====== Notions of arbitrariness ======
  * **ID:** 20231012155315435-1307
  * **Researcher:** Luca Gasparri, Piera Filippi, Markus Wild, Hans-Johann Glock
  * **WP:** Other
  * **PI:** Hans-Johann Glock, Markus Wild
  * **Abstract:** Arbitrariness is a distinctive feature of human language, and a growing body of comparative work is investigating its presence in animal communication. But what is arbitrariness, exactly? We propose to distinguish four notions of semiotic arbitrariness: a notion of opaque association between sign forms and semiotic functions, one of sign-function mapping optionality, one of acquisition-dependent sign-function coupling, and one of lack of motivatedness. We characterize these notions, illustrate the benefits of keeping them apart, and describe two reactions to our proposal: abandoning arbitrariness-talk in favor of the newly introduced conceptual vocabulary, or feeding the distinctions back into the parent concept.
  * **Publication DOI:** [[https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12443|https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12443]]
  * **Publication Link:** [[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mila.12443|https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mila.12443]]
  * **Data Type:** null
  * **Data Format:** null
  * **Git:** [[None|None]]