The Thickness of Pitch: Crossmodal Metaphors in Farsi, Turkish, and Zapotec

Abstract

Speakers use vocabulary for spatial verticality and size to describe pitch. A high—low contrast is common to many languages, but others show contrasts like thick—thin and big—small. We consider uses of thick for low pitch and thin for high pitch in three languages: Farsi, Turkish, and Zapotec. We ask how metaphors for pitch structure the sound space. In a language like English, high applies to both high-pitched as well as high-amplitude (loud) sounds; low applies to low-pitched as well as low-amplitude (quiet) sounds. Farsi, Turkish, and Zapotec organize sound in a different way. Thin applies to high pitch and low amplitude and thick to low pitch and high amplitude. We claim that these metaphors have their sources in life experiences. Musical instruments show co-occurrences of higher pitch with thinner, smaller objects and lower pitch with thicker, larger objects. On the other hand bodily experience can ground the high—low metaphor. A raised larynx produces higher pitch and lowered larynx lower pitch. Low-pitched sounds resonate the chest, a lower place than high-pitched sounds. While both patterns are available from life experience, linguistic experience privileges one over the other, which results in differential structuring of the multiple dimensions of sound.

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