Spoken Language Iconicity: An Articulatory-based Analysis of 66 Languages

• Main Authors: Joo, Ian, 朱易安
• Other Authors: Lai, Yu-Wen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/96bb2q

碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 外國語文學系外國文學與語言學碩士班 === 106 === Is the phonetic form of a lexical item related to its semantic value in any way? For example, do rounded vowels occur more frequently in lexical items that refer to round objects than unrounded vowels do? Based on a wordlist of 100 basic lexical terms from 66 genealogically unrelated languages, I have investigated whether each term tends to be represented by morphemes containing or not containing certain sounds. The results show that 36 out of 100 meanings show preference or dispreference for certain sounds, many of these correlations supported by previous experimental studies and/or cross-checked by other typological studies. For instance, morphemes that refer to round body parts (`navel', `neck', `breast', and `knee') frequently bear rounded vowels, possibly due to the articulatory similarity between lip rounding and round shapes. Morphemes that signify oral actions correlate with the similar articulatory gestures (e. g. `to blow' = labial consonants, fricatives, and rounded vowels). These correlations once again demonstrate that the mapping between sound and meaning in spoken languages may not be entirely arbitrary but can be, to some degree, iconic.