The presence of sea terms and metaphors in the linguistic studies begins with Sapir s idea of drift . But we can point out a notable increase of the marine vocabulary in the non-linear phonology. Bolinger develops a large metaphorical reasoning in order to interpret and represent the vocal instrument and, above all, the intonation as a multi-dimensional and thalassomorphic matter; in particular he emphasizes how emotional aspects give rise to vocal tides. Afterwards Goldsmith and the autosegmental phonology enlarge the use of definers (just like drift ) drawn from marine and maritime world, involving specific and complex linguistic phenomena (e.g. vowel armony). Remarkable the idea of anchoring : we can suppose it has filtered out in Optimality Theory from the Connexionist background and, probably, from a larger use in psychological and cognitive sciences.