Re: What counts as a basic color word?

On Wednesday 02 April 2003 11:19 pm, R Burke wrote:
> Not exactly sure what you mean, but there is a language universal as to
> what color words are basic to all languages. This is from studies by Berlin
> & Kay, as reported in Bernard Comrie's book <i>Language Universals &
> Linguistic Typology</i>.
        Color universals are fascinