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This diachronically deals with semantic changes in onomatopoeic forms in kara, koro, and kuru, which are adjectival bases for onomatopee in Japanese, from the cognitive semantic perspective. Analysis was performed in three different categories—sound, motion, and shape. First, onomatopoeic forms derived from kara or koro in modern Japanese imply ‘to roll’, while an investigation of the Ancient Japanese reveals that they originally had the core meaning of ‘to hit’. It is thought that the meaning of ‘to roll’ assumed this core meaning starting in the literature of Middle Japanese. This is distinctively different from the case of the adjectival base kuru, which has had a core meaning of ‘to roll’ since the Ancient era. In addition, because the adjectival bases kara and koro connoted ‘to hit’, they often convey ‘the sounds of objects colliding together’. However, since kara and koro have different background images, they have developed represent different nuances when extended to the meaning of ‘the sound of people laughing’ since the Middle era. In other words, the adjectival base kara, which had typically exhibited a mainly auditory meaning with associated behavior, has come to imply a visual meaning due to a focus on the ‘act’ of making the sound. On the other hand, the adjectival bases koro and kuru, which originally conveyed visual meanings, have changed their meaning within a range not significantly deviating from a core image of ‘to roll’. Lastly, turning to morphology, the adjectival base koro serves as a suffix by focusing on the meaning of ‘round shape’, which changed to the meaning of ‘easily changed’ due to the image of a round shape implying ‘easily movable even when little force is applied’. In addition, the adjectival base kuru has been used to represent the shape of a vigorously spinning top in the sense of ‘smoothly’, while also accommodating the meaning of ‘frantically moving’ as well.