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.
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.