31.2223, Review: Morphology; Phonology: Raffaelli, Katunar, Kerovec (2019)
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Subject: 31.2223, Review: Morphology; Phonology: Raffaelli, Katunar, Kerovec (2019)
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Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2020 17:35:52
From: Sakine Cabuk Balli [sakinec at gmail.com]
Subject: Lexicalization patterns in color naming
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-4502.html
EDITOR: Ida Raffaelli
EDITOR: Daniela Katunar
EDITOR: Barbara Kerovec
TITLE: Lexicalization patterns in color naming
SUBTITLE: A cross-linguistic perspective
SERIES TITLE: Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics 78
PUBLISHER: John Benjamins
YEAR: 2019
REVIEWER: Sakine Cabuk Balli, University of Zurich
SUMMARY
The volume ‘Lexicalization patterns in color naming: a cross-linguistic
perspective’ edited by Ida Raffaelli, Daniela Katunar and Barbara Kerovec
brings together research on devices used in color naming and examines both
similarities and differences in grammatical processes underlying
lexicalization patterns in color naming from a cross-linguistic perspective.
Basing its main argument on the long-lasting debate between universalists and
relativists, the volume aims to contribute to the investigation of
phonological morphological, syntactic and semantic devices used to express
both local and non-local color terms in typologically diverse languages.
The volume comprises 16 chapters, which are then classified under three main
sections. Introductory note by the editors provides a sketch of the volume’s
structure. The editors’ eponymous introduction states the goals of the book
and gives summaries of individual chapters by providing the theoretical
groundwork for subsequent chapters. The research projects reported in the
volume investigate lexicalization patterns in typologically, genealogically,
and culturally diverse languages. The papers in the volume originate from the
project ‘Evolution of Semantic Systems (EoSS, held at Max Planck Institute for
Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen (2011 to 2014) and later the workshop of ‘17th
International Morphology Meeting’ organized in Vienna, Austria, 18-21
February, 2016.
In the first part titled ‘Lexicalization patterns in and over time’, the
authors focus on the development and representation of lexicalization patterns
from a diachronic and synchronic point of view. The papers in this section
center around intra-linguistic structural variability and extend the concept
of lexicalization papers from the universalist account to a more nuanced
description of color terms in linguistic representation and lexicalization.
Most of the papers presented in this section challenge Berlin and Kay’s (1969)
concept of basic color with findings from Hungarian, Italian, and Gbaya and
present a more flexible approach. Yet, findings from the Slovak language
support cultural developmental stages of color terms and the claim that there
is a hierarchy of basic color terminologies across cultures (Kay et al.,
2009). The study on Hungarian criticizes the notion of basic color terms and
highlights heterogeneity among basic color terms with respect to their
linguistic representation, salience, and degree of basicness. The chapters on
the Italian and Korean languages deal with phonological, morphosyntactic and
compounding patterns in the formation of color terms and emphasize that the
color lexicon extends systematically over time. The paper on the Korean color
naming system reports that sound symbolism is operative in the Korean color
term system; and mechanisms like vowel polarity, consonant tensing and
aspiration contribute to the color-term inventory. The paper on Danish visual
semantics scrutinizes the topic of universality of brightness with a focus on
distinction between lightness and brightness. Drawing on insights from the
visual semantics paradigm, the paper deconstructs the notion of brightness and
argues for a relativist approach to a culture-specific understanding of the
color spectrum in the visual semantics of the world’s languages.
