[Lexicog] Lacunae

[Wayne Leman]

> So how do they forgive, Wayne? Even if they do not have a word,
> I thought forgiving is universal, although often hard to do.
> Are they of the silent kind who express forgiveness by a handshake

yes

> or smoking the peace-pipe together

yes

> or just having social interaction
> action again?
> In some cultures you can give flowers to express that you are sorry and
> ask for forgiveness. But that would not work either among the Cheyenne.
> So how do the Cheyennes express that they have forgiven someone?

And they can use lexical circumlocutions, such as "Let's recognize each
other again" or "Let's shake hands again." Now, one might say, well, that is
how they lexicalize "forgive," and maybe that is right, but I think there is
a difference between a lexicalized word that means "to forgive" and a
circumlocation or metaphorical expression which communicates the concept.
All ways of expressing a concept need to be recorded in a dictionary, in my
opinion, but in this topic thread I have especially been interested in
lacunae for actual words for a particular concept. Perhaps this is a
non-issue, but it seems to me that there is something to the idea that not
all language groups lexicalize the same concepts, nor have lexicalizations
for all possible concepts.

Wayne
-----
Wayne Leman
Cheyenne website: http://www.geocities.com/cheyenne_language

>
> Fritz



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