Author: M. A. Flaksman (Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University "LETI")

Keywords\n Great Vowel Shift, phonetic laws, etymology, onomatopoeia, phonosymbolism, iconicity

Pages\n 917–923

Summary\n: Phonosemantic inertia is a rare phenomenon when an iconic (onomatopoeic or sound symbolic) word can withstand regular phonetic changes undergone by the majority of the words belonging to the corresponding etymological class if these changes obscure the sound-sense link existing between the shape of the word and its meaning. In English the process and its outcomes can be detected upon studying the concrete textual examples of the words’ diachronic development. The analysis of the discovered cases of phonosemantic inertia allows us to make suggestions about the conditions under which it occurs.

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