Definition
Arbitrary signs are signs where the relation between signifier and signified is solely a matter of convention and there is no natural connection between them. Words are considered arbitrary in the sense that the sound pattern of the word does not resemble its meaning and there is no intrinsic relation between the two. Thus, meaning cannot be inferred from a word’s sound, and the same meaning can be expressed through different sound patterns.
Introduction
The nature of the relation between words and referents has long been a topic of discussion. Plato’s Cratylus is an early testimony of the debate between a conventionalist stance that views this relation as purely a matter of convention and a naturalist stance that views this relation as stemming from a natural, nonarbitrary, connection. In the past century, ever since de Saussure (1916), the arbitrariness of the linguistic sign has...
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Shintel, H., Fenn, K.M. (2016). Arbitrary. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3303-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3303-1
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