The empirical basis of this article is a part of extensive psychosemantic research involving more than 3000 speakers. The first section attempts to objectivize the relationship between a word’s communicative dynamism and its acoustic accentuation. Using psychosemantic methods, it is shown that a word which is communicatively dynamic is always additionally perceived by the subjects as accentuated acoustically. Further psychosemantic experients monitor the influence of rhythmic quality on the process of the phonic line of the verse. The intuitive base for determining the rhythmic quality of words in lyrical representation is also noted. In lyrical theory, the emotive-value (rhythmic) logic of lyrical representation is nearly lacking in scientific reflection. The third section presents the results of research on the rhythmic quality of Czech phonemes, employing Roman Jakobson’s definition and Lakoff and Johnson’s concept of metaphor. Among 400 Czech speakers, the Czech phonemes are value-polarized in a psychosemantic field of space-oriented metaphors and distinctive opposites. These findings are then applied to experiments tracing the influence of the rhythmic qualities of phonemes on the phonic line of verse and revealing the parallel existence of rhythmic qualities of words and syllables in the acoustic accentuation of the phonic line of verse.
Subjectivity in the rhythm of a lyrical idea is manifested in two different, yet parallel rhythmic spaces. The more passive and sensually objectivized linear rhythm of a lyrical idea, which is created by the movement of perception in the opposition of positive-value (upward-outward) and negative-value (downward-inward) spatial orientations (i.e. in iamb and trochee metaphors). More active and emotionally subjectivized is the space of the non-linear rhythm (atmosphere) of a lyrical idea, which is formed by the movement of perception in the opposition of positive-value (pleasant-lightly temperamentally colored-active) and negative-value (unpleasant-darkly temperamentally colored-passive) emotive orientations. This article continues in the tradition of the author’s research on the emotive perception of Czech phones and it examines, using a set of 400 Czech speakers, whether we can administer the “syllabic” metaphors of iamb and trochee at the level of the phoneme.
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