On The Iconicity Between Sounds And Meanings Of Linguistic Signs

The relationship between the sounds and meanings of linguistic signs is notnecessarily arbitrary. Based on statistics, the paper explores the phonetic iconicity ofthe demonstratives and single-syllabled antonyms in modern Chinese. Data showsthat two main motivations contribute to the phonetic iconicity in demonstratives:sonority hierarchy iconicity motivation and complexity iconicity motivation. Thephonetic forms of single-syllabled antonyms in modern Chinese are dominated bysonority hierarchy iconicity motivation. The phonetic forms of negative words of thesingle-syllabled antonyms of modern Chinese are apt to use ZE tone: the third and thefourth tones while positive words are apt to use PING tone: the first and the secondtones. This phenomenon is dominated by sonority hierarchy iconicity motivation too.It can also be explained by the markedness theory. A markedness pattern between thenegative and positive words of single-syllabled antonyms in modern Chinese andPING tone and ZE tone can be established.