The Thickness of Pitch: Crossmodal Metaphors in Farsi, Turkish, and Zapotec

speakers use vocabulary for spatial verticality and size to describe pitch. A high–low contrast is common to many languages, but others show contrasts like thick–thin and big–small. We consider uses of thick for low pitch and thin for high pitch in three languages: Farsi, turkish, and Zapotec. We ask how metaphors for pitch structure the sound space. In a language like English, high applies to both high-pitched as well as high-amplitude (loud) sounds; low applies to low-pitched as well as low-amplitude (quiet) sounds. Farsi, turkish, and Zapotec organize sound in a different way. Thin applies to high pitch and low amplitude and thick to low pitch and high amplitude. We claim that these metaphors have their sources in life experiences. Musical instruments show Shakila Shayan is a post-doctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. [email protected] Ozge Ozturk is at NYU, Department of Psychology, and was formerly a post-doc at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. [email protected] Mark Sicoli is Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks, formerly with the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. [email protected] S en se s & S oc ie ty 9 7 Thickness of Pitch co-occurrences of higher pitch with thinner, smaller objects and lower pitch with thicker, larger objects. On the other hand bodily experience can ground the high–low metaphor. A raised larynx produces higher pitch and lowered larynx lower pitch. Low-pitched sounds resonate the chest, a lower place than highpitched sounds. While both patterns are available from life experience, linguistic experience privileges one over the other, which results in differential structuring of the multiple dimensions of sound.