Bears and why they mostly are called otherwise

[Ante Aikio]

On Tue, 7 Mar 2000, Richard M. Alderson III wrote:

> On Mon, 6 Mar 2000, Ante Aikio (anaikio at mail.student.oulu.fi) wrote:

>> There's a similar semantic shift in e.g. Finnish puna 'red color' < *'fur'
>> (its cognates mean 'hair', 'fur', 'wool').

> Is it the basic term for _red_ in Finnish?  Or is there another, so that only
> certain things get labeled _puna_?  (Cf. horse-hide terms in English such as
> _bay_, _dun_, _chestnut_, and so on.)

No, it's the only term for 'red' in Finnish. _puna_ is actually a noun
meaning 'red color', and the corresponding adjective is a derivative of it
(punainen 'red'). The meaning 'color' is also attested in some of the
other Uralic cognates, but not 'red'.

						 	Ante Aikio