Phonological iconicity in cognitive neuroscience and in the French linguistic tradition

A significant part of the recent research in language neuropsychology and neurophysiology seems to revive the long-standing hypothesis of an originally motivated relationship between phonetics and semantics. Even if phonological iconicity is a long neglected subject in linguistics, particularly in French linguistics of the second half of the XVth century, a long tradition of researches does exist. It can be traced back to Plato in the old age and to Leibniz in modern age, and it has important manifestations in France too. This article aims to illustrate critically the theories of phonological iconicity developed by Charles de Brosses at the age of Enlightenment (1765), by Maurice Grammont at the time of Saussure (1901, 1933) and by JeanPeterfalvi Michel in the years of mature structuralism (1964, 1970). For each author, one provides a historical-epistemological framework of his theory, an almost exhaustive illustration of the examples and a critical evaluation of its approach from a methodological point of view. This allows to adumbrate the silhouette of a possible contemporary theory, beyond traditional difficulties and naiveties.