Iconicity ratings really do measure iconicity, and they open a new window onto the nature of language

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bodo Winter ◽  
Marcus Perlman
Keyword(s):  
Construct Validity ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
Neighborhood Density ◽  
Alternative Account ◽  
Actual Form ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Pragmatic Aspects

Abstract This paper reviews recent research using participant ratings to measure the iconicity (form-meaning resemblance) of words and signs. This method, by enabling wide coverage of lexical items and cross-linguistic comparison, has revealed systematic patterns in how iconicity is distributed across the vocabularies of different languages. These findings are consistent with established linguistic and psychological theory on iconicity, and they connect iconicity to factors like learning and acquisition, semantics, pragmatic aspects of language like playfulness, and to the semantic neighborhood density of words and signs. After taking stock of this research, we look critically at the construct validity of iconicity ratings, considering an alternative account of iconicity ratings recently put forward by Thompson, Arthur Lewis, Kimi Akita & Youngah Do. 2020a. Iconicity ratings across the Japanese lexicon: A comparative study with English. Linguistics Vanguard 6. 20190088. They propose that, for most vocabulary, participants might rate the iconicity of different words based on their meaning alone – specifically the degree to which it relates to the senses – independently of actual form-meaning resemblance. We argue that their hypothesis cannot account for many of the various, theory-driven results from this line of research, which strongly support the conclusion that the ratings really do measure iconicity.

Two Indo-Portuguese Creoles in contrast

2002 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Clancy Clements ◽  
Andrew J. Koontz-Garboden
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Independent Origin ◽  
The Common ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Syntactic Properties

This paper presents a comparative study of two Indo-Portuguese creoles, Korlai Creole Portuguese (KP) and Daman Creole Portuguese (DP). Using recently collected data, the phonology, pronominal systems, TMA markers, syntactic properties, and lexical items of KP and DP are compared and contrasted. The question of the common vs. independent origin of KP and DP is also discussed.

scholarly journals De vrouw in het Friese lexicon

2021 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 179-207
Author(s):  
Henk Wolf
Keyword(s):  
Age Groups ◽  
Semantic Space ◽  
Semantic Feature ◽  
Semantic Field ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Folk Tales ◽  
German Word ◽  
Discourse Pragmatics ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Lexical Items

Abstract1 This article discusses the semantic field in Frisian that is covered by the Dutch word vrouw and the German word Frau in the senses of 'woman' and 'wife'. Data are drawn mainly from the Nederlandse Volksverhalenbank, a large online collection of orally transmitted folk tales. The Frisian cognate frou has retained the semantic feature of respectability. This created semantic space for other lexical items, mainly frommes(ke) and minske. These forms were paradigmatically supported by the suppletive plural froulju. Furthermore, discourse pragmatics in Frisian demands for the transmission of more detailed information about the stages of life people are in than is required in Dutch and German. This demand also influences the lexical choices made by Frisian speakers and has led to the lexicalisation of terms for men and women of different age groups. In the sense of 'wife', frou is in competition with wiif.

scholarly journals The configuration of happiness and unhappiness as part of the auditory landscape: the work of Albert Camus

Cahiers ERTA ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 57-79
Author(s):  
Sofia Chatzipetrou
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Auditory Perception ◽  
Albert Camus ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
Field Recording ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Symbolic Universe

This essay aims to analyze the poetics of the soundscape in Albert Camus’ work, based in the notions of happiness and unhappiness. Our purpose will be to define the characteristics of the symbolism of auditory perception, which are elaborated on the double configuration between happiness and unhappiness. The fact that the symbolic universe of Camus outlines a total sensory experience does no longer need to be demonstrated. Starting from his first lyrical writings to the Notebooks, his writing appeals arouses all the senses. Through a comparative study of examples relating to happiness and unhappiness and while underlining the predominant place of silence in Camus’ aesthetics, we will come off to the conclusion that Camus’s work constitutes a real kind of field recording.

‘I hear the smell of roses’

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 397-427
Author(s):  
S. Hamzeh Mousavi ◽  
Mohammad Amouzadeh
Keyword(s):  
Body Part ◽  
The Body ◽  
External Factors ◽  
Frame Semantics ◽  
Internal Factors ◽  
Indirect Contact ◽  
External Frame ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Lexical Items

Abstract This paper investigates the synaesthetic constructions in Persian with the aim of finding out what motivates them despite their incongruous syntactic-semantic assignments. It is argued that these paradoxical elements require a metaphoric/metonymic frame to assign appropriate lexical units (LUs) to their corresponding syntactic categories (NP + rɑ +VP and NP + AP). The discrepancy derives from the semantic aspects for which frame semantics provides two types of explanations: internal and external frame factors. Internal factors deal with the metaphoric/metonymic compatibility or similarity between frames, while external factors underline the use of lexical items from one subframe to fill the vocabulary gap of a different subframe. The argument is that this gap owes much to the indirect contact between the Phenomenon (e.g., an odorous substance) and the Body-part (e.g., nose) that perceives it. In short, the analysis of our data reveals that synaesthesia is not only an economical strategy for modifying the senses, but also a natural mental strategy for interpreting vague experiences. A configuration of the incongruent construction of ‘smell’ and ‘hearing’ will be proposed to generalize such an analysis.