In the second part, ‘Color terms in genealogical and typological perspective’,
the authors analyze color terms in a genealogical and typological perspective
with a comparative approach. The first two papers present fine-grained
categories of color terms in Hindi and Basque with unique patterns in each
language. In both languages, strategies used to convey different shades of
meaning of basic colors (such as compounding, affixation, reduplication, and
language-specific lexicalization patterns like approximation-type and
metonym-type) are extensively explored. The next studies in this section
investigate lexicalization patterns in color terms between genetically related
languages that share grammatical features as a result of typologically
relatedness. The study on Semitic color term systems explores the origins of
Semitic color terms for yellow, green and blue, which are missing in the
proto-Semitic basic color term system. Transfer of these non-basic color terms
from proto-Semitic to daughter languages is reported to derive from
designations of referent objects, which are characterized by a certain color
and serve as referents for color terms. The chapter on color naming in French
and Occitan focuses on morphological strategies employed in lexicalization of
primary and secondary color terms. Analyzing the descriptions of color chips
by the speakers of French and Occitan, the authors conclude that there is an
overlap between the speakers of both languages in linguistic strategies used
to express meaning in the semantic domain of color naming despite the
difference between the two languages in the frequency of these strategies. In
addition, it is reported that there is preference for analytic constructions
in French in comparison to the prevalence of synthetic constructions in
Occitan. By the same token, the chapter on color naming strategies by speakers
of Croatian, Czech, and Polish presents the results of a color naming task.
The results revealed that in addition to reported similarities in the
formation of color terms in these Indo-European languages, different
grammatical mechanisms are used in the lexicalization process. The last
chapter in this section reports the first large-scale typological survey of
color terms with data from 350 African languages. Investigating
language-internal semantic sources and morphosyntactic strategies in color
naming, the authors take the previous research a step further by analyzing
contact-induced terminology used in color naming. The authors argue that
lexicalization patterns in the languages studied comply with general
cross-linguistic tendencies. It is noted that some lexicalization patterns are
language-specific and language-contact seems to be at work with the borrowing
of color terms and colexifications.
In the last part titled ‘Languages in culture and languages in contact’, the
authors present the intertwined relationship between cultural and symbolic
meaning of colors in different sociocultural contexts. A theme that goes hand
in hand with contact of cultures is language contact which is reflected in the
grammatical structures employed in color naming in the languages examined in
this section. The first paper in this section traces microvariation in the
languages from different historical and cultural backgrounds: Icelandic, North
American Icelandic as a heritage language and Icelandic Sign Language, as well
as British and North American English. Relying on the results of statistical
analysis with multi-level analysis of color categories, the authors posit that
there is evidence for microvariation that suggests cultural and linguistic
variation in typologically diverse languages. It is reported that there are
striking differences in color naming strategies with the extensive use of
derivational morphology in both Englishes, in contrast to compounding and
modification strategies in Icelandic languages. The overall conclusion
suggests a relativistic and culturally constrained view of color variation.
Working on color phraseology of Russian and German, the paper on
phraseological units uncover similarities but more culture-specific linguistic
features, which also support the relativists’ view of lexicalization patterns
(Wierzbicka, 2005). Semantic analysis of phraseological units like
collocational, propositional, lexical idioms, and similes showed that Russian
uses similes as the base in lexicalization patterns of color terms, whereas
German employs symbolic and cultural phraseological units. The study on color
terms in Croatian, Turkish and Arabic examines lexicalization patterns in
these typologically, genetically and socio-culturally different languages by
reporting some striking similarities in lexicalization strategies like
suffixation, compounding and genitive construction. These three languages
exploit the ‘object for color’ strategy. Croatian and Turkish show structural
similarities in the productivity of color terms in word-formation process;
however, Croatian uses different affixation patterns compared to Turkish and
Arabic. The last chapter of this section addresses the Ossetic color terms
system in the evolutionary sequence of the development of basic color terms in
cultural and historical context. Analyzing focal and non-focal color terms,
the author posits the Ossetic color system at Stage IV and names suffixation,
morphological modifiers, diminutives, and borrowings from other languages
spoken in the area as patterns used in color naming.
To sum up, the studies in this volume explain lexicalization patterns in color
naming that capture typological regularities as well as specificities with
respect to grammatical devices used to encode certain meanings.
EVALUATION
Color terms, one of the most studied and well-documented lexical domains, are
explored through various structures and systems across the languages in the
world (Evans, 2010). This volume contributes to the investigation of color
terms across typologically and genealogically diverse languages.
