Abstract
AbstractBased on the vocabulary of 66 genealogically distinct languages, this study reveals the biased association between phonological features and the 100 lexical meanings of the Leipzig-Jakarta List. Morphemes whose meanings are related to round shapes (‘egg’, ‘navel’, ‘neck’, and ‘knee’) tend to contain phonemes that bear the [+round] feature. Also observable is the positive association between buccal actions and the phonological features they resemble (‘to blow’ with [+labial] and ‘to suck’ with [+delayed release]). Grammatical morphemes related to proximity (‘this’, ‘in’,1sgand2sgpronoun) are positively associated with [+nasal]. The phonosemantic patterns found in the most basic vocabulary of spoken languages further confirm that the sound-meaning association in natural languages is not completely arbitrary but may be motivated by human cognitive biases.
Highlights
A growing body of studies has shown that certain meanings tend to be represented by lexical items bearing certain sounds
Based on the vocabulary of 66 genealogically distinct languages, this study reveals the biased association between phonological features and the 100 lexical meanings of the Leipzig-Jakarta List
As much as Blasi et al.’s study provides us valuable insight on lexical phonosemantic biases, a similar typological study based on a different wordlist
Summary
A growing body of studies has shown that certain meanings tend to be represented by lexical items bearing certain sounds. Blasi et al (2016) examined how the basic vocabulary of thousands of languages shows phonosemantic biases. The study, based on the 6,447 Swadesh Lists (Swadesh 1955) of 4,298 languages, found that 30 out of the 100 Swadesh List terms show preference or dispreference for certain sounds in their phonological representations. Lexemes for ‘tongue’ tend to contain /e/, /%/, or /l/ and not contain /u/ or /k/. As much as Blasi et al.’s study provides us valuable insight on lexical phonosemantic biases, a similar typological study based on a different wordlist
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