Saussure Revisited: Balancing Arbitrariness and Systematicity in Vocabulary Structure
"Research on sound symbolism has revealed that a considerable amount of systematicity exists in the mapping between a word's phonological form and its meaning - but just how systematic is language?" An IMC seminar with Morten H. Christiansen, Cornell University. EXTRA! After Morten's talk, there will be another talk by Rick Dale, University of california: "Studying Social Interactions"
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Aarhus University, DK, 8000 C, Nobelparken, building 1483, 3rd. floor, IMC meeting room.
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Saussure Revisited: Balancing Arbitrariness and Systematicity in Vocabulary Structure
Morten Christiansen, 11.00-12.00
Research on sound symbolism has revealed that a considerable amount of systematicity exists in the mapping between a word's phonological form and its meaning -- but just how systematic is language? In this talk, I first discuss results from analyses of English, indicating that language incorporates a significant amount of systematicity in form-meaning correspondences across the vocabulary. This systematicity is more pronounced for words involved in the early stages of language acquisition and reduces in later vocabulary development. I then consider further corpus analyses suggesting that additional systematicity can be found at level of lexical categories, revealing the sound of syntax. Results from human experimentation corroborate the corpus analyses, pointing to a division of labor between arbitrariness and systematicity in the structure of the vocabulary. I conclude that the vocabulary is structured to enable systematicity for early acquired words to promote language learning, whilst also incorporating arbitrariness for later acquired words in order to facilitate communicative expressivity and efficiency.
Morten H. Christiansen, Cornell University, University of Southern Denmark, and the Haskins Labs
Studying Social Interactions
Rick Dale, University of California, 12.00-13.00