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Margaret Magnus What's in a Word? Studies in Phonosemantics Submitted to NTNU for Evaluation for the Degree 'Doctor Philosophi

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Margaret Magnus What's in a Word? Studies in Phonosemantics Submitted to NTNU for Evaluation for the Degree 'Doctor Philosophi Margaret Magnus What’s in a Word? Studies in Phonosemantics Submitted to NTNU for evaluation for the degree 'Doctor Philosophiae' 4/20/01 Acknowledgements To Catherine Chvany and Lars Hellan especially -- two of the finest linguists I have ever had the pleasure to know. My gratitude goes out not only for these last months, but in general for years and years of support, through thick and through thin. When I suggested the possibility to Lars of submitting a dissertation to the University of Trondheim, he didn’t hesitate, but took me on immediately. Catherine has read through this dissertation twice in such minute detail, that I’m almost left with the impression that she knows it better than I do. I’m no less indebted to my beautiful mother, who literally made this work possible by supporting me materially as I was writing it. Her generosity throughout has been unconditional, unsolicited and disarmingly cheerful. She has followed me through this process with great interest as a good friend, advisor and confidante. Thank you also, Greg Carlson, who agreed to fly all the way from Rochester to Norway on behalf of someone he has never met. Thanks to my children, Rachel and Arne, who keep me young and on my toes. Thanks to my baby brother, John, and to his wife, Terri, for providing an alternative place to hang out, shoot the breeze and play Mah Jongg in the evenings. And to all my friends and supporters who have endured my interminable sound-meaning talk and my other extraneous rantings and ravings with a smile, including but not limited to Frank Abbate, Thomas Everth, Joseph Gilbert, Kay Gillespie, Linda Hardesty, Dick Kane, Allen Kaplan, Aron Katsenelinboigen, Irina Kirilenko, TK, Volodya Kozhemiakov, Kristin Kvam, Paul Magnus, Sasha Nizhnikov, Charles Pyle, Alexander Romanul, Haj Ross, Andrew Rothovius, Sid Shinedling, Constantin Simun, Stephanie Smolinsky, Danny Solomon, Janice Tarver and Charles Zapata. Thanks, folks. Table of Contents 0. Abstract..................................................................................................................................1 1. Introduction............................................................................................................................2 1.1 Conflicting Data............................................................................................................ 2 1.2 Overview of Major Results.............................................................................................3 1.3 Methods Employed........................................................................................................9 1.4 Brief Outline................................................................................................................ 11 2. Overview of the Phonosemantics Literature..........................................................................12 2.1 The Beginnings of Phonosemantics...............................................................................12 2.1.1 The Ancients........................................................................................................12 2.1.2 The 17th-19th Centuries......................................................................................14 2.2 Prewar Phonosemantics -- Major Trends in the 20th Century...................................... 19 2.2.1 Maurice Grammont............................................................................................. 19 2.2.2 Velemir Khlebnikov............................................................................................19 2.2.3 Leonard Bloomfield............................................................................................20 2.2.4 Psycholinguistic Experiments -- Sapir et al........................................................ 21 2.2.5 Otto Jespersen......................................................................................................22 2.2.6 Richard Paget......................................................................................................22 2.2.7 African Ideophones -- Doke et al........................................................................ 22 2.2.8 John Rupert Firth................................................................................................. 23 2.3 Structuralism -- Saussure.............................................................................................. 24 2.4 Postwar Phonosemantics............................................................................................... 26 2.4.1 Dwight Bolinger..................................................................................................26 2.4.2 Ivan Fónagy......................................................................................................... 26 2.4.3 Hans Marchand.................................................................................................... 27 2.4.4 Suitbert Ertel.......................................................................................................28 2.4.5 Gérard Genette....................................................................................................29 2.4.6 Roman Jakobson..................................................................................................29 2.4.7 Roger Williams Wescott.....................................................................................30 2.4.8 Richard Rhodes & John Lawler........................................................................... 31 2.4.9 Keith McCune......................................................................................................32 2.4.10 Yakov Malkiel...................................................................................................32 2.5 Research after 1990.......................................................................................................33 3. Theoretical Preliminaries.................................................................................................... 34 3.1 Recapitulation of Basic Issues.......................................................................................34 3.2 Classification Systems.................................................................................................36 3.3 A Small Scale Example of the Phonosemantic Experiment........................................ 40 3.4 Overview of the Experiments to Be Conducted........................................................... 46 4. Phonosemantic Experiments.................................................................................................54 4.1 Experiment 1 -- Classification First by Phoneme Sequence and then by Semantic Domain ......................................................................................................................................54 4.1.1 Methodology.......................................................................................................54 4.1.2 Example.............................................................................................................. 55 i 4.1.3 Discussion of Findings.........................................................................................57 4.1.3.1 Overview.................................................................................................... 57 4.1.3.2 Semantic Domains of the Consonants.........................................................59 4.1.3.3 ‘Exceptional’ Words and Concrete Noun Classes:.....................................66 4.1.3.4 The Senses of a Word.................................................................................72 4.1.3.5 The Positional Effect................................................................................. 73 4.1.3.6 Summary of Results of Experiment 1 and Outline of Resultant Theories about Language.................................................................................................................75 4.2 Experiment 2 -- Classification First by Phoneme Sequence, Subclassification by Semantic Domain and then Regrouping of Different Phonemes by Semantic Domain......................77 4.2.1 Methodology.......................................................................................................77 4.2.2 Example.............................................................................................................. 78 4.2.3 Discussion of Findings.........................................................................................80 4.2.3.1 Evidence this Experiment Provides for the Major Theses in this Dissertation ................................................................................................................................80 4.2.3.2 Common Semantic Domains for /r/ in Second Position...........................81 4.2.3.3 Characterizations of the Phonetic Features................................................. 82 4.2.3.4 Characterizations of the Phonetic Features Sorted by Semantic Class.......83 4.3 Experiment 3 -- Natural Classes for Arbitrary Sets of Words.................................... 85 4.3.1 Methodology.......................................................................................................85 4.3.2 Example.............................................................................................................. 85 4.3.3 Discussion of Findings.........................................................................................86 4.4 Experiment 4 -- Classify Words Containing a Phoneme Sequence X into a Classification Designed for Words Containing
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