The iconicity ring model for sound symbolism

Abstract

The ‘iconicity ring model’ proposed in this chapter depicts a lexicon’s evolutionary path from genuine iconicity (termed ‘primary iconicity’) to arbitrariness to another type of iconicity (termed ‘emergent iconicity’) that emerges from linguistic systematicity. The model captures the universality and language-specificity of sound symbolism and its role in lexical acquisition. Iconicity loss in ideophones illustrates the shift from primary iconicity to arbitrariness, whereas ideophonization exemplifies the shift from arbitrariness to emergent iconicity via systematicity. The two types of iconicity are mixed together in individual lexicons, providing a clue to the symbol grounding problem.