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<p>Dear all,</p>
<p>Relative terms making reference to "left" or "right" may also be
lexicalized to form toponyms. For example, the country name Yemen
is actually a lexicalization of the Arabic word for "right",
drawing upon an canonical orientation facing the rising sun to the
east.</p>
<p>David</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 05/03/2021 10:36, Dmitry Nikolaev
wrote:<br>
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cite="mid:CAHMCzMAP9UTwH90w6z8khBpMcRq7pn8uLmZ_xxbfRKRbUnSdjg@mail.gmail.com">
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<div>Dear Juergen,</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I don't know what level of conventionalisation you are
looking for, but speakers of Russian, at least those who grew
up in large cities, tend in general to avoid using geocentric
terms and feel uncomfortable using them, and if it is at all
possible to say "The lake is to the right of the hill", I
would personally do so. A quick googling showed that this
phraseology is quite frequent in route descriptions, and this
YouTube video literally advertises a plot of land "to the left
of lake Veselovka".<br>
</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>My best,</div>
<div>Dmitry<br>
</div>
</div>
<br>
<div class="gmail_quote">
<div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Fri, 5 Mar 2021 at 07:26,
Bohnemeyer, Juergen <<a href="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu"
moz-do-not-send="true">jb77@buffalo.edu</a>> wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px
0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">Dear
all — I’d like to solicit your help with a generalization. I’m
wondering whether anybody is aware of a counterexample:<br>
<br>
It is well known that there are communities whose members
regularly use geocentric terms in reference to the speaker’s
own body, as in <br>
<br>
(1) ‘My western/downhill arm hurts’. <br>
<br>
E.g., Laughren (1978) mentions this phenomenon in reference to
Warlpiri. Levinson (2003: 4) notes that the practice exists
among speakers of Guugu Yimithirr (Pama-Nyungan, Queensland).
Haun & Rapold (2011) present an experimental study of the
practice with speakers of ≠Akhoe Hai||om (Khoekhoe, Namibia).<br>
<br>
Now, I’m interested in what you might consider something of an
inverse of this kind of use: the use of relative frames at the
geographic scale, as in<br>
<br>
(2) ‘The lake is to the right of the hill’<br>
<br>
My generalization is that there doesn’t seem to be any
community in which the type of use exemplified by (2) is
conventional.<br>
<br>
That is to say, of course we can easily imagine situations in
which English speakers might exchange something like (2):<br>
<br>
* A speaker looking at the lake and hill might use (2) to
describe what she sees to an interlocutor who doesn’t have
visual access to the scene. The speaker might use relative
language in this case in order to produce a vivid image of the
scene as it presents itself to her. <br>
<br>
* A speaker looking at representations of the hill and lake on
a map might use (2) metonymically. <br>
<br>
However, I’m unaware of a community in which something like
(2) would be a conventional way of locating landscape entities
with respect to one another in the absence of visual access to
(representations of) them. <br>
<br>
(One could argue that (2) is pragmatically semi-infelicitous
in such a context since the truth of (2) depends on the
location of the observer, which is usually more variable than
that of the hill and lake. However, even though the truth of
(1) similarly changes with the speaker’s orientation, it is
presumed to be an entrenched strategy for this context in
several cultures. My interest is partly in this asymmetry.)<br>
<br>
I’m curious whether people are aware of counterexamples. <br>
<br>
Thanks! — Juergen<br>
<br>
Haun, D. M. B. & C. J. Rapold. (2011). Variation in memory
for body movements across cultures. Current Biology 19(23):
R1068-1069.<br>
<br>
Laughren,M. (1978). Directional terminology in Warlpiri. in
Th. Le and M. McCausland (eds.), Working papers in language
and linguistics, 8: 1–16. Launceston: Tasmanian College of
Advanced Education.<br>
<br>
Levinson, S. C. (2003). Space in language and cognition.
Cambridge: CUP.<br>
<br>
-- <br>
Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)<br>
Professor, Department of Linguistics<br>
University at Buffalo <br>
<br>
Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus<br>
Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260 <br>
Phone: (716) 645 0127 <br>
Fax: (716) 645 3825<br>
Email: <a href="mailto:jb77@buffalo.edu" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true">jb77@buffalo.edu</a><br>
Web: <a href="http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/"
rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/</a>
<br>
<br>
Office hours will be held by Zoom. Email me to schedule a call
at any time. I will in addition hold Tu/Th 4-5pm open
specifically for remote office hours.<br>
<br>
There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In <br>
(Leonard Cohen) <br>
<br>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
David Gil
Senior Scientist (Associate)
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
Email: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gil@shh.mpg.de">gil@shh.mpg.de</a>
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