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

[David Tuggy]

Helpful discussion, John, of how to explain the lacunae.

I have found it useful for myself, however, to think of things the other 
way around and try to explain the coincidences rather than the lacunae. 
Given that language is a cultural artifact, why should there be as much 
overlap of meanings, or near coincidence of the boundaries to those 
meanings, as there is? Most of the time, it seems to me, it can be tied 
to something in the nature of what all our cultures have to deal with 
(e.g. the human body with its parts and functions, human societies, food 
and water, earth and air, etc.) and/or something about our cognitive 
makeup.

Many of the issues come down to, not, "our environment or 
cognitive/cultural nature means we must think (& speak) thus", but "they 
make it difficult to think any way but thus" or "they make it easier to 
think thus than some/most/all alternatives", or "they encourage us to 
think thus (A), or thus (B), or thus (C) (and may allow other ways as 
well)."

It really does help to look at languages from very different parts of 
the world/cultural spheres and traditions/language families. I find 
plenty of differences between English and Spanish, but a much greater 
proportion of differences between either of them and Nahuatl. The 
amazing thing, to me, is how much coincidence there is.

--David Tuggy



John Roberts wrote:
> 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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> Yahoo! Groups Links
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