Reid on Testimony and Perception

1985 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 21-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Lehrer ◽  
John-Christian Smith
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
Psychological Theory ◽  
The Senses

Reid defended common sense against scepticism by appeal to the claim that our faculties should be considered trustworthy until some argument proves them to be untrustworthy. He believed, of course, that no such argument would be forthcoming. In this paper, we shall investigate Reid's defense of the faculty of perception and the evidence of the senses by analogy with the faculty of language and the evidence of testimony. Reid argued that the evidence of testimony should be trusted unless there is reason to think it untrustworthy and by analogy, that the evidence of the senses should be trusted unless there is reason to think it untrustworthy. He admitted the fallibility of such evidence but contended that such fallibility is characteristic of all our faculties. Moreover, and perhaps most important, Reid developed a psychological theory of the faculties of perception and language that showed the analogy between these two faculties to be very exact indeed.

scholarly journals Конфессиональная лексика в русском переводе энциклики папы Франциска Laudato si’ – пространство традиции и современности

2021 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-231
Author(s):  
Małgorzata Wideł-Ignaszczak
Keyword(s):  
Russian Translation ◽  
Publishing House ◽  
Russian Language ◽  
Religious Language ◽  
Russian Version ◽  
Semantic Fields ◽  
Church Hierarchy ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Pragmatic Aspects ◽  
The Church

The paper provides a study of religious lexis excerpted from the Russian translation of the encyclical letter Laudato si’. The Russian version of the encyclical was translated and published by Russian Franciscan Publishing House. The analyzed material consisting of single words, as well as compound multi-word expressions, related to the Catholic denomination (264 lexical items – 1000 uses, which accounts for 14% of the entire encyclical), was grouped into semantic fields. The vocabulary was described in terms of the semantics and its functioning and codification, both in the contemporary Russian religious language and in general Russian language. It was assumed that the encyclical is addressed not only to the representatives of the Church hierarchy but also to all the faithful. Hence, there was the need to draw attention to the pragmatic aspects of the religious language, including the balance between comprehensibility and the use of specialist theological terminology in the translated text. It was demonstrated that the majority of the lexical items of religious terminology is coded by the explanatory dictionary of the contemporary Russian language, except for 14 lexical items related to the Catholic denomination that enhance the lexis of the contemporaryRussian language.

Variable direction in zero-derivation and the unity of polysemous lexical items

2010 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frans Plank
Keyword(s):  
Word Class ◽  
Variable Direction ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Lexical Items ◽  
Lexical Classification

The adjective, noun, and verb fett/Fett/fett- ‘fat’ in German are polysemous in each word class. The zero-derivational relationships that hold between them are described. The theoretical points are made (i) that, in cases of polysemy, individual senses rather than lexical items as a whole are involved in zero-derivation, and (ii) that, in this particular case, the direction of derivation differs depending on which of the senses are implicated, going from noun to adjective (substance to contentiveness) or from adjective to noun (dimension to state), and thereby precluding the designation of one lexical classification as basic tout court. The implication of such cases is that, with their individual semantic components so autonomous as to be alternately basic and derived in different morphological oppositions, ‘lexical entries’, categorised in terms of word class, cannot be the integral principal organising units of mental lexicons and dictionaries they are commonly taken to be.

German Lexical Units Containing the Suffixoid -Weise and their Equivalents in the Bulgarian Language

2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 360-371
Author(s):  
Elena Nikolova-Kiskinova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Comparative Study ◽  
Open System ◽  
High Frequency ◽  
Research Interest ◽  
German Language ◽  
Original Fiction ◽  
Sentence Meaning ◽  
Frequency Of Use ◽  
Lexical Items

Our research interest was provoked by a group of lexical units typical of the German language, containing the productive suffix -weise. These words represent an open system, the representatives of which show a high frequency of use, and nuance the sentence meaning in a distinctive way. The present comparative study between the two unrelated languages, based on a corpus of excerpts from the original fiction and published translated texts from and into German, aims to identify and analyze possible options for precise bilateral translation of the respective lexical items. The analysis made is extremely useful and necessary to overcome the difficulties identified in the course of teaching German as a foreign language, and contributes to the formulation of clear concepts for achieving accurate equivalent translation.

scholarly journals Selected aspects of the conceptualisation of success in English and Polish

2020 ◽  
pp. 109-129
Author(s):  
Katarzyna Lach Mirghani ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Meaning Construction ◽  
The Other ◽  
Abstract Concepts ◽  
Target Domain ◽  
Conceptual Integration ◽  
Complex Processes ◽  
Abstract Entities ◽  
The Senses ◽  
The Mind

Conceptualisation is “the process of meaning construction to which language contributes. It does so by providing access to rich encyclopaedic knowledge and by prompting for complex processes of conceptual integration” (Evans 2007: 38). Concrete, non-abstract entities are easy to grasp and to conceptualise with the use of the senses. A problem occurs when the mind has to form an idea about abstract concepts that cannot be seen, heard, smelled, or tasted. Linguists (Evans & Green 2006; Gibbs 1999; Kövecses 2010; Lakoff 1986; Lakoff & Johnson 2003) proved that people share a tendency to create conceptual analogies between abstract concepts and concrete entities by mapping the properties of the latter upon the former. It has been proved (Trojszczak 2016, 2017) that people share conceptualisations between languages. The primary goal of this comparative study was to examine the conceptualisation of success in two languages, English and Polish, in order to identify differences and similarities. The results of the study proved that people share the conceptualisation of the analysed target domain in both languages, which means they understand success in the same terms. There is a difference in the intensity, however; some metaphors are more widely used in one language and some in the other. There is also a difference in the linguistic expressions that constitute the conceptualisations.

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