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Iconicity and diachronic language change

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Iconicity and diachronic language change. / Monaghan, Padraic; Roberts, Seán G.
In: Cognitive Science, Vol. 45, No. 4, e12968, 2021.

Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review

Harvard

Monaghan, P & Roberts, SG 2021, 'Iconicity and diachronic language change', Cognitive Science, vol. 45, no. 4, e12968. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12968

APA

Monaghan, P., & Roberts, S. G. (2021). Iconicity and diachronic language change. Cognitive Science, 45(4), Article e12968. https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12968

Vancouver

Monaghan P, Roberts SG. Iconicity and diachronic language change. Cognitive Science. 2021;45(4):e12968. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12968

Author

Monaghan, Padraic ; Roberts, Seán G. / Iconicity and diachronic language change. In: Cognitive Science. 2021 ; Vol. 45, No. 4.

Bibtex

@article{437326de2b0e445081c3ed86fdbe050e,
title = "Iconicity and diachronic language change",
abstract = "Iconicity, the resemblance between the form of a word and its meaning, has effects on behaviour in both communicative symbol development and language learning experiments. These results have invited speculation about iconicity being a key feature of the origins of language, yet, the presence of iconicity in natural languages seems limited. In a diachronic study of language change, we investigated the extent to which iconicity is a stable property of vocabulary, alongside previously investigated psycholinguistic predictors of change. Analysing 784 English words with data on their historical forms, we found that stable words are higher in iconicity, longer in length, and earlier acquired during development, but that the role of frequency and grammatical category may be less important than previously suggested. Iconicity is revealed as a feature of ultra-conserved words, and potentially also as a property of vocabulary early in the history of language origins.",
author = "Padraic Monaghan and Roberts, {Se{\'a}n G.}",
year = "2021",
doi = "10.1111/cogs.12968",
language = "English",
volume = "45",
journal = "Cognitive Science",
issn = "0364-0213",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell",
number = "4",

}

RIS

TY - JOUR

T1 - Iconicity and diachronic language change

AU - Monaghan, Padraic

AU - Roberts, Seán G.

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Iconicity, the resemblance between the form of a word and its meaning, has effects on behaviour in both communicative symbol development and language learning experiments. These results have invited speculation about iconicity being a key feature of the origins of language, yet, the presence of iconicity in natural languages seems limited. In a diachronic study of language change, we investigated the extent to which iconicity is a stable property of vocabulary, alongside previously investigated psycholinguistic predictors of change. Analysing 784 English words with data on their historical forms, we found that stable words are higher in iconicity, longer in length, and earlier acquired during development, but that the role of frequency and grammatical category may be less important than previously suggested. Iconicity is revealed as a feature of ultra-conserved words, and potentially also as a property of vocabulary early in the history of language origins.

AB - Iconicity, the resemblance between the form of a word and its meaning, has effects on behaviour in both communicative symbol development and language learning experiments. These results have invited speculation about iconicity being a key feature of the origins of language, yet, the presence of iconicity in natural languages seems limited. In a diachronic study of language change, we investigated the extent to which iconicity is a stable property of vocabulary, alongside previously investigated psycholinguistic predictors of change. Analysing 784 English words with data on their historical forms, we found that stable words are higher in iconicity, longer in length, and earlier acquired during development, but that the role of frequency and grammatical category may be less important than previously suggested. Iconicity is revealed as a feature of ultra-conserved words, and potentially also as a property of vocabulary early in the history of language origins.

U2 - 10.1111/cogs.12968

DO - 10.1111/cogs.12968

M3 - Journal article

VL - 45

JO - Cognitive Science

JF - Cognitive Science

SN - 0364-0213

IS - 4

M1 - e12968

ER -