Crossmodal correspondences in natural language: Distribution of phonemes and consonant-vowel patterns in Serbian words denoting round and angular objects

Abstract

Since described by Köhler more than half a century ago, phonetic–iconic correspondences have been demonstrated in a series of studies showing remarkable consistency in matches of pseudowords containing specific types of phonemes (e.g., Maluma or Takete) with rounded and angular shapes. If the effect found in these experiments reveals something about processes involved in natural language interpretation, we should expect similar association between phonological properties of objects’ labels and their perceptual properties to exist in natural language as well. However, results of the studies testing this effect in natural language are rather inconsistent and sometimes even contradictory. The aim of the present study was to test whether the distribution of phonemes and consonant-vowel patterns, previously found in pseudowords participants produced for the abstract visual patterns (Jankovic and Markovic, 2000, Perception 29 ECVP Abstract Supplement), could be found in the words of natural language. For 1066 nouns denoting round and angular shapes extracted from the Corpus of Serbian Language, distribution of phonemes and consonant-vowel patterns were analyzed. Results showed that words of Serbian language denoting sharp and rounded objects show similar patterns of phoneme and consonant-vowel distributions as those found in pseudowords produced for sharp and rounded visual stimuli, and therefore provide further evidence for cross-modal correspondences in natural language. These findings were discussed in the light of the role crossmodal correspondences can have in the natural language acquisition.

When the Sound-Symbolism Effect Disappears: The Differential Role of Order and Timing in Presenting Visual and Auditory Stimuli

“…However, one of those studies, in which data from 229 languages were analyzed, found certain patterns of language symbolism in majority of those languages (Ciccotosto, 1991). Furthermore, some studies dealing with the structure of words in natural language suggest that words denoting sharp and rounded objects show quite similar patterns of phoneme and consonant-vowel distributions as those found in pseudowords produced for sharp and rounded visual stimuli (Ilić, Ković, & Janković, 2012).…”

“…Stimuli were selected from the corpus of words used in Ilić, Ković and Janković (2012) and which refered to round or spiky real-objects. Only high-frequent words containing consonantvowel-consonant-vowel-consonant (C-V-C-V-C) structure and referring to concrete objects were recruited from the corpus.…”

“…Only high-frequent words containing consonantvowel-consonant-vowel-consonant (C-V-C-V-C) structure and referring to concrete objects were recruited from the corpus. In order to obtain two categories (sharp sounding and soft sounding) of the factor named Phonological Structure, criteria based on findings of several studies previously mentioned was used (Janković & Marković, 2001;Westbury, 2005;Ilić, Ković, & Janković, 2012). Based on those criteria, 30 words were selected (15 within each category).…”

Effects of phonological label differences on category learning

“…1. Congruence Pattern is indicated as * "kiki-type" and O "bouba-type", and ~ "intermediate" according to canonical patterns previously established for Serbian (Ilic, Kovic & Jankovic, 2012).…”