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The intent of this dissertation is to provide evidence for the following strong thesis:
The Phonosemantic Hypothesis: In every language of the world, every word containing a given phoneme has some specific element of meaning, which every word not containing that phoneme does not have. In this sense, we can say that every phoneme is meaning-bearing. The meaning that the phoneme bears is rooted in its articulation.
To this end, we make the following definition:
Semantic Association
When semantic domain S is associated disproportionately frequently with phonological form X, then people will be inclined to associate semantic domain S with phonological form X productively (in idioms, connotations, metaphorical extensions and so forth).
This dissertation provides evidence in the form of 14 large scale experiments covering broad portions of the English vocabulary in detail that Semantic Association happens productively on the level of the phoneme. We find that Semantic Association on all linguistic levels is a universal process and is basic to our psychology as linguistic beings. The means we use to deal with the overwhelming masses of obvious counterevidence to the Phonosemantic Hypothesis the existence of dialects, regular sound change (both synchronic and diachronic, paradigmatic and syntagmatic), the impossibility of predicting referents based on phonetic form, etc. is to show that all of these concern only one aspect of the words semantics, and that there are other aspects of word semantics, which are sensitive to phonetic form.
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