Surplus interword phonological similarity in English multiword units

Abstract

AbstractPrevious studies found that English figurative idioms alliterate at above chance levels. To permit estimation of amounts of surplus alliteration Gries (2011) calculated baseline levels using an analytic method. This article reports a follow-on investigation covering types of multiword unit (MWU) and types of interword, intraMWU phonological similarity (PhS) considered neither by Gries nor by an even earlier study. In contrast to Gries (2011), baseline levels of PhS were estimated using a stochastic method. In samples of figurative idioms upward departures from baseline levels – expressed as standardized effect sizes – ranged from small to medium for assonance, up to large for alliteration, and even larger for rhyme and alliteration-with-assonance. For samples of (relatively) non-idiomatic MWUs upward departures from baselines were generally small or, in the case of academic collocations, downward. The practicality of the stochastic method is discussed, as are a possible role of interword PhS in the conventionalization of word strings and possible roles of interword, intra-idiom PhS in oral communication. Overall, the findings are problematic for a non-usage-based theory but compatible with a cognitive linguistic theory in which motivation can operate entirely within the phonological pole of a MWU.