[Lexicog] Re: Words that are absent in particular languages

[John Roberts]

I wouldn't say that lexical lacuna is entirely due to cultural influences. 
The syntactic and semantic systems of the language also affect the lexicon. 
Here are a few examples.

There is a limited range of syntactic functions in the clause that can be 
questioned.

Typology of interrogative categories
The major categories: PERSON, THING, SELECTION, PLACE
The minor categories: QUANTITY, MANNER, TIME
The incidental categories: REASON, QUALITY, EXTENT, POSITION, ACTION, RANK, 
etc.

Arawakan (Peru) apparently has one question word for everything. So a 
speaker of Arawakan has no option but to use that one question word.

Compare English and Amele (Papuan) below. Amele makes a number of further 
distinctions than English. E.g. in Amele 'who' can be singular or plural, or 
definite or indefinite. English, on the other hand, has syntactic 
distinctions of 'who' (nom), 'whom' (acc) and 'whose' (gen).

English interrogative words          Amele interrogative words

PERSON          who/whom/         in (sg), an (pl) (definite reference) 
'who'
                        whose                itah (sg), atah (pl) 
(indefinite reference) 'who'
THING             what                    cel (definite reference) 'what'
                                                 cala (indefinite reference) 
'what'
                                                 eeta 'what'
SELECTION    which                   cel (sg), ail (pl) 'which'
PLACE            where                  ana (from ene 'here', ono 'there')
                                                 ai (from i 'this', eu 
'that', ou 'yonder')
SOURCE         whence               ana=dec 'where from'
GOAL              whither                ai=sec 'which way'
QUANTITY     how many              ganic 'how many, how much'
                        how much
MANNER        how                     adi 'how'
TIME               when                   adec (vb) 'to when', cel saen 
'what time', ganih 'when'
REASON         why                     eeta=nu 'what for'

Some possible contrasts for person/thing:
animate/inanimate
masculine/feminine
singular/plural
honorific/familiar

Contrasts for place:
Lezgian (Nakh-Dagestanian, Dagestan, Haspelmath 1993: 188)
hinag 'where'
hiniz 'where to' (Dative)
hinin 'where of' (Genitive)
hinaj 'where from' (Elative)
hina 'where at' (Adessive
hinal 'where on' (Superessive)
hinra 'where in' (Inessive)

Contrasts for time:
Tuvalu (Austronesian, Tuvalu, Besnier 2000: 430)
aafea 'when'
anafea 'when (in the past)'
maafea 'when (in the present)'

Contrasts for quantity:
count/mass

Amele has an inalienably possessed noun system. The referents are kinship 
relations, body parts and personal attributes. So you cannot say 'father'. 
You have to say 'my father', 'his father', etc. You cannot say 'head'. You 
have to say 'our head', 'their head', etc. You cannot say 'shame'. You have 
to say 'your shame', 'her shame', etc. Within the kinship terms there is a 
morphological difference between kin relations you are born with, e.g. 
'father', 'grandparent', and those you acquire after birth, e.g. 'wife', 
'son'. So Amele has a range of lexical expressions which are grammatically 
possessed. English, by contrast, does not have such a set of lexical 
expressions and notions such as 'father', 'head', 'shame' can be expressed 
without the idea of 'belonging to someone'.

Talmy (1985) pointed out there is a crucial typological difference in the 
ways that different languages conflate semantic features in motion verbs. 
The conflation of MOTION + MANNER is very common among the Indo-European 
languages such as English, which has many verbs like 'saunter', 'crawl', 
'stroll', etc. But it is not common in the Romance languages, Semitic 
languages, Polynesian languages, most Bantu and Mayan languages, and 
Japanese. In these languages the prevailing pattern of conflation is MOTION 
+ PATH. Amele prefers this pattern too. E.g. tec 'go up', bec 'come up', noc 
'go down', nec 'come down'. lec 'go inside', ahoc GET+COME 'bring', ehec 
GET+GO 'take'.

There are probably many other examples of this type of thing, but this is 
all I could think of at the moment.

John Roberts



 



 
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