Phonological structure and ‘expressiveness’

Abstract

Words of certain semantic types which can be subsumed under the label ‘expressive’ (notably onomatopoeias, movement words, and words with pejorative, jocular, or intense connotations) have a tendency in a wide range of languages to be associated with peculiarities of phonological structure – these peculiarities include types of sounds, sound-sequences and syllable-structures which can be regarded as peripheral in the language concerned.