arbitrary symbolism in natural language revisited when word forms carry meaning任意的象征意义在自然语言再现单词形式意义.pdf

Arbitrary Symbolism in Natural Language Revisited: When Word Forms Carry Meaning 1 2 3 4 Jamie Reilly *, Chris Westbury , Jacob Kean , Jonathan E. Peelle 1 Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, United States of America, 2 Department of Psychology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 3 Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States of America, 4 Center for Cognitive Neuroscience and Department of Neurology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States of America Abstract Cognitive science has a rich history of interest in the ways that languages represent abstract and concrete concepts (e.g., idea vs. dog). Until recently, this focus has centered largely on aspects of word meaning and semantic representation. However, recent corpora analyses have demonstrated that abstract and concrete words are also marked by phonological, orthographic, and morphological differences. These regularities in sound-meaning correspondence potentially allow listeners to infer certain aspects of semantics directly from word form. We investigated this relationship between form and meaning in a series of four experiments. In Experiments 1–2 we examined the role of metalinguistic knowledge in semantic decision by asking participants to make semantic judgments for aurally presented nonwords selectively varied by specific acoustic and phonetic parameters. Participants consistently associated increased word length and diminished wordlikeness with abstract concepts. In Experiment 3, participants completed a semantic decision task (i.e., abstract or concrete) for real words varied by lengt