Lexicalization patterns for colors have been considered an ideal area of
lexicon for testing the doctrines of linguistic relativity and universalist
theory. The debate between two major views (universalists and relativists) has
been acknowledged with extensive discussions throughout the book. Some authors
argue for the universal approach by claiming that color categories are
organized around universal foci, and some others claim that the language
structure dictates local linguistic conventions, and partition of the color
spectrum differs in relation to linguistic diversity (Raffaelli et al., 2019;
Wierzbicka, 2006, 2008). Most authors level criticism against basic color
terms and question the rationale and validity of universal generalizations
which do not take local linguistic conventions into consideration. Some assert
that language structure rules the partition of the color spectrum in line with
local linguistic conventions and highlight the significance of heterogeneity
among basic color terms with respect to their linguistic representation.
Others present findings in favor of universal principles in the demarcation of
color terms from the influential study of universal color terms by Berlin and
Kay (1969) and support the argument that there is a universal color list that
is reflected in the evolution of language and culture.
The volume appears to be coherent in the presentation of the chapters under
three main sections, but it is apparently challenging to classify a wide range
of papers under three main headings.Yet, there are some papers that do not fit
well in the part that they are presented in and deserve to be categorized
under a fourth section. In general, the volume gives a good account of various
aspects of color naming like linguistic, perceptive, and cultural in relation
to strategies. The chapters are tailored in a way that they cover these areas
with data from typologically diverse languages and with both small and
large-scale studies (Bulakh; Segerer & Vanhove). Nonetheless, the book lacks
discussion of the cognitive aspects of color terms except for the chapter on
brightness (Levisen) and does not give any reference to color perception in
the brain or visual semantics, which would have enhanced its conclusions on
lexicalization patterns in color naming and gave a more complete picture of
the underlying mechanisms.
An important thread that connects the papers in this volume is grammatical
processes underlying lexicalization patterns and the strategies used in color
naming across languages. The chapters in the volume highlight various
strategies employed in lexicalization patterns in color naming with wide
implications for typology and cross-linguistic research. The papers not only
scrutinize linguistic devices employed within and across diverse languages in
relation to lexicalization patterns but also point out similarities and
differences in the formation of these strategies across diverse languages.
Accordingly, mechanisms of color naming such as compounding, suffixation,
object-naming, morphological modifiers, opaque lexemes, syntactic
constructions, and reduplication are addressed with elaborate examples; and
the origins of these devices are explored at the morphological and syntactic
levels. These analyses are accompanied by phonological and semantic processes
(e.g., metonyms and metaphor). The variety of examples is well selected and
gives a clear idea about the phenomenon under analysis. Drawing upon various
parameters that influence morphosyntactic variation in color naming, the
volume manages to give a detailed picture of typological variation in
lexicalization patterns.
Methodologically, the range of languages covered in the volume is very
impressive, from the well-known European languages with Slavic, Germanic,
Indo-Aryan, Iranian, and Romance subfamilies to Afro-Asiatic, Niger-Kongo,
Nilo-Saharan, Uralic, Turkic, Koreanic, Khoisan and the language isolate
Basque. Icelandic sign language is also included in comparison to depict the
development of lexical patterns in color naming. Nevertheless, only a few
papers make use of a large database in making comparisons across and within
languages, despite the axiomatic assumption in cross-linguistic studies that
assertions about cross-linguistic variation must be based on large samples.
Some papers in the book do not go beyond description of lexicalization
patterns in the languages investigated, while some other studies give
structured and sophisticated accounts of the lexicalization patterns and
lesser-known semantic mechanisms by using a large database. As another minor
point of criticism, the volume might have benefitted from a more unified
approach to the conceptualization of lexicalization patterns across all of the
studies in the volume (Blank, 2001). The studies in the volume, however,
manage to convey diverse realizations of linguistic forms in a more or less
similar manner. In spite of these drawbacks, most of the papers present
original research findings pertaining to commonalities and specifications of
lexicalization patterns, which makes the book a worthwhile collection of
studies.
