Re: Morpheme index project

>>OF COURSE!!
>
>Okay, okay, I was only trying to be helpful. No need to shout.
My apologies.


Well, let's get started, okay?

What about colours?
I've thought of several ways to dissect this semantic
field. To be as culturally neutral as possible, I think
we must base it according to 2 factors: 1) the objective
features of light and 2) how we perceive them
physiologically. As for the first, well, putting it
simple, we have on the one hand the basic opposition
presence/absence of light and on the other a continuum
of frequencies for chromatism. How do we perceive that?
Essentially, the retina in our eyes has two kinds of
receptors (I can't remember their names right now): one
kind for presence/absence of stimulus (light), which makes us
perceive "white" (full stimulus), "black" (lack of stimulus)
and "grey" (some amount of stimulus); and other kind for
chromatic perception. The latter is then subdivided in three
subclasses of receptors, each for perceiving one of the three
basic hues: roughly "red", "yellow" and "blue". Then, when
e.g. a ray of dark green light reaches the retina, it
causes a low stimulus in the first kind of receptors (then
perceiving it as "dark") and some amount of stimulus in
the "yellow" and "blue" second-kind receptors while no
stimulus in the "red" ones (then perceiving it as "green").

I think there's little doubt as to how to organize the
semantic dissection for what concerns absence/presence of
light: two basic morphemes ("white" and "black") and one
secondary ("grey").

But, for what concerns chromatism, we have to possible
guides: the spectrum (which reflects the objective nature
of chromatism) and the chromatic circle (which reflects our
way of perceiving it). There's a "colour" in the chromatic
circle that properly doesn't belong anywhere in the spectrum:
the kind of purple that causes the same amount of stimulus
in the "red" and "blue" receptors and no stimulus in the
"yellow"; this kind of purple is the exact complementary of
"yellow" (I mean the "yellow" that causes stimulus in the
"yellow" receptors but no stimulus in the others. That purple
cannot appear as a physical "real" colour, so to speak, because
it can't be caused to be perceive by any individual frequency
but only but chormatically complex light sources that, as a
whole, cause the above cited stimulation. Also, the perception
"dark green" may be caused by a pure light source that is
physically "dark green" (i.e. containing only a small amount
of light of the frequencies perceived by itselves as "green")
or by a different complex light source that as a whole creates
that perception in the eye even though it's not in itself "dark
green light".

Basing the dissection upon the spectrum, we could go for
something like this: (please note that the English terms
I use are just approximated equivalents, and that I use
capitals for the basic morphemes)

(linear diagram)
[lowest visible light frequency]
- pink/magenta
- RED
- orange/brown
- YELLOW
- green
- BLUE
- violet/purple
[highest visible light frequency]

Basing it upon the chromatic cirle, we could go for:

(circular diagram, merge extremes)
. purple/violet/magenta/pink
- RED [chromatic receptor "red"]
- orange/brown
- YELLOW [chromatic receptor "yellow"]
- green
- BLUE [chromatic receptor "blue"]
. purple/violet/magenta/pink

We could also go for one of several possible middle
ways between both: e.g. introducing two secondary
terms between each of the three basic ones, sort of
(again, the English equivalents are just approximations):

(either linear diagram or circular diagram by
joining extremes A and B)
.[A: lowest visible light frequency]
- pink/magenta
- RED [chromatic receptor "red"]
- orange
- brown/tan
- YELLOW [chromatic receptor "yellow"]
- green
- cyan/azure
- BLUE/INDIGO [chromatic receptor "blue"]
- purple/violet
.[B: highest visible light frequency]

According to this last scheme, the "unreal" purple I talked
about above would be the "anti-yellow", i.e. the exact
mixture or pink-magenta and purple-violet. Also, any
term would refer not just to the frequency of light that
by itself causes the correspondent perception, but to any
complex light that as a whole causes it too (same as done
with colour terms in natlangs). The terms would be defined
by the centres rather than by their edges, which are
impossible to determine accurately for us humans (again
same as done in natlangs).

We'd also need further morphemes (some of which wouldn't
be grouped specifically with colours because they will
have other usages), e.g.:

- "colour" (in general)
- "dark"
- "light"
- "-ish" ("similar to")
- "anti-" (for complementary colours)

About "dark" ("blackish") and "light" ("whitish"), we could
also add three more morphemes, with the equivalent broad
senses of "reddish", "yellowish" and "bluish", which would
refer to the stimulation of each of the chromatic receptors
without further accuracy.

Ideas, suggestions?

Cheers,
Javier

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