Color Terms (Re: Cherokee term for 'china clay')

[Marino]

Bob is right; this literature is interesting and probably relevant to the 
features we're discussing.  But when you consider that "consonantal 
symbolism" is (or was) systematized in Siouan in both plain and glottalized 
spirant series, and was productive in the lexicons of many (most?) of these 
languages, the linguistic universal explanation seems more like a "Just So" 
story and less like any sort of historical argument.  I have never found 
the semantic side of this argument terribly convincing, either.  (Look at 
some of the sets recorded for Hocank by Susman, and for Dakotan in the 
various dictionaries.)  As for Cree, sure, a puppy is a little dog - no 
problem there.  But where does the "pitiful" and "compassionate" part come 
in?  Wesahkecahk sometimes talks this way in the stories, and Cree speakers 
say that it sounds "pitiful" (See Wolfart in HNAI, 17, 434).  Cree speakers 
have told me that it is appropriate to use the palatalized "compassionate" 
style with some interlocutors, but not others.  It seems to me that these 
phenomena are specific linguistic features which can function in different 
ways in the lexicons and speech styles of the various languages in which 
they are noted, and that, as such, they can be studied the same way we look 
at other linguistic features.

Mary

At 03:58 PM 7/17/2006, you wrote:
>You might want to go back to the 20's or 30's and read Sapir's article on 
>size/sound symbolism in one of the psychology journals; I don't have the 
>ref. right now.  Stanley Newman may have had a similar article, and some 
>of Greenberg's typology students have written about it in the Stanford 
>Working Papers on Linguistic Universals back in the '70's or 
>'80's.  Basically higher, fronter vocoids were associated with 'small, 
>angular, feminine, etc.' while lower, backer vowels were associated with 
>'blunt, large, masc., etc.' pretty much worldwide.  Consonants share these 
>semantic associations with acute consonants giving the 'sharp, bright, 
>small, feminine' readings and grave consonants the opposed affective 
>meanings.  It's interesting stuff.  Of course such things have been known, 
>more or less, since the time of Aristotle and gave rise to the natural vs. 
>conventional theories of language in ancient times.  It doesn't pay to 
>take it to extremes, but these are interesting phonological/psychological 
>properties.
>
>Bob
>
>________________________________
>
>From: owner-siouan at lists.colorado.edu on behalf of Rory M Larson
>Sent: Mon 7/17/2006 3:09 PM
>To: siouan at lists.colorado.edu
>Subject: Re: Color Terms (Re: Cherokee term for 'china clay')
>
>
>
>Mary wrote:
> > I haven't been following this discussion very closely, so maybe somebody
>has already pointed this out, but there is a closely similar process in
>Cree (and maybe other Algonquian languages?) - t palatalized to c occurs in
>
>diminutive word-formation; e.g. atim 'dog', acimosis 'puppy'.  This is also
>
>a feature of "compassionate" speech, when one is speaking to a sick child,
>or such.
>
>Interesting!  I wonder how widespread this process is in North America.
>Does Dakotan also have it?
>
>Rory
>
>
>