[Lingtyp] ***** SPAM 5.2 ***** Re: Universal constraints on lexicalisation

[Paolo Ramat]

Hartmut H. writes:"German Tante and English aunt are both father’s sister,
mother’s sister, wife of father’s brother and wife of mother’s brother."
Ambiguity in kinship terminology is rather diffused. In Italian
*nipote *"nephew"
refers both to gran-children and to the extended aunt/uncle relationship
('extended' as *aunt  *is not only the mother/father's sister but also the
husband of the mother/father's siste*r). *Although the social roles of the
gran-parents and of the aunts/uncles are usually very different.

Prof. Dr., Dr.h.c.  Paolo Ramat
piazzetta Arduino 11 - I 27100 Pavia
##39 0382 27027
347 044 98 44


Il giorno lun 3 feb 2025 alle ore 16:37 Juergen Bohnemeyer via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> ha scritto:

> Dear all – This is presumably obvious to everybody, but the reason protein
> is lexicalized/lexified as ‘egg white’ in many languages is because one of
> the first proteins that chemists were able to isolate (in the 18th
> century, I think) was albumin from egg whites, if I remember my high school
> chemistry class.
>
>
>
> Semantically, this seems like an unremarkable example of metonymy to me.
> The other example Hartmut mentioned, *Schlag+sahne* beat+cream ‘whipping
> cream’/‘whipped cream’, is trickier. The first question that comes to my
> mind is whether that’s polysemy at all, or rather underspecified. I’m
> leaning toward the latter view, because to me, the following is
> straightforwardly anomalous:
>
>
>
> (1)          #Das ist keine Schlagsahne, das ist geschlagene Sahne.
>
> ‘That’s not whipping cream, that’s whipped cream’
>
>
>
> Note that the English translation is perfectly fine, but the German
> original is weird. This is the polysemy test Cruse (1985) calls the
> ‘maximization’ test. I call it the ‘discrete deniability’ test in my
> forthcoming book on semantic research methods.
>
>
>
> In any event, I don’t think these are examples of enantiosemy.
>
>
>
> Best – Juergen
>
>
>
> Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
> Professor, Department of Linguistics
> University at Buffalo
>
> Office: 642 Baldy Hall, UB North Campus
> Mailing address: 609 Baldy Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260
> Phone: (716) 645 0127
> Fax: (716) 645 3825
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> Web: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jb77/
>
> Office hours Tu/Th 3:30-4:30pm in 642 Baldy or via Zoom (Meeting ID 585
> 520 2411; Passcode Hoorheh)
>
> There’s A Crack In Everything - That’s How The Light Gets In
> (Leonard Cohen)
>
> --
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Edith A Moravcsik via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Date: *Monday, February 3, 2025 at 10:10
> *To: *Zygmunt Frajzyngier <zygmunt.frajzyngier at colorado.edu>, Maria Tamm <
> tamm at ling.su.se>, Hartmut Haberland <hartmut at ruc.dk>
> *Cc: *lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> >
> *Subject: *Re: [Lingtyp] Universal constraints on lexicalisation
>
> In Hungarian, too, the words for eggwhite and protein are the same. The
> word is* fehérje - *literally 'its white'.
>
>
>
> Edith Moravcsik
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Hartmut Haberland via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Sent:* Sunday, February 2, 2025 3:11 PM
> *To:* Zygmunt Frajzyngier <zygmunt.frajzyngier at colorado.edu>; Maria Tamm <
> tamm at ling.su.se>
> *Cc:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> >
> *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] Universal constraints on lexicalisation
>
>
>
> Another curious colexification in most forms of Standard German is
> *Eiweiß* meaning both protein and eggwhite. In some regional variants two
> distinct words exist, *Eiweiß* for protein and *Weißei* for white of egg,
> possibly due to contact with Polish, Czech and possibly Yiddish which all
> make a similar distinction.
>
>
>
> *Fra:* Hartmut Haberland <hartmut at ruc.dk>
> *Sendt:* 2. februar 2025 09:31
> *Til:* Zygmunt Frajzyngier <zygmunt.frajzyngier at colorado.edu>; Maria Tamm
> <tamm at ling.su.se>
> *Cc:* Östen Dahl <oesten at ling.su.se>; lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Emne:* Re: [Lingtyp] Universal constraints on lexicalisation
>
>
>
> Some interesting colexifications:
>
> Greek νύφη both sister- and daughter-in-law.
>
> German Schlagsahne both whipped cream and whipping cream (Danish flødeskum
> and piskefløde, resp.)
>
> German Tante and English aunt are both father’s sister, mother’s sister,
> wife of father’s brother and wife of mother’s brother, where Danish has
> faster, moster and (for the last two, but occasionally also loosely for all
> four) tante. German Tante can be used in at least two more, increasingly
> loose senses (female good friend of the parents, any unrelated female of
> the parents generation), but with some syntactic restrictions (*meine
> Tante).
>
> I am not sure if νύφη really is a colexification comparable to
> Schlagsahne, and not rather means ‘in-law of same or immediately younger
> generation’.
>
>
>
> Den 1. feb. 2025 kl. 17.39 skrev Zygmunt Frajzyngier via Lingtyp <
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>:
>
> 
>
> Dear all,
>
> In support of Östen’s note.
>
