Iconicity in language typology

Abstract In language typology, iconicity has been assumed to motivate several cross-linguistic patterns pertaining to the structure of linear sequences, the structural complexity of individual expressions, and the structural similarity between different expressions. This chapter provides a review of these patterns and the relevant iconicity principles. Assumptions about these principles are based on the synchronic properties of individual patterns, not on the diachronic phenomena that give rise to these patterns cross-linguistically. The chapter examines a number of recurrent cross-linguistic processes involved in the development of some of these patterns. These processes do not appear to be driven by iconicity or other functional principles that have been proposed to account for individual patterns. This calls for a reassessment of the role of these principles in light of various diachronic phenomena that actually lead to the emergence of particular cross-linguistic patterns.