Cover not available

Article published In: Studies in Language
Vol. 44:1 (2020) ► pp.95–131

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Iconicity in syntax and the architecture of linguistic theory

 | University of Reading
ORCiD logo with link | Palacky University
Published online: 6 May 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.19017.lac
Abstract
Linguistic iconicity has been studied since ancient times (e.g., Plato’s Cratylus, see Cooper, John M. and Douglas S. Hutchinson. 1997. Plato. Complete Works. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Within modern grammatical description, this notion was mostly developed by Jakobson and Benveniste; nowadays, iconicity in language is even being experimentally tested (e.g., Blasi, Damian, Søren Wichmann, Harald Hammarström, Peter F. Stadler, & Morten H. Christiansen. 2016. Sound-meaning association biases evidenced across thousands of languages. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113(39). 10818–10823. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Diatka, Vojtěch. & Jiří Milička. 2017. The effect of iconicity flash blindness. In Angelika Zirker, Mathhias Bauer, Olga Fischer & Christina Ljunberg (eds.), Dimensions of Iconicity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). However, most studies on linguistic iconicity pertain to prosody, sound symbolism, or morphology; syntactic iconicity has been vastly underexplored. In this paper, we present two hypotheses concerning syntactic iconicity: (1) syntactic descriptions of natural language strings have an inherent structure which is isomorphic to that of representations in some other component of grammar or a non-grammatical system; or (2) linear order imposed on phrase structure is isomorphic to that in some other component of grammar or a non-grammatical system. We will argue in favour of the former, which constitutes a novel perspective on iconicity in grammar. We furthermore discuss the place that iconicity may have in the architecture of a generative system.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Some preliminary remarks
  • 2.Empirical support for iconicity in grammar
    • 2.1Iconicity in the category of verbal aspect in Czech
    • 2.2The limitation of the role of linear order in the expression of Case
  • 3.Order in grammar and iconic relations: Two hypotheses and four theories
  • 4.Previous approaches: A critical assessment
    • 4.1The generative approach: Newmeyer (1992)
    • 4.2Haiman’s distance-based approach
  • 5.Architectural concerns in transformational frameworks
  • 6.Towards a formal definition of iconicity
    • 6.1Revising the architecture of grammar: How to capture iconicity
  • 7.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
References (93)
References
Anttila, Raimo. 1972. An introduction to historical and comparative linguistics. New York: The Macmillan Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Alsina, Alex, Joan Bresnan & Peter Sells (eds.). 1997. Complex Predicates. Stanford: CSLI.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Awodey, Steve. 2006. Category Theory. Oxford: OUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, Mark. 1988. Incorporation: A Theory of Grammatical Function Changing, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baus, Christina, Manual Carreiras & Karen Emmorey. 2013. When does Iconicity in Sign Language Matter? Language and cognitive processes 28(3). 261–271. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bidaud, Samuel. 2016. Le niveau phonosymbolique des morphèmes grammaticaux. Quaderni disemantica, 21 (nuova serie), 61-90.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. La Motivation Du Verbe Tchèque. Studies about languages, 311. 23–35. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bell, Sarah. 1983. Advancements and ascensions in Cebuano. In David Perlmutter (ed.) Studies in Relational Grammar 1, 143–218. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bever, Thomas. 1970. The cognitive basis for linguistic structures. In Robert Hayes (ed.) Cognition and Language Development, 279–362. New York: Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blasi, Damian, Søren Wichmann, Harald Hammarström, Peter F. Stadler, & Morten H. Christiansen. 2016. Sound-meaning association biases evidenced across thousands of languages. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113(39). 10818–10823. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bravo, Ana, Luis García Fernández, & Diego G. Krivochen. 2015. On Auxiliary Chains: Auxiliaries at the Syntax-Semantics Interface. Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics 4(2). 71–101. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1957. Syntactic Structures. The Hague: Mouton. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1970. Remarks on nominalization. In R. Jacobs and P. Rosenbaum (eds.) Readings in English Transformational Grammar. Waltham: Ginn. 184–221.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1995. The Minimalist Program. Cambridge, MA.: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. Problems of Projection. Lingua 1301. 33–49. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Collins, Chris. 2017. Merge(X, Y) = {X, Y}. In Leah Bauke & Andreas Blühmel (eds.) Labels and Roots. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. 47–68. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Comrie, Bernard. 1985. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cooper, John M. and Douglas S. Hutchinson. 1997. Plato. Complete Works. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Culicover, Peter & Ray Jackendoff. 2005. Simpler Syntax. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dalrymple, Mary. 2001. Lexical Functional Grammar (Syntax and Semantics 34). New York: Academic Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Diatka, Vojtěch. & Jiří Milička. 