[Lingtyp] 'eye' > singulative marker?

[Jess Tauber]

I can't remember the specifics, but in some language families the root for
'eye' relates to the rounded, globular shape of the organ (minus the optic
nerve), and such a ball-like shape is suggestive of wholeness, and so
singular nature, while other shapes will be suggestive of subdivision and
so multiplicity.

Jess Tauber
tetrahedralpt at gmail.com

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On Wed, Oct 13, 2021 at 3:43 PM Jussi Ylikoski <jussi.ylikoski at oulu.fi>
wrote:

> Dear Colleagues,
>
>
>
> In honor of World Sight Day (the second Thursday of October), I am looking
> for information about nouns denoting 'eye' being grammaticalized into
> singulative markers of some kind.
>
>
>
> The best-known example might be Hungarian *szem* 'eye', which is,
> however, generally and obviously better considered a kind of classifier
> among other classifiers. However, many cognates of *szem* in the
> easternmost (Samoyed, Khanty and Mansi) and the northernmost (Saami)
> branches of Uralic appear to deserve to be characterized as some kind of
> singulative markers, as seen in the following North Saami compound-like
> expressions that could, in principle be reconstructed all the way to
> Proto-Uralic:
>
>
>
> North Saami
>
> *čalbmi* 'eye'
>
> *varra-čalbmi* 'drop of blood' (~ North Khanty *wŭr-sem* id.)
>
> *jiekŋa-čalbmi* 'particle of ice' (~ Hungarian *jég-szem* 'hailstone')
>
> *muorje-čalbmi* 'single berry'
>
> *vuokta-čalbmi* 'single hair (on a human head)'
>
>
>
> Interestingly, similar 'eye' singulatives can also be found in the
> neighboring Ket (see Helimski's "*S*-singulatives in Ket" at
> https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.31826/jlr-2017-143-404/html),
> but otherwise there seems to be little global information about the origins
> of singulative markers, and even less about potentially analogous
> singulatives based on 'eye' in particular.
>
>
> Anne Storch's (2014: 278) grammar of Luwo contains the solitary example *wɔ́ŋ
> jɛ́n* [eye chicken:COLL] 'one chicken', though. I am also aware of the
> colexification of EYE, SEED, GRAIN etc., which looks like a natural route
> to singulatives (https://clics.clld.org/graphs/subgraph_1248).
>
>
>
> So I am wondering whether there are other similar 'eye' singulatives out
> there, in addition to Uralic and Yeniseian (and Luwo)?
>
>
>
> Best regards,
>
>
>
> Jussi
>
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