Rara #130

Legacy number: 130

 Number  130
 Phenomenon  a basic colour term for undifferentiated YELLOW-GREEN-BLUE,
as a "catch-everything-else" category in addition to BLACK, WHITE, and RED
 Found in  Arrernte (PN, Australian); Karajá (Macro-Ge); Lele (Chadic, Afroasiatic); Dazaga (Nilo-Saharan) (?); Chico (Maidu, Penutian) (?); Chinese (Sinitic) (?); Japanese (?)
 Domain  lexicon — basic terms
 Type  rarum
 Keywords  colour
 Source  Kay, Paul & Louisa Maffi (1999). Color appearance and the emergence and evolution of basic color lexicons. American Anthropologist 101: 743-760.
Levinson, Stephen C. (2000). Yélî Dnye and the theory of basic color terms. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 10: 1-53.
Bailey, Ashlee C. (2001). On the non-existence of blue-yellow and red-green color terms. Studies in Language 25: 185-215.
 Violates  Berlin & Kay differentiation sequence

← Back to Raritätenkabinett

Discussion
Notes
The "Emergence Hypothesis", considered as supplementary to the Berlin-Kay Differentiation Sequence which prohibits such basic terms, licenses such a basic colour term for speech communities where colour does not play a salient role in distinguishing objects. For Lele, a catch-all YELLOW-GREEN-BLUE is doubtful: in addition to ?(intensely) black, dark/light blue?, ?white?, and ?red?, Frajzyngier?s recent grammar (2001: 88, 105-106) mentions two colour terms (which in this language are verbs), bole ?range of colors covering all shades of green, blue, and also light yellow? and wÏlÈ ?range of colors covering red, dark rusty color, pink, light brown, and clay color?. Frajzyngier, Zygmunt (2001). A Grammar of Lele. Stanford: CSLI Publications.
Comment
Frans Plank · 21 Sep 2006
The Emergence Hypothesis, considered as supplementary to the Berlin-Kay Differentiation Sequence which prohibits such basic terms, licenses such a basic colour term for speech communities where colour does not play a salient role in distinguishing objects.

For Lele, a catch-all YELLOW-GREEN-BLUE is doubtful: in addition to '(intensely) black, dark/light blue', 'white', and 'red', Frajzyngier's recent grammar (2001: 88, 105-106) mentions two colour terms (which in this language are verbs), bole 'range of colors covering all shades of green, blue, and also light yellow' and wìlé 'range of colors covering red, dark rusty color, pink, light brown, and clay color'.

Frajzyngier, Zygmunt (2001). A Grammar of Lele. Stanford: CSLI Publications.