Re: Request for information: Semantics of body parts

On Saturday 15 June 2002 11:39 am, Tim May wrote:

> I'd be interested in hearing about similar differences from English
> semantics in both conlangs and natlangs.
        Hmm. I have not considered this before, but English has some interesting
distictions. For instance, legs have more "parts" in common speech than arms:
        Toe             Finger
        Arch            Knuckle
        Heel            Palm
        Ankle   Wrist
        Shin            Forearm
        Leg             Elbow
        Knee    Arm
        Thigh
        Calf

I've excluded some that require compounds such as "heel of the hand" or "ball
of the foot", and I'm a little doubtful on whether "forearm" should be on the
list or not. English also has a word for a portion of the legs when in a
seated position: "lap." Now that's interesting.
        One could re-divide the body; for instance, the upper arms and shoulders
could share the same term, or "neck and head" could be mapped to the same
term as "limb," "Ankle" and "wrist" could be the same term, as well as
"finger" and "toe" (which is what Russian does; "paljets" is either "finger'
or "toe," although if you want to be clear, you could say "paljets nogi"
(finger of the leg).)
        :Peter

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