Sound Symbolic Values of Phonological/Morphological Structures and Accentedness: A Case Study of Japanese Baby Diaper Names

Abstract

This study explored sound symbolic values of particular syllable structure compositions, reduplicated forms and accent patterns. Through two experiments using nonce words, based upon a general working hypothesis that names that contain phonological and morphological structures that are characteristically found in Japanese child directed speech are judged to be appropriate for baby diaper names, we tested the following four specific hypotheses: a) a heavy-light (HL) sequence is more suitable for a baby diaper name than a light-light-light (LLL) sequence; b) a light-heavy (LH) sequence is less suitable than a light-light-light (LLL) sequence; c) reduplicated forms are more suitable than non-reduplicated forms; and d) accented words are more suitable than unaccented words. Not all these hypotheses were supported; instead, the results showed that names with various kinds of heavy syllables as well as those with accent were judged appropriate as a baby diaper name. The current results cannot solely be explained in terms of sound symbolic patterns that are found in the existing names, and thus suggest that sound symbolic knowledge involves abstract phonological generalizations concerning syllable weight and accentedness.