Diachronic Problems in Phonosymbolism: Edita and Inedita, 1979–1988. Volume I

Annotation. Phonosymbolism, or sound symbolism (Lautsymbolik), is a vital ingredient of language growth. Many serious scholars, however, have regarded it with embarrassment or indifference. A cautious reintroduction of phonosymbolism as a factor responsible for changes undergone, in varying degrees, by most languages would now seem to be in order. The present volume brings together a number of recent articles on this subject, focusing mostly on problems from Romance languages, especially Spanish; but English also figures prominently. Contents Introduction; Integration of phonosymbolism with other categories of language change; Studies in secondary phonosymbolism; Language-universal versus language-specific phonosymbolism; Semantically marked root morphemes in diachronic morphology; From phonosymbolism to morphosymbolism; English verbs ending in (nasal) consonant l; Morpho-semantic conditioning of Spanish diphthongization; Six categories of nasal epenthesis; Retrospect; Index Yakov Malkiel. Includes Bibliographical References And Indexes.