2017. The effect of iconicity flash blindness. In Angelika Zirker, Mathhias Bauer, Olga Fischer & Christina Ljunberg (eds.), Dimensions of Iconicity. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dirven, René, Günter Radden. 2006. La base cognitive du langage: langue et pensée. In Nicole Delbecque (ed.) Linguistique cognitive. Comprendre comment fonctionne le langage, 17–47. Bruxelles: De Boeck Université – Duculot.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Elleström, Lars. 2016. Visual Iconicity in Poetry: Replacing the Notion of “Visual Poetry”. Orbis Litterarum 71(6). 437–472. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Filip, Hana. 2014. Biaspectual Verbs: A Marginal Category? (with Yulia Zinova). Proceedings of the Tenth Tbilisi Symposium on Language, Logic and Computation, Gudauri, Georgia.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Foley, William A., & Robert D. Van Valin, Jr. 1984. Functional syntax and universal grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry. 1983. The modularity of mind: an essay on faculty psychology. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. LOT 2: The Language of Thought Revisited. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Givón, Talmy. 1985. Iconicity, isomorphism, and non-arbitrary coding in syntax. In John Haiman (ed.) Iconicity in Syntax, 187–220. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Glynn, D. 2007: Iconicity in the grammar–lexis interface in Iconicity. In FISCHER, O. – LJUNGBERG, C. (eds.), Language and Literature, Amsterdam: John Benjamins p. 269-289Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldberg, Adele. 2006. Constructions at Work: the nature of generalization in language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grice, H. Paul. 1975. Logic and Conversation. In Peter Cole & Jerry Morgan (eds.) Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 31, Speech Acts. New York: Academic Press. 41–58.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grimm, Reinhold. 2008. Concerning the range of iconic poetry: With examples from the works of G. Kunert and H. Teschke. Orbis Litterarum 631. 441–463. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gvoždiak, Vit. 2014. Jakobsonova sémiotické teorie. Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haiman, John. 1980. The iconicity of grammar: Isomorphism and motivation. Language 561. 515–540. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1983. Iconic and economic motivation. Language 591. 781–819. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1985. Natural syntax: Iconicity and erosion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hale, Kenneth & Samuel J. Keyser. 1997. The basic elements of argument structure. MIT working Papers in Linguistics 321. 1–47. Available online at [URL]
Hauser, Marc; Noam Chomsky & William Tecumseh Fitch. 2002. The faculty of language: what is it, who has it, and how did it evolve? Science 298(5598). 1569–1579. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hinton, Leanne, Johanna Nichols & John J. Ohala. 1994. Sound Symbolism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hjelmslev, Louis. 1935. La catégorie des cas: étude de grammaire générale, Acta Jutlandica, díl 1, Universitetsforlaget.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1961. Prolegomena to a theory of language. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Itkonen, Esa. 1994. Iconicity, analogy, and universal grammar. Journal of Pragmatics 221. 37–53. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jakobson, Roman. 1971. Selected Writings II. Hague-Paris: Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1983. Semantics and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jakobson, R - Waugh, R. L. 1979: The Sound Shape of Language. Brighton: The Harvester Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jackendoff, Ray. 1987. Consciousness and the Computational Mind. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2002. Foundations of Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kayne, Richard. 1994. The Antisymmetry of Syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kopečný, František. 1962. Slovesný vid v češtině. Nakl. Československé Akademie Věd.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Krivochen, Diego G. 2016. Divide and…conquer? On the limits of algorithmic approaches to syntactic structure. Czech and Slovak Linguistic Review 11. 15–38.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2018. Aspects of Emergent Cyclicity in Language and Computation. Reading: University of Reading dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lacková, Ludmila. 2018. A Linguistic Approach to Protein Folding: Towards a Semiotic Description of Living Systems. Olomouc: Palacky University dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ladusaw, William A. 1980. Polarity sensitivity as inherent scope relations. Bloomington, IN: University of Iowa, Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Langendonck, Willy van. 2010. Iconicity. In Dirk Geeraerts and Hubert Cuyckens (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lecercle, J.J. 2001. Of Markov chains and upholstery buttons: “Moi. madame. votre chien ... ”. In Fischer, O. – Ljungberg, C. (eds.), Language and Literature. The Motivated sign : iconicity in language and literature 2, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, p. 289-305. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
May, Robert. 1985. Logical Form: Its Structure and Derivation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McCawley, James D. 1968. Concerning the base component of a transformational grammar. Foundations of Language 41. 243-269.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1998. The Syntactic Phenomena of English. [2nd Edition] Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Monneret, Philippe. 2003. Le sens du signifiant. Implications linguistiques et cognitives de la motivation. Paris: Honore Champion.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Newmeyer, Frederick. 1992. Iconicity and Generative Grammar. Language 68(4). 756–796. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nübler, Norbert. 2017. ITERATIVNOST. In Petr Karlík, Marek Nekula & Jana Pleskalová (eds.), CzechEncy – Nový encyklopedický slovník češtiny. URL: [URL]
