Arbitrariness is the core feature of language. Arbitrariness refers to the fact that the forms of linguistic signs bear no natural relationship to their meaning.Arbitrariness is a sign of sophistication and it makes it possible for language to have an unlimited source of expressions. Onomatopoeic words are the words that sound like the sounds they describe. Only when people know the meaning can they infer that the linguistic sign is appropriate for the exact sound. But language is not absolutely arbitrary.We can say arbitrariness is a matter of degree. Firstly, some compounds are not entirely arbitrary. “Snow” and “storm” are arbitrary or unmotivated words, while “snowstorms” is less so. Secondly, language is not arbitrary at the syntactic level (the word order).

本题考查语言的任意性特征。 任意性是语言的核心特征， 是指符号的形式或者声音与意义之间没有逻辑或内在联系。 虽然语言从本质上讲是任意的，但也不是完全任意的。 一些词语， 例如一些拟声词的发音与其意义还是有一定联系的。