Conventional sound symbolism in terms for organs of speech: A cross-linguistic study

• Autores: Matthias Urban
• Localización: Folia lingüística: Acta Societatis Linguisticae Europaeae, ISSN-e 1614-7308, ISSN 0165-4004, Vol. 45, Nº 1, 2011, págs. 199-214
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Drawing on data from a sample of 111 languages, this study examines whether certain segments occur with a higher frequency in terms for �nose�, �lip�, and �tooth� than would be expected if the form�meaning correspondence were fully arbitrary. It is found that this is indeed the case for �nose� and �lip�: cross-linguistically, terms for �nose� contain a higher than average number of nasals, and terms for �lip� are more likely than other vocabulary items to contain a bilabial stop. The upshot is, then, that there is a cross-linguistic tendency for these investigated meanings to be designated by terms with a sound-symbolic component. While intuitively appealing, the motivation for this tendency is far from clear, and the article concludes with some speculations concerning the cause of this phenomenon.