ARBITRARY, PREDICTABLE … OR MOTIVATED?

Let us look at the impact that metaphor and iconicity have on linguistic theory.

As we have seen, iconic linguistic items are related to their meanings through physical resemblance. We should note, however, that there are many different possible iconic representations of a single visual or auditory image; for example, one could represent different parts of the image, use different scales or perspectives, or preserve different levels of detail. As Klima and Bellugi (1979) observed, the signs meaning tree in ASL, Danish Sign Language, and Chinese Sign Language are all equally iconic but different in form: in ASL tree (see Fig. 3.1), the hands and forearms are positioned to resemble a tree growing out of the ground; the Danish equivalent uses the hands to trace the outline of a tree's branches and trunk, top to bottom; and the Chinese sign meaning tree uses two curved hands to trace the outline of a tree trunk, from the ground up.

Clearly, the meaning tree and the associated visual image do not determine the signs' forms, as they are all different – but neither are the forms unrelated to the meaning. Instead, the forms all bear different types of physical resemblance to the image of a tree. The nature of these forms, given their meaning, is neither arbitrary nor predictable but rather motivated.