Iconicity as an organizing principle of the lexicon.

ABSTRACT: The view that words are arbitrary is a foundational assumption about language, used to set human languages apart from nonhuman communication. We present here a study of the alignment between the semantic and phonological structure (systematicity) of American Sign Language (ASL), and for comparison, two spoken languages-English and Spanish. Across all three languages, words that are semantically related are more likely to be phonologically related, highlighting systematic alignment between word form and word meaning. Critically, there is a significant effect of iconicity (a perceived physical resemblance between word form and word meaning) on this alignment: words are most likely to be phonologically related when they are semantically related and iconic. This phenomenon is particularly wide

SUBMITTER: Campbell EE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12037011 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature