<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">Hi, folks. I wanted to run something by the lurkers to find out if anything is known about the following: In Mongolian there are large numbers of expressive, phonosemantically transparent forms dealing with body posture and also with material consistency, as if they dealt with the same underlying domain. Korean has many forms like this as well, as well as some dealing with facial shapes and expressions. The interesting thing about these is that they deal with parts of the body near to the trunk or central axis, and with relatively low articulatory complexities. Note also that low control seems to be implied.<BR>
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Yahgan, on the other hand, has an extensive list of forms dealing with the distribution of arms and legs about the body (an almost semaphoric metaphor), absent from the above language types- this articulatory scheme which may be high in control sense. And Yahgan has posture forms grammaticalized. A connection? Yahgan also is bipartite, and has a big list of bodypart/instrument prefixes. So I'm wondering whether the equivalence of body part with instrument itself has something to do with the way Yahgan deals with proximal versus distal body parts in expressive formulations here.<BR>
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It would be interesting to know what Korean and Mongolian do with body parts (are they primarily more like locations?). Is there any way that these languages mirror Yahgan in that terms dealing with limbs or manipulation grammaticalize?<BR>
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Those expressives in the above two languages which deal with material consistency/texture seem to do so with focus on the mass, or larger whole such materials are part of, while in Yahgan equivalent forms are about individuated masses primarily if masses are implied at all. Another connection? Limbs as subdivided extensions of the body versus the mass of the body itself sans limbs?<BR>
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Any thoughts out there?<BR>
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Thanks,<BR>
Jess Tauber<BR>
zylogy@aol.com<BR>
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