Re: [tied] The Googoo Hypothesis must be squashed

Let's keep the following distinct by avoiding the general and confusing term
"sound symbolism". Try using one of the following:

- phonemic symbolism (the googoo theory)
- frequency symbolism (the Batta example)
- onomatopoeia (cuckoo)

Phonemic symbolism is the phenomenon that doesn't exist since it is not the
phoneme that has any inheirant meaning.

Piotr:

>Well, it can. If you examine newly coined words, expressive >vocabulary,
>etc. -- the part of lexicon where history doesn't play >much role -- sound
>symbolism is very much present there, [...]

I have trouble believing in a general human language tendency concerning
phonemic symbolism.

>in a perfectly measurable way.

By what criteria do we possibly measure such a thing? The size of vocabulary
of any given language is virtually limitless, so we can hardly arrive at any
meaningful percentages.

>The recurrent use of vowel quality etc. to symbolise size and related
> >concepts is also very well known. If it isn't obvious to you that, >other
>things being equal, [ti:] is more likely to stand for something >small or
>thin and [bu:] for something big or thick, maybe your >synaesthesia doesn't
>work the way it does in most people.

Many people comment on how perfectly normal my synaesthesia is so it
couldn't be that. :) I think the problem here is that there is an
unintentional misleading going on here. Judging by your Batta example, we've
gone off the original topic of phonemic symbolism and into what would appear
to be "frequency symbolism" involving the entire vocalism of the word. I can
see how this makes sense since high frequencies go with small animals/humans
and low frequencies go with large animals/humans. Large men with feminine
voices are the meat-and-potatoes of many a comedy sketch because it's so
unexpected and thus draws in a quick laugh. So you're talking about the
quality of frequency not phonemes themselves. Why didn't you say so in the
first place?

>See above on expressive words acquiring a history. *ma:te:r may >contain an
>original nursery-word as the root, but it's embedded in a >nice
>morphological setting. It's the *-te:r part that proves its >antiquity, not
>*ma:- alone. *mama- or *ma- or *ama- are simply too >common as
>independently arising nursery terms to be usable as >historical linguistic
>comparanda.

I've seen IE *kaka- reconstructed so what's the story on that then?

>Babies often go "mama" by way of asking to be breastfed (cf. Latin >mamma
>'nipple'), and mothers tend to think that the sound refers to >them. It's a
>"situational" universal, not even an example of sound >symbolism.

Then why did you mention it if it has nothing to do with phonemic symbolism?
I agree that it's a situational universal.

>But Ruhlen an the likes of him compare mama for 'mother' in languages >from
>all the inhabited continents to reconstruct Proto-World *mama.

Aargh. That "Proto-World" thing again. As if this is the only long-range
comparison theory out there. We all can agree that Ruhlen is overly gaga for
poopoo words.


- gLeN

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