Iconicity

In functional-cognitive linguistics, iconicity is the conceived similarity between a form of language and its meaning.

Iconic principles:
 * Quantity principle: formal complexity corresponds to conceptual complexity
 * Proximity principle: conceptual distance tends to match with linguistic distance
 * Sequential order principle: the sequential order of events described is mirrored in the speech chain

Iconic coding principles are natural tendencies in language and are also part of our cognitive and biological make-up.