LINGUIST List 16.2171
Fri Jul 15 2005
Diss: Phonology/Typology: Wilson: 'From 'Thump' and ...'
Editor for this issue: Megan Zdrojkowski
<meganlinguistlist.org>
Directory
1. Alastair
Wilson,
From 'Thump' and 'Swish' to 'This' and 'That': Sound symbolism in deictic modifiers
Message 1: From 'Thump' and 'Swish' to 'This' and 'That': Sound symbolism in deictic modifiers
Date: 12-Jul-2005
From: Alastair Wilson <a.wilson
lycos.co.uk>
Subject: From 'Thump' and 'Swish' to 'This' and 'That': Sound symbolism in deictic modifiers
Institution: University of Manchester
Program: Department of German
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2005
Author: Alastair Wilson
Dissertation Title: From 'Thump' and 'Swish' to 'This' and 'That': Sound symbolism in deictic modifiers
Linguistic Field(s):
Genetic Classification
Phonology
Typology
Dissertation Director:
William Croft
Dissertation Abstract:
This paper explores the proposed relationship between the deictic modifer
'this' and /i/ and the deictic modifier 'that' and /a/ or /u/. This
relation is tested by a stratified sample; 'yonder' words, present in fewer
than half of the languages sampled, are considered as part of a wider sound
symbolic relationship. This relationship has been tested before, most
notably by Nancy Woodworth; however, this dissertation tests fifty
languages, stratified in a sample based on Rijkhoff et alia's methodology,
which takes high level language families or family proposals into account.
Adaptions are made to Rijkhoff's methodology of genetic stratification,
based on Greenberg, Ruhlen and Croft. These adaptions cause the Americas to
be under-represented; conversely, Australia and Papua New Guinea are better
represented that they have been in previous samples. The sample is little
affected by availability of data.
The results, which consider all contrastive phonemes rather than comparing
pairs of phonemes, show that the relationship is fairly weak; furthermore,
the inclusion of 'yonder' seems to deny and sound symbolism at work
cross-linguistically. When the sample is well-stratified, it is clear that
the original impetus for this proposed sound symbolism comes from
over-representation of African and - particularly - European languages.