Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA14384 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Sun, 14 Jan 2001 17:51:40 GMT From: <Zylogy@aol.com> Message-ID: <a2.ebd499d.27934077@aol.com> Date: Sun, 14 Jan 2001 12:48:39 EST Subject: Re: Sound symbolism and language To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk CC: Zylogy@aol.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 5.0 for Windows sub 129 Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Lawrence de Bivort asked, in reply to my original posting, for explations of
the terms phonosemantics and motivation in linguistic signals.
Starting with the latter, there has been an unexamined assumption, passed
down through the generations of linguists since the turn of the 20th century,
that the outward form of a word, either in its surface (phonetic) or deeper
systematic (phonological) manifestations, has no inherent connection with the
meaning it transfers from speaker to hearer. Thus the concept "dog" has very
large numbers of different words associated with it in the various thousands
of languages in the world.
Fair enough.
Such lexical variability appears to be the norm, especially in the noun
portion of the vocabulary (though the standard sample used in historical
comparison as a diagnostic tool, and reconstruction, is really a very small
proportion of the total vocabulary in any language). This has led to a belief
in linguistic circles that anything can go with anything in the linking of
form to meaning. This belief is reinforced in introductory textbooks on
linguistics, in the classroom, and in subtle pressures (or not so subtle)
brought to bear in the office, at meetings, conferences, etc.
When one looks at a different mix of vocabulary, with a different perpective
and purpose, a different view emerges. Verbal (as opposed to nominal)
vocabulary is often rich with patterns which belie the arbitrariness
doctrine. Now I'm not talking here about extended sets of derivations using
the SAME root, but of comparison of sets of forms built out of DIFFERENT
roots. If different roots have complete freedom to convey different meanings,
one should not see such patterning. The historical grinder should have
produced a complete hodgepodge of forms and meanings at the level of the
lexical root. But that is not what you see.
Indeed, even comparing unrelated languages you start to see the same
interconnected sets of forms and meanings (at the root level). The sets are
never completely identical, but often close enough to give one pause.
Believers in macrogenetic relationship of languages often use such
resemblances as "evidence" for their claims (Mayan to Welsh, for ex.).
If such sets of form and meaning linked together in nonrandom ways are
pervasive enough, then one must at least for this subset of total vocabulary
start to reconsider the arbitrariness position. One is left with either
accident or motivation. I don't think accident could account for so many
vocabulary items, over so many unrelated languages, being resemblant in both
form and meaning. That leaves motivation.
Motivation implies that somehow forms and meanings are being pushed together
to some unspecified extent, for whatever reason. And various writers
interested in the topic (which has an extensive bibliographical record going
back even to Plato) have dealt with it more or less effectively. Which leads
us to phonosemantics.
If one has a set of roots in a language say of shape C1VC2 (where C stands
for any consonant including zero and V for vowel), and a whole slew of roots
with same C1 have very similar meanings, then one can hypothesize that C1
itself has some definable meaning component below that of the level of the
root. This goes against the prevailing winds in linguistics. Even though you
can structurally scan an utterance from the most complex combinatorics
(texts, etc.) down through clause and phrase, word and root, phoneme and then
feature and come up with a systematic characterization, "meaning" (as she is
currently construed) parallels only down to roots, and no further.
Anyway, assuming one can, for the particular portion of the root vocabulary
specified, break down those roots into form/meaning partials, one ends up
with a menagerie of such. If there is no rhyme or reason to the mapping of
form to meaning at this level, then we still have arbitrary association,
though motivation at the higher root level. On the other hand, should there
be systematic character to the sets of partials then we have motivation
again, at the level of phonosemantics- defined here as the linking of
phonological form to meaning (so we can be talking full phonemes or even, at
the next lower hierarchical level, features).
In my research, I've found that the structural systematicity which underpins
the phonological system is the same as that which motivates the
phonosemantics. With caveats. We're still left with the "dog" problem. In
some languages there is a high proportion of motivated, phonosemantically
transparent root vocabulary, while in others that proportion is tiny.
I hope I've answered the questions. I'll be happy to give examples, cite
particular authors and their works, and go into what I believe are
explanations for the peculiar mixtures of motivated and de- (not un-)
motivated vocabulary found in living languages as well as the motivation of
the particular form/meaning mappings themselves. Even Plato was interested in
this question.
Jess Tauber
zylogy@aol.com
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