Several articles of this volume deserve special attention from theoretical
linguists and typologists since they make an important contribution to our
understanding of inter- and intra-language variation. They shed new light on
semantic devices used in both focal and non-focal terms (Levisen), present
valuable large-scale typological research (Segerer & Vanhove), and sometimes
challenge the common assumptions of typological diversity in lexicalization
patterns in the world languages using a quantitative method to measure
variability (Beck & Whelpton). Levisen puts forward strong claims about
brightness, considering it non-universal and proposes an emic approach to the
notion of brightness. The author contributes to a better understanding of
global visual semantics with fine-grained analysis of the notion of light and
tries to decentralize color semantics from Anglocentrism (Levisen, 2018) with
findings that deserve special attention. Segerer and Vanhove report the
results of a large-scale typological survey of lexical means in more than 350
African languages by exploring color naming strategies and tracing
contact-induced terminology through borrowing, which is an important
contribution to large-scale typological research in patterns of lexicalization
in African languages. Beck and Whelpton employ a quantitative approach to
examine how color terms are distributed in typologically similar and diverse
languages and argue for evidence of microvariation in color naming. Their
approach to data proves that microvariation among languages or language
varieties can be explored with a quantitative approach.
The overall impression left by the book is surely very positive. The book
achieves its goal by taking the research on perceptual salience of color terms
a step further and gives a good account of lexicalization patterns from
diachronic, synchronic, and sociolinguistic points of view. Thus, the book
should be of great interest to scholars in the field of linguistic typology,
more specifically lexical and semantic typology with its focus on
cross-linguistic approach to lexicalization patterns in both genetically and
typologically close and distant languages.
Overall, this is a comprehensive book with detailed exploration of color terms
across diverse languages, which paves the way for research in the areas of
typological research in lexicalization patterns in color naming and
cross-linguistic study of language form and meaning. It is therefore a great
resource and a starting point for future research.
REFERENCES
Berlin B., & Kay, P. (1969). Basic color terms: Their universality and
evolution. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Blank, A. (2001). Pathways of lexicalization. In M. Haspelmath, E. König, W.
Osterreicher & W. Raible (Eds.) Language typology and language universals: An
international handbook 2 (pp. 1596-1608), Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Evans, N. (2010). Semantic typology. In J. J. Song (Ed.) The Oxford handbook
of linguistic typology, pp. 504-533. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kay, P., Berlin, B., Maffi, L., Merrifield, W. R., Cook, R. (2009). The world
colour survey. Stanford: CSLI.
Levisen, C. (2018). Biases we live by. Anglocentrism in linguistics and
cognitive sciences. Language Sciences, special issue on biases in linguistics,
Ed. By S. Borchmann, C. Levisen, and B. Schneider.
Raffaelli, I., Chromy, J., & Kopecka, A. (2019). Lexicalization patterns in
color naming in Croatian, Czech, and Polish. In I. Raffaelli, D. Katunar, & B.
Kerovec (Eds.), Lexicalization patterns in color naming: A cross-linguistic
perspective (pp. 269-286). John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Wierzbicka, A. (2005). There are no ‘color universals’ but there are
universals of visual semantics. Anthropological Linguistics, 47(2), 217–244.
Wierzbicka, A. (2006). The semantics of colour: A new paradigm. In Pitchford,
N.J. & Biggam, C.P. (Eds.), Progress in colour studies: Volume I. Language and
culture (pp. 1–24). Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Wierzbicka, A. (2008). Why there are no ‘color universals’ in language and
thought. Journal of the Royal Antropological Institute, 14 (2), 407-425.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Sakine Cabuk Balli is a PhD student at the Department of Comparative Language
Science at the University of Zurich. Her research interests lie in the areas
of cross-linguistic approaches to language acquisition and psycholinguistic
mechanisms of language development, with a specific focus on the acquisition
of negation across typologically diverse languages.
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