[Lingtyp] Extended uses of temperature words

Thu Aug 20 11:31:51 UTC 2015

Dear Maria,

The following Amharic expression relates directly to your ruery:
K’ ut’ t’ a-w           bärrädä-ll-ät
anger-3MSG.POS  be.cool-BEN-3MSG.OBJ
'He is not very angry anymore'
‘His anger subsided’

But more common are expressions that result from temperature- / weather-related verbs:
Anjät-e                      rasä
intestine-1SG.POS      be.wet.3MSG.PFV
‘I am happy (because of something said/done)’
(cf. zinab arasäň ‘ I got wet from the rain’)

Anjät-e                      täk’at’ t’älä
intestine-1SG.POS      be.burned.3MSG.PFV
‘I am very angry’

K’ ut’ t’ a-w              gänäffälä
anger-3MSG.POS  boil.over.3MSG.OBJ
‘He got angry suddenly/unexpectedly ’
‘He could not control his anger’

With best regards,
Azeb Amha

________________________________
Van: Lingtyp [lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org] namens Kilu von Prince [watasenia at gmail.com]
Verzonden: donderdag 20 augustus 2015 11:10
Aan: Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
CC: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Onderwerp: Re: [Lingtyp] Extended uses of temperature words

Dear Maria,

I cannot give you definitive negative evidence for Daakaka because I haven't tested for that, but I can give you the following information:

1. Daakaka uses the term `pyane' (to roast/ burn sth.) for a transitive expression of anger:

yu-on mwe pyane nyoo
feeling.of-3SG.POSS REAL roast 3PL
`he was mad at them' (reference to the corpus I collected: sto36:029)

2. I have found no evidence for other extended uses of temperature terms.

Best,
Kilu

On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 9:04 AM, Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm <tamm at ling.su.se<mailto:tamm at ling.su.se>> wrote:
Dear colleagues! This query concerns extended uses of temperature terms (such as ‘warm’, ‘hot’, ‘cold’, ‘cool’, etc.), primarily in reference to emotions, human dispositions and interpersonal relations, which are the focus of my current cross-disciplinary research together with the social psychologist Hans IJzerman (https://sites.google.com/site/hijzerman/home).
As you certainly know,  “affection is warmth”and “anger is heat” are two of the most widely quoted “universal” conceptual metaphors suggested by cognitive linguists on the basis of expressions as “warm words, feelings” or “hot tempered”, well-attested in familiar languages. However, the chapters in the volume “The linguistics of temperature” (2015, John Benjamins) edited by myself (https://benjamins.com/#catalog/books/tsl.107/main<https://benjamins.com/%23catalog/books/tsl.107/main>) clearly reveal a significant variance in using temperature metaphors. Australian languages, Hup (Nadahup), Mapudungun (Araucanian), and Ojibwe (Algonquian) basically lack any extended use of temperature terms, while the Oceanic languages in Vanuatu and Nganasan (Uralic) have very few. This is in contrast both to some European and other Asian languages, but also to the African languages Ewe, Gbaya, Gurenɛ, Likpe, Sɛlɛɛ, Abui and Kamang (Timor-Alor-Pantar), and Yucatec Maya. These latter reveal a rich inventory of extended uses pertaining to their temperature terms, ranging from the more common ones, to the idiosyncratic ones. Interestingly, languages also vary as to which temperature term has predominantly positive associations in its extended uses (e.g. ‘cold’ rather than ‘warm’).
We would very much like to extend our linguistic database and get information on the existence of extended uses of temperature terms in other languages. We would therefore be extremely grateful for any input more or less along the following lines:

1.     Language X lacks any extended uses of temperature terms

2.     Language X uses / does not use ‘hot/warm’ terms for talking about positive emotions, social warmth etc. (‘warm heart’, ‘warm person’)

3.     Language X uses / does not use ‘hot/warm’ terms for talking about aggressive, dangerous, exciting etc. experiences, emotions, people etc.

4.     Language X uses / does not use ‘cold/cool’ terms for talking about negative / positive emotions, people, states, etc.

I will be happy to share any further thoughts, clarifications and materials with anyone interested in this topic.
Please send your replies directly to me.
Warmest regards,
Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm

Prof. Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
Dept. of linguistics, Stockholm University
106 91 Stockholm Sweden
E-mail: tamm at ling.su.se<mailto:tamm at ling.su.se>
Tel.: +46 8 16 26 20<tel:%2B46%208%2016%2026%2020> (office), +46 8 26 90 91<tel:%2B46%208%2026%2090%2091>
http://www.ling.su.se/tamm

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