"Cricket," for a simple example, could imitate the sound a cricket makes. Of course, not all coinage need be onomatopoeic, but is that the idea?Yes, it's called phonosemantics or sound symoblism. and it plays a small part in language, though some deny it. The name thing is based on the arbitrary association between the words (German) metzger 'butcher' and (English) tailor and such. Also few people with those names are in the professions. I see the physis-nomos (nature-convention) schools as the extremes on a spectrum. Besides, Plato's
Cratylus, you might want to take a look at Ferdinand de Saussure's
Course in General Linguistics. He talks about the arbitrary nature of association of the signifier (sound of a word) to the signified (concept). He did not posit an association with things as earlier philosophers / linguists did. A great many signs (words) are for concepts only and no objects are involved. He also talks about onomatopoeia versus the arbitrary nature of the sign. One of his examples, (French)
glas 'death knell', was used by Derrida as the title of one of his books.
There are a bunch of funny names for the various theories on the origins of language. The bow-wow theory (
link) is the one based on onomatopoeia. Animals make a whole slew of different sounds in different languages.