Nuckolls, Janis B. 1999. The Case for Sound Symbolism. Annual Review of Anthropology. 281: 225–252. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Osborne, Timothy. 2005. Beyond the Constituent: A Dependency Grammar Analysis of Chains. Folia Linguistica XXXIX/3–4. 251–297.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Poldauf, Ivan. 1964. Souhrnný pohled na vid v nové češtině. Slovo a slovesnost 251. 46–56.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Post, Emil. 1943. Formal Reductions of the General Combinatorial Decision Problem. American Journal of Mathematics 65(2). 197–215. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Postal, Paul M. 2010. Edge-Based Clausal Syntax. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pršir, Tea. & Anne-Catherine Simon. 2013. Iconic interpretation of rhythm in speech. In Sylvie Hancil & Daniel Hirst (eds.) Prosody and Iconicity, 161–180. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Radeva-Bork, Theodora. 2012. Single and Double Clitics in Adult and Child Grammar. Frankfurt: Peter Lang. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reinhart, Tanya. 1976. The Syntactic Domain of Anaphora. Cambridge, MA: MIT dissertation.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saddy, Douglas. 2018. Syntax and Uncertainty. In Angel Gallego & Roger Martin (eds.) Language, Syntax, and the Natural Sciences, 316–332. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saddy, Douglas & Diego G. Krivochen. 2016. ‘Emergent Oscillations and Cyclicity: Physical Aspects of Frustrated Cognitive Systems’. Paper presented at First International Symposium on the Physics of Language, Tokyo: Sophia University, 4–5 March, 2006.
Sadowski, P. 2001: The sound as an echo to the sense: The iconicity of English gl- words. In Fischer, O. – Ljungberg, C. (eds.), Language and Literature. The Motivated sign : iconicity in language and literature 2, Amsterdam: John Benjamins 69-89. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sapir, Edward. 1933. Language. In Edwin R. A. Selgiman & Alvin Johnson, Encyclopædia of the Social Sciences, vol. 91, 155–169. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1916. Cours de linguistique générale, Payot,. Paris.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saussure, F. D. (1959). Course in general linguistics. New York Philosophical LibraryGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schachter, Paul. 1983. Explaining auxiliary order. In Heny, F., Richards, B. (eds.), Linguistic categories: auxiliaries and related puzzles Vol 2, 145–204. Dordrecht: Reidel. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schmerling, Susan F. 1975. Asymmetric Conjunction and rules of Conversation. In Peter Cole & Jerry Morgan (eds.) Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3: Speech Acts, 211–231. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2018. Sound and Grammar: Towards a Neo-Sapirian Theory of Language. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Speas, Margaret. 1990. Phrase Structure in Natural Language. Dordrecht: Kluwer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tesnière, Lucien. 1959. Éléments de syntaxe structural. Paris: Klincksieck.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tollis, Francis. 2005. Le grammème comme signe chez Gustave Guillaume: une biunivocité idéale souvent prise en défaut (sémiologie / systématique linguistiques et analogie). Cahiers de linguistique analogique 5–40.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Townsend, David J., & Thomas G. Bever. 2001. Sentence Comprehension: The Integration of Habits and Rules. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Turing, Alan. 1936. On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society 42(2). 230–265.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Uriagereka, Juan. 2008. Syntactic Anchors: On Semantic restructuring. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. Spell Out and the Minimalist Program. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Regarding the Third Factor: Arguments for a CLASH model. In Peter Kosta, Steven L. Franks, Teodora Radeva-Bork & Lilia Schürcks (eds.), Minimalism and Beyond: Radicalizing the interfaces, 363–391. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vachek, Josef. 1976. Selected Writings in English and General Linguistics. Prague: Academia. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Van Langendonck, Willy. 2010. Iconicity. In Dirk Geeraerts and Hubert Cuyckens (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Linguistics, pp. 394-419. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Waugh, Linda R. 1994. Degrees of iconicity in the Lexicon. Journal of Pragmatics 221. 55–70. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wundt, Wilhelm. 1900 to 1920. Völkerpsychologie (Cultural Psychology), 101 Volumes, Vol. 1, 2. Die Sprache (Language); Vol. 31. Die Kunst (Art); Vol 4, 5, 61. Mythos und Religion (Myth and Religion); Vol 7, 81. Die Gesellschaft (Society); Vol 91. Das Recht (Right); Vol 101. Kultur und Geschichte (Culture and History). Leipzig: Engelmann.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zeeman, Christopher. 1977. Catastrophe theory: selected papers 1972–1977. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Jorge Eduardo Urueña López, Jamin Pelkey & L’udmila Lacková Bennett
2025. Semiosis as creation between nature, body, and art, DOI logo
Lacková, Ľudmila
2023. Structural semiology, Peirce, and biolinguistics. Semiotica 2023:253 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue