Fw: [Lexicog] Re: shame, guilt, sorry, regret

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----- Original Message -----
From: "yahganlang" <phonosemantics at earthlink.net>
To: <lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 07, 2004 9:12 AM
Subject: [Lexicog] Re: shame, guilt, sorry, regret


> Just so happens that I was collecting together the hundreds of terms
> in Yahgan for mental states, associated physiological states, and
> terms dealing with various kinds of social interaction which crosscut
> these.
>
> Many of these are totally lexicalized, with unanalyzable roots.
> Others are composite, either a bodypart noun with adjective qualifier
> for states, basic verb root with adverbial qualifier for dynamisms.
> And there are partially analyzable forms as well.
>
> I haven't run across any meaning shame or guilt yet, but I'll let you
> know. There are quite a few terms though for describing various kinds
> of retiring or evasive moods, though. Maybe shame/guilt are
> themselves composites of basic mental state features more likely to
> be culture-bound versus the basic ones themselves, which I'd guess to
> be more universal.
>
> I'm reminded a little bit of Paul Ekman's facial gestural work here.
> And there was an article I remember from Science or Nature about 20
> or so years ago dealing with the links between facial gesture and
> emotional states, though I can't remember the title or exact date.
>
> One thing to note, though- in Yahgan and many other languages many of
> the mental state and perception terms belong to a phonosemantically
> transparent class of forms. There is often connection the cause of
> the perception/state and the result (kind of like the reciprocal
> relation one often sees in kinship terms). There is further linkage
> between the mental state and an equivalent material state inanimately.
>
> Thus "hard" means unyielding, "soft" yielding, acquiescing, etc.
> Other terms deal with states of freshness versus decay, health vs.
> sickness, etc.
>
> In Mongolian there are scores of transparent expressive forms that
> exhibit a duality between material texture meanings (w/wo associated
> animate equivalents) and prototypical postures associated with them.
> Thus softness inanimately associates with loss of height/collapse and
> spreading, or animately with bowing. Bowing then implies a social
> interaction between animate forces. And so on.
>
> Given the relative simplicity of semantic featural collocations in
> such forms (paralleling in many cases the phonosemantic
> transparency), it would be very interesting to know the etymological
> sources of the more complex ones, such as guilt, especially from a
> comparative perspective.
>
> So do you think perhaps there is some kind of developmental
> implicational hierarchical relationship between these forms? Would
> this tend to parallel social structural complexity? Yahgans were
> generally pretty much exhibiting their feelings right there on the
> surface- such openness has also been said to be characteristic of
> Andamanese as well (but one has to keep in mind the racist mindsets
> common to the observers in those years). One doesn't expect
> labyrinthine intrigues of Byzantine scope behind one false face after
> another, as we often see in our own society. I'm thinking Piaget here.
>
> Jess Tauber
>
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