A theme running through much of the functionalist literature in linguistics is that grammatical structure, to a considerable degree, has an 'iconic' motivation. This theme can be distilled into three rather distinct claims: (1) iconic principles govern speakers' choices of structurally available options in discourse; (2) structural options that reflect discourse-iconic principles become grammaticalized; (3) grammatical structure is an iconic reflection of conceptual structure. After presenting numerous examples from the functionalist literature in support of the idea that iconicity is widespread in language, I argue that claim (1) is irrelevant to generative grammar; claim (2), if correct, poses no challenge to generative grammar, despite a widespread belief to the contrary; and claim (3) has literally been built into standard versions of generative grammar. I go on to discuss the implications of iconic relations in language for the autonomy hypothesis and, at a more speculative level, for the evolution of language.
%0 Journal Article
%1 newmeyer1992igg
%A Newmeyer, Frederick J.
%D 1992
%I Linguistic Society of America
%J Language
%K UG functionalist generative grammar grammaticalization haveread iconicity
%N 4
%P 756--796
%T Iconicity and Generative Grammar
%U http://www.jstor.org/stable/416852
%V 68
%X A theme running through much of the functionalist literature in linguistics is that grammatical structure, to a considerable degree, has an 'iconic' motivation. This theme can be distilled into three rather distinct claims: (1) iconic principles govern speakers' choices of structurally available options in discourse; (2) structural options that reflect discourse-iconic principles become grammaticalized; (3) grammatical structure is an iconic reflection of conceptual structure. After presenting numerous examples from the functionalist literature in support of the idea that iconicity is widespread in language, I argue that claim (1) is irrelevant to generative grammar; claim (2), if correct, poses no challenge to generative grammar, despite a widespread belief to the contrary; and claim (3) has literally been built into standard versions of generative grammar. I go on to discuss the implications of iconic relations in language for the autonomy hypothesis and, at a more speculative level, for the evolution of language.
@article{newmeyer1992igg,
abstract = {A theme running through much of the functionalist literature in linguistics is that grammatical structure, to a considerable degree, has an 'iconic' motivation. This theme can be distilled into three rather distinct claims: (1) iconic principles govern speakers' choices of structurally available options in discourse; (2) structural options that reflect discourse-iconic principles become grammaticalized; (3) grammatical structure is an iconic reflection of conceptual structure. After presenting numerous examples from the functionalist literature in support of the idea that iconicity is widespread in language, I argue that claim (1) is irrelevant to generative grammar; claim (2), if correct, poses no challenge to generative grammar, despite a widespread belief to the contrary; and claim (3) has literally been built into standard versions of generative grammar. I go on to discuss the implications of iconic relations in language for the autonomy hypothesis and, at a more speculative level, for the evolution of language.},
added-at = {2008-09-22T17:41:50.000+0200},
author = {Newmeyer, Frederick J.},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/28feea03368e7abf21ee1f618fa3c7427/unhammer},
interhash = {7719e6e530efc09f22e9815b24bd4f0b},
intrahash = {8feea03368e7abf21ee1f618fa3c7427},
journal = {Language},
keywords = {UG functionalist generative grammar grammaticalization haveread iconicity},
number = 4,
pages = {756--796},
publisher = {Linguistic Society of America},
timestamp = {2008-10-20T16:39:51.000+0200},
title = {Iconicity and Generative Grammar},
url = {http://www.jstor.org/stable/416852},
volume = 68,
year = 1992
}