Iconicity of distance accounts for the fact that things which belong together conceptually tend to be put together linguistically，and things that do not belong together are put at a distance. That is，elements which have a close relationship must be placed close together. This entails that conceptual distance corresponds to linguistic (i.e. structural) distance，not merely physical distance. A well-known example is the expression of causation. In almost all languages which distinguish direct versus indirect causation，the semantic difference between the two constructions in (18) mirrors the formal difference between them. In English， the formal distance between“causing” and“dying” is apparently less in (18a) than in (18b)：

（18）a. I killed the chicken.

b.I caused the chicken to die.

The conceptual distance in the two sentences is also different：Typically， in (18a)， causing and dying occur at the same time and place，and obviously there is an indication of physical contact. In (18b)，it seems that there is no physical contact between the killer and the killed，and that the action is in some sense magical. Thus， we can say that a single word (e.g. “kill”) tends to convey a more direct causation than a phrase (e.g. “cause to die”).

Iconicity of distance can also give a satisfactory explanation to the sequence of multi-adjectives before a noun. For example：

（19）a. the famous delicious Italian pepperoni pizza

b.*the Italian delicious famous pepperoni pizza

c.*the famous pepperoni delicious Italian pizza

d.*the pepperoni delicious famous Italian pizza

Here，only (19a) is acceptable while the other three are not. The reason is that only the first sentence follows the principle of distance iconicity.Since pepperoni is an inherent component of this kind of pizza，this word must be put before the noun directly；Italian，which denotes the place of origin，deserves the second closest position，while the characterization of the pizza as delicious and its evaluation as famous take the positions which are more distant from the noun.