplified with one set of the continuous verbs 
in Table 6. Possible sources of the continuous sounds are shown to the 
left (Rea Peltola, personal communication).
Table 6. Examples of sensory sound verbs in Finnish
Possible sources
Conti-
nuous 
-ise-
Frequen-