关键词: 语言符号, 任意性, 非任意性, 象似性, 理据

Abstract: Terminological confusion is liable to hinder the further study of arbitrariness and no arbitrariness of linguistic signs and hence it is necessary to clarify it on the basis of original works. The analysis shows that arbitrariness mainly means the impossibility of finding out in the physical and biological sense, the motivation behind the link between the signal and signification of the linguistic sign. Arbitrariness also manifests itself at the level of linguistic signs and their entities, sound and meaning, and of syntactic structures and their semantic content. No arbitrariness is made to be in opposition to arbitrariness, and it includes motivation and iconicity. Iconicity mainly concerns the corresponding relationship between syntactic form and semantic function. Motivation is the driving force that promotes the formation, evolution or extinction of language phenomena or language entities. Being complementary and substantiated at
different levels, arbitrariness and no arbitrariness are two interdependent functional principles of language organization.

Key words: linguisticsigns, arbitrariness, noarbitrariness, iconicity, motivation