Integrating sound symbolism with core grammar: The case of expressive palatalization

A wug-shaped curve in sound symbolism: the case of Japanese Pokémon names

“…To the extent that cumulativity is a general property of phonological patterns (McPherson & Hayes 2016, Zuraw & Hayes 2017, Breiss 2020, Hayes 2020), and if sound-symbolic effects show similar cumulative properties, then we may conclude that there exists a non-trivial parallel between phonological patterns and sound-symbolic patterns (Kawahara 2020a). This parallel would lend some credibility to the hypothesis that sound symbolism is a part of ‘core’ linguistic knowledge, as has recently been argued (Alderete & Kochetov 2017, Kumagai 2019, Jang 2020, Kawahara 2020a, b, Shih 2020). This is a rather radical conclusion, given the fact that sound symbolism has long been considered as being outside the purview of theoretical linguistics.…”

Sound symbolism and theoretical phonology

“…However, the existence of sound symbolism may require us to posit a mechanism that directly connects sounds and meanings, and some studies propose to use a formal grammatical model to capture such connections. For instance, as discussed above, Alderete and Kochetov (2017) demonstrate that expressive palatalization patterns are motivated by sound symbolic principles. They propose an analysis of expressive palatalization using Optimality Theory (Prince & Smolensky, 2004), with a set of violable constraints (E xpress[x] ) specifying which sounds should be realized to express which meanings.…”

“…The first reason to study sound symbolism from the perspective of theoretical phonology is the emerging observation that some alternations appear to be motivated by sound symbolic considerations. In particular, Alderete and Kochetov (2017) have shown that, for example, palatalization in Japanese baby talk (what they call “expressive palatalization”) shows a number of properties that are different from purely phonological palatalization processes. First, phonological palatalization is assimilatory in nature, usually caused by (high) front vowels or palatal glides; expressive palatalization in Japanese, however, does not require such a trigger, changing all /s/ in a target word into either [ʃ] or [tʃ] (e.g., /o s akana‐ s aN/ → [o ʃ akana‐ ʃ aN] or [o tʃ akana‐ tʃ aN] “fish(− y )”).…”

“…This pattern should be characterized using a distinctive feature (e.g., [palatal] or [−back]) because consonants at all places of articulation can be affected by it (although there is a preference toward targeting coronal consonants). Indeed, this palatalization pattern, despite its sound symbolic nature, has been analyzed by a number of theoretical phonologists (see Alderete & Kochetov, 2017: 732).…”

“…2 2 I do not have quantitive evidence for this claim, but Alderete & Kochetov (2017: 731) state that “it is fair to say that sound symbolism has never found a natural place in generative grammar.” I note that there have been phonological analyses of alternations that are demonstrably driven by sound symbolic principles (see Section 2.1). There are also a few monumental studies in the 90s that examined sound symbolic connections from a linguistic point of view, which include Hinton, Nichols, and Ohala (1994) and Hamano (1998).…”