The Iconicity reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Iconicity

In cognitive linguistics, iconicity is the conceived similarity between a form of language and its meaning.

Iconic principles:

• Quantity principle: formal complexity corresponds to conceptual complexity
• Proximity principle: conceptual distance tends to match with linguistic distance
• Sequential order principle: the sequential order of events described is mirrored in the speech chain

Iconic coding principles are natural tendencies in language and are also part of our cognitive and biological make-up.

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