ICONICITY IN CONSONANTAL LANGUAGES
Keywords:
language typology, language with high ratio of consonants to vowels, iconicity, phonemic inventory, sound imitation
Abstract
The article discusses the semiotic approach to language typology and suggests that structural features are interdependent with imagic and diagrammatic iconicity of encoding. It is argued that certain linguistic characteristics tend to occur together with semiotic ones, that is the syllabic pattern complexity determines the productivity of mimetic reduplication, agglutination encourages the principle of semantic iconicity, while the type of word-changing paradigm appeals to the principle of constructive iconicity. It is hypothesized that the type of phonemic inventory may imply the presence of productive imagic iconicity, and languages relying on the high ratio of consonants to vowels tend to be better adjusted to mimetic (sound symbolic) encoding of a particular set of meanings. To support the hypothesis, the article tackles the cases of genetically unrelated Abkhaz and Zulu.
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3. Chirikba V. A Dictionary of Common Abkhaz. Leiden : BRILL, 1996. 126 p.
4. Comrie B. Language Universals and Linguistic Typology: Syntax and Morphology. 2nd ed. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1989. 264 p.
5. Croft W. Explaining Language Change. Harlow : Longman, 2000. 287 p.
6. Croft W. Typology and Universals. 2nd ed. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2002. 341 p.
7. Döhne J. L. A Zulu-Kafir Dictionary: Etymologically Explained, with Copious Illustrations and Examples, Preceded by an Introduction on the Zulu-Kafir Language. Cape Town : G. J. Pike’s Machine Printing Office, 1857. 417 p. Access mode: http://books.google.ru/books?id=kCFKAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=ru#v=onepage&q&f=false
8. Dryer M. S. & Haspelmath M. (eds.). The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig : Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. 2013. Access mode: http://wals.info
9. Dryer M. S. Genealogical Language List. M. S. Dryer & M. Haspelmath (eds.). The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig : Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. 2013. Access mode: http://wals.info/chapter/s4
10. Fischer O. Cognitive iconic grounding of reduplication in language. P. Michelucci, O. Fischer & Ch. Ljungberg (eds.). Semblamce and Signification. Amsterdam : John Benjamins Publishing, 2011. P. 55–82.
11. Greenberg J. H. Indo-European and its closest relatives. Vol. 2: Lexicon Stanford : Stanford University Press, 2002. 232 p.
12. Greenberg J. H. Language Typology. The Hague : Mouton, 1974. 83 p.
13. Greenberg J. H. Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. S. Kemmer & K. M. Denning (eds.). On Language: Selected Writings of Joseph H. Greenberg. Stanford : Stanford University Press, 2002. P. 40–70.
14. Haiman J. Natural Syntax: Iconicity and Erosion. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1985. 285 p.
15. Kibrik А. Е. Constants and Variables of Language (in Russian). Saint-Petersburg: ALETHEIA, 2003. 720 p.
16. Kozlova T. Ikonichnist’ y leksyci indojeuropejs’koij pramovy (in Ukrainian) / Iconicity in Proto-Indo-European Lexicon. Zaporizhzhia : Krugozir, 2015. 640 p.
17. Kruchkova О. Yu. Reduplikacija v aspekte jazykovoj tipologii (in Russian) / Reduplication in language typology perspective. Voprosy jazykoznanya 2000. # 4. P. 68-84.
18. Langendonck W. Categories of word order iconicity. M. E. Landsberg (ed.). Syntactic Iconicity and Linguistic Freezes: The Human Dimension. Berlin : Walter de Gruyter, 1995. P. 79–90.
19. Mufwene S. Restructuring, hybridization and complexity in language evolution. E. O. Aboh & N. Smith (eds.). Complex Processes in New Languages. Amsterdam : John Benjamins Publishing, 2009. P. 367-400.
20. Mufwene S. The Ecology of Language Evolution. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2001. 255 p.
21. Ruhlen M. On the Origin of Languages: studies in linguistic taxonomy. Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 1994. 342 p.
22. Shibatani M. & Bynon Th. (eds.). Approaches to Language Typology. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1999. 381 p.
23. Starostin S. North Caucasian etymology. The Tower of Babel. An Etymological Database Project in Conjunction with The Global Lexicostatistical Database. Moscow, 1998–2013. Access mode : http://starling.rinet.ru/
24. Thomason S. G. & Kaufman T. Language Contact, Creolization, and Genetic Linguistics. Los Angeles, California : University of California Press Ltd, 1991. 428 p.
25. Wanja N. P. A Study of Morphological Reduplication in Kiembu. A Research Project Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Award of Master of Art Degree, Department of Linguistics and Languages. University of Nairobi, 2014. 85 p. URL: http://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke/bitstream/handle/11295/75462/Nyaga_A%20Study%20of%20Morphological%20Reduplication%20in%20Kiembu.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y
26. Wheeler M. W. On the hierarchy of naturalness principles in inflectional morphology. Journal of Linguistics. 1993. Vol 29, Issue 1. P. 95-111.
Published
2019-03-26
How to Cite
KOZLOVA, T. O. (2019). ICONICITY IN CONSONANTAL LANGUAGES. New Philology, (75), 35-40. Retrieved from http://novafilolohiia.zp.ua/index.php/new-philology/article/view/89
Section
Articles
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