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Formulaic Binomials, Morphosymbolism, and Behaghel's Law: The Grammatical Status of Expressive Iconicity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Mark R. V. Southern
Mark R. V. Southern
Affiliation:
University of Texas at AustinDept. of Germanic Studies, EPS 3.102Austin, TX 78712 [m.southern@mail.utexas.edu]
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Extract

This paper considers the linguistic status of West Germanic alliterative, formulaic, syntactically tight pairs. These hendiadys binomials are phonetically interwoven, phrasally autonomous units. Echoic reduplication, including hendiadys, is a common way for language to generate iconic forms. Building on recent work on sound-symbolic expressives, iconicity, and the significance of poetic features (compression, phrasal symmetry) for language, this study argues that alliterative binomials are fundamentally affective, with proverb-like sentential characteristics, deriving idiomatic force from their iconically self-signaling structural properties. Like Stabreim, phonetically reinforced and with reciprocally highlighted components, they define a cohesive utterance (saying, phrase, metrical line). In this they share phrase-level contour properties with Behaghel's Law, which shapes the linguistic structure of day-to-day poetics, particularly in fixed idioms. The inquiry examines phrasal syntax, phrase-level iconicity and expressive symbolism, and the poetics of folk-discourse genres, reflecting language's structure.*

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Germanic Linguistics , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , Fall 2000 , pp. 251 - 279
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Germanic Linguistics 2000

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