> In several Chadic languages the same lexical item denotes entities denoted
> by English ‘father’ and ‘mother’s brother’.
>
> Zygmunt
>
>
>
> *From: *Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Östen Dahl via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Date: *Saturday, February 1, 2025 at 9:18 AM
> *To: *lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> >
> *Subject: *Re: [Lingtyp] Universal constraints on lexicalisation
>
> [External email - use caution]
>
>
>
> Dear all,
>
>
>
> With regard to the claim that 'father' and 'mother's brother' cannot be
> colexified, consider the following quotation from the Wikipedia article on
> "Matrilineality":
>
>
>
> "While a mother normally takes care of her own children in all cultures,
> in some matrilineal cultures an "uncle-father" will take care of his nieces
> and nephews instead: in other words *social fathers* here are uncles."
>
>
>
> That is, fathers and maternal uncles are similar in that they can both
> play the role of "social fathers"; it is not unthinkable that a language
> spoken in a society on the borderline between patrilineality and
> matrilineality will lexify the concept "social father". What this shows is
> that the criterion of cognitive complexity can lead you in the wrong
> direction. In fact, kinship terms sometimes unite relationships which are
> tricky to give a common definition, such as "brother-in-law" in English.
>
>
>
> 1.      Östen
>
>
>
>
>
> *Från:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> *För *Martin
> Haspelmath via Lingtyp
> *Skickat:* den 1 februari 2025 16:40
> *Till:* lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> *Ämne:* Re: [Lingtyp] Universal constraints on lexicalisation
>
>
>
> Dear Masha and others,
>
> In addition to "cognitive complexity", one may also consider frequency of
> use as constraining lexification.
>
> For example, 'female wolf' is not more cognitively complex than 'female
> horse' (English *mare*, contrasting with *stallion*), but gender/sex is
> less commonly mentioned in connection with wild animals than with domestic
> animals, so English does not dislexify 'male wolf' and 'female wolf'.
>
> In my 2023 *Frontiers* paper, I suggested that some important
> lexification tendencies can be explained with reference to root length
> possibilities: Roots are typically 1-2 syllables long, so when a meaning is
> not frequent enough, it needs more syllables and hence multiple morphs:
>
> Haspelmath, Martin. 2023. Coexpression and synexpression patterns across
> languages: Comparative concepts and possible explanations. *Frontiers in
> Psychology* 14. (doi:https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1236853)
>
> (The paper also cites David Gil's 1992 paper.)
>
> Incidentally, it seems that "lexification" is clearer than
> "lexicalization", because the latter is used in multiple meanings (see my
> 2024 paper, §7: https://www.peren-revues.fr/lexique/1737).
>
> Best,
>
> Martin
>
>
>
> On 01.02.25 12:40, David Gil via Lingtyp wrote:
>
> Hi Masha,
>
>
>
> Some examples from the semantic domain of quantification can be found here:
>
>
>
> Gil, David (1992) "Scopal Quantifiers: Some Universals of Lexical
> Effability", in M. Kefer and J. van der Auwera eds., *Meaning and
> Grammar, Cross-Linguistic Perspectives*, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin,
> 303-345.
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
>
> David
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 1, 2025 at 5:29 PM Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm via Lingtyp <
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:
>
> Dear all,
>
>
>
> I am involved in a handbook chapter in which I would like to give a few
> examples of suggested universal constraints on lexicalisation, e.g., those
> primarily concerning meanings that should not be expressible in a word (a
> stem, root or whatever), preferably not from the domain of colour terms. To
> give an example, Rappaport Hovav and Levin (2010) argue that no verb
> encodes both manner and result simultaneously, which has been contested by
> Beavers and Koontz-Garbodens.
>
>
>
> Or,  a definition of a term covering both ‘father’ and ‘mother’s brother’
> would be cognitively very complex since it will require disjunction
> (‘father’ or ‘mother’s brother’, cf. ‘male relative of one’s patriline’ for
> ‘father’ and ‘father’s brother’) (Evans 2001) – I don’t know if this
> constraint still holds.
>
>
>
> Many thanks and all the best,
>
> Masha
>
>
>
> Prof. Maria Koptjevskaja Tamm
> Dept. of linguistics, Stockholm university, 106 91, Stockholm, Sweden
> Editor-in-chief of “Linguistic Typology”
>
> President-Elect of Societas Linguistic Europaea
> www.ling.su.se/tamm
> tamm at ling.su.se
>
>
>
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>
>
> --
>
> David Gil
>
>
>
> Senior Scientist (Associate)
>
> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
>
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>
> Deutscher Platz 6, Leipzig, 04103, Germany
>
>
>
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>
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> --
>
> Martin Haspelmath
>
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
>
> Deutscher Platz 6
>
> D-04103 Leipzig
>
> https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/
>
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