Words in the mirror

Abstract

semantic structures. In section 2, this method will be applied to Italian grammatical monosyllables, focusing on a complete description of the words formed from one phoneme ('monophonemes'), of the words distinguishing grammatical persons and of the adverbial pairs. In section 3, a number of conclusions will be drawn, particularly about the difference between linguistic 'values' and psychological 'concepts'. 1.2 An ancient question The relationship between sound and meaning is one of the original problems in Western philosophical tradition. Indeed it constitutes the topic of one of the dialogues by Plato, the first philosopher of whom tradition gave us the corpus. In the Cratylus, the character of Socrates discusses Hermogenes' and Cratylus' thesis on the relationship between names and things. Hermogenes is a sophist who considers it a contractual and arbitrary relationship (384c-385e), Cratylus is a Heraclitean who considers the relationship natural and iconic (422d-427d). Although tradition attributes Cratylus' ideas to Plato, some recent interpretations have placed him in an equidistant position. His distance from Cratylus would be a distance from the sacred, oral, poetic, traditional knowledge and it allowed him to base the secular philosophical thought on the prose (Fresina 1991: 75-110; and cf. Genette 1976: 11-37). So the question of arbitrariness seems to be linked to the origin of abstract thought as being based on the practice of writing. One may ask if the current technological change in this practice could be a reason for the renewed relevance of the issue. As it is, since Plato the debate continues through the entire tradition. < p. 104 > Hermogenes' thesis is reformulated by Aristotle in the first pages of De interpretatione (16a). It is transmitted from there to Augustine, who includes it in De Doctrina Christiana (II, 26). Thomas picks it up from there and puts it in his Summa Theologica (PII-II Q85 A1), making it the official doctrine of Christian Aristotelianism. So one can find it in Dante's De vulgari eloquentia (ca. 1305; I, 3), in Arnauld's and Nicole's Logique of Port-Royal (1662: 98; 1683: 58), in the cartesian Discours physique de la parole by Gérard de Cordemoy (1668: 23), and finally in John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690: III, 2), which problematizes it in a decisive manner. Franz Bopp implicitly accepts Hermogenes' idea in the preface of his Vergleichende Grammatik (1833: iii) and makes it one of the foundations of new comparative linguistics. Cratylus' thesis is reformulated by Epicurus in his Epistula ad Herodotum (75-76). It further emerges in different forms in the Stoa, as Augustine says in De Dialectica (VI) and as one can read in Noctes atticae (X, 4), where Aulus Gellius reports the ideas of the Latin grammarian Nigidius Figulus. The indirect nature of these statements suggests, however, that the doctrine does not pass the filter of Christianity. It is not by accident that in the Middle Ages it rather characterized Jewish tradition, beginning with the anony...

Introduction : Sound symbolism in the age of digital orality. A perspective on language beyond 'nature' and 'culture'

“…A case of pronominal indexical motivation is the fact that in most languages the second person (tu, vous) tends to be articulated further in front than the first person (je, nous; cf. Wichmann et al 2010and Nobile 2011; as well as, well before them, Nigidius, in Gelle, Noctes Atticae, X, 4; de Brosses 1765: 271 andVillemain 1835: xxvi-xxvii). On the other hand, diminutives tend to prefer higher-pitched phonemes than augmentatives (cf.…”

Introduction : Le symbolisme phonétique à l'âge de l'oralité numérique. Une perspective sur le langage par delà 'nature' et 'culture'

“…Un cas de motivation indexicale pronominale est le fait que la deuxième personne (tu, vous) tend à être articulée plus antérieurement que la première (je, nous; cf. Wichmann et al 2010et Nobile 2011 ; ainsi que, bien avant eux, Nigidius, chez Gelle, Noctes Atticae, X, 4; de Brosses, 1765: 271 et Villemain, 1835. De leur côté, les diminutifs tendent à préférer des phonèmes plus aigus que les augmentatifs (cf.…”

“…Cette classe de phénomènes ne représente tout compte fait qu'une généralisation de critères déjà utilisés aujourd'hui dans l'identification des phonesthèmes et des submorphèmes. On n'observe, en elle, ni une association naturaliste et universelle entre un son individuel et un concept, ni une convention arbitraire unissant un signifiant et un signifié, mais un système de différences motivées entre les signifiants, qui représente ou engendre phonosymboliquement un système de différences entre les signifiés cognitivement codifiés par une langue (voir Nobile 2011Nobile , 2014aNobile , 2014b. Ce type de perspective, se situant résolument au-delà du clivage métaphysique traditionnel entre nature et culture, permettra peut-être de redéfinir des critères pour s'orienter dans le foisonnement d'usages et d'univers que le numérique ne cessera de nourrir.…”

Sound symbolism, speech expressivity and crossmodality

“…In Nobile (2011) the philosophical evolution of this theoretical debate from Plato´s to Humbolt´s views is commented. He provides arguments in favor of considering the sound systems of language as mirror images of its meaning systems.…”

“…Two insightful concepts which have been raised in the linguistic literature to explain the sound-meaning links are: mirror images (Lucas Nobile, 2011), sound metaphors (Fonagy (1983). The first emphasizes the iconic aspects of the link between sound and meaning, and the latter, the analogies between meaning and speech sound production characteristics.…”