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Re: Orthographic Sound Symbolism

From:Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>
Date:Monday, April 8, 2002, 20:04
I wrote:
>Daivd Peterson wrote: >>In a message dated 04/7/02 2:44:25 PM, and_yo@HOTMAIL.COM writes: >> >><< Now, as anybody investigated the possibility that it >>isn't the phones [i] and [a] that have these connotations, but the graphs >>{i} and {a}? Most linguistis are used to the Latin alphabet, in which {i} >>is >>undeniably smaller than {a}, and my gut feeling is that my association of >>[i] to smallness is at least partly orthographically motivated, but has >>anyone made a scientific study? >> >> >> Wouldn't the Japanese examples counter this, since Japanese doesn't >>use >>Latin orthography? > >It would - I wasn't aware of any Japanese examples. I assume that the kana >for sylllables containing /i/ aren't suspiciously small!
On second thoughts, it perhaps would. If it's only Japanese, it could be mere coincidence, or, if we're really unlucky, a special quirk of the Japanese psyche to associate [i]=small and [a]=big. Andreas _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com