Form iconic word

Form iconic word (consisting of form and iconic ) denotes a type of word formation that uses the shape of a letter or other graphic sign to illustrate the meaning of the word in question. It is the graphic counterpart to the onomatopoeic words ( onomatopoeia ), which can accordingly be understood as phonetic .

Examples of form iconic words

Examples of such words, which are often determinative compounds and in which a constituent is a letter:

A-frame (field with two inclined pillars on bridges)
Dee ( cyclotron component )
H-shift (in a vehicle transmission ), H-engine
I-beam
L-beam
O-legs , bowlegged, O-ring , Wire-o-bond
S-curve , S-curve
T-shirt , T-piece , T-beam (profile steel)
T-junction (road or street junction)
U-valley , U-beam, U-turn , U-tube manometer , U-motor , U-shaped
V-valley , V-neck (pointed neckline on an item of clothing), V-position , V-style , V-motor
W engine
X-legs , knot-knees, X-motor
Y-route
Z-beam

These examples should not be confused with partial acronyms such as U-Boot or U-Bahn . In these cases, the grapheme “U” only serves to abbreviate the first part of the word, but has no mapping function.

Brekle (1981) gives examples from a number of languages, so that it is clear that this is a common pattern in many languages.

literature

F. Adolphi: V-man with knock knees on the express train . In: Idioma 3, 1964, pp. 110-111.

Herbert Ernst Brekle: "No U-Turn". For integrating a special type of iconic element in written word formations. In: LAUT / Series B / Paper 35/1979 .

Herbert Ernst Brekle: On the integration of a special type of iconic elements in primarily written word formations in some European languages . In: Wolfgang Pöckel (Ed.): European multilingualism. Festschrift for the 70th birthday of Mario Wandruszka . Niemeyer, Tübingen 1981, pp. 197-207.

Dorothea Kobler-Trill: The short word in German . Niemeyer, Tübingen 1994, p. 107 f. ISBN 3-484-31149-5

K. Krause: The linguistic abbreviation procedures . In: Sprachkunde 1940, pp. 4–8.

Yakov Malkiel : Secondary uses of letters in language. In: ders., Essais on linguistic themes . Blackwell, Oxford 1968, pp. 357-398.

Individual evidence

^ Karl-Heinz Best: LinK. Linguistics in a nutshell, with an outlook on quantitative linguistics. Script. 5th revised edition. RAM-Verlag, Lüdenscheid 2008, p. 33.

Web links

Wiktionary: form iconic word - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

[1] Karl-Heinz Best: LinK. Linguistics in a nutshell, with an outlook on quantitative linguistics. Script. 5th revised edition. RAM-Verlag, Lüdenscheid 2008, p. 33.