Estimating Word Phonosemantics

Abstract

The paper describes a method of word phonosemantics estimation. We treat phonosemantics as a subconscious emotional perception of word sounding independent on the word meaning. The method is based on the data about emotional perception of sounds obtained from a number of respondents. A program estimates word’s emotional characteristics using the data about sounds. The program output was compared with human’s judgment. The results of the experiments showed that in most cases computer description of a word based on phonosemantic calculations is similar with our own impressions of the word’s sounding. On the other hand the word meaning dominates in emotional perception of the word and phonosemantic part comes out for the words with unknown meaning.

Resources

Details