Frequency vs. Iconicity in Explainin Grammatical Asymmetries – Haspelmath (200?)
Iconicity is the claim that the structure of language reflects the structure of experience. Many phenomena accounted for by iconicity are in fact accounted for by the principle of economy. Iconicity of quantity where forms denoting greater quantity are longer is explained by the fact that the shorter forms are more frequently used and should be shorter based on economy of the length of linguistic form. In a similar way Haspelmath accounts for iconicity of complexity where more complex meaning are expressed by more complex forms by demonstrating the more complex meaning s are less frequent and are therefore optimally encoded by longer forms. Iconicity of cohesion claims that meanings that belong together more closely semantically are expressed by more cohesive forms. This is also debunked in favor of a frequency based explanation. The economy explanation also helps explain numerous counterexamples to iconicity claims. The take away message is that markedness and iconicity are epiphenomena to be banished from linguistic theory in favor of explanations based on relative frequency of occurrence and economy. While the paper is in a position to make use of large amount of corpus evidence to support the claims relatively little is used. This is unfortunate but Hapelmath’s claims provide motivation for future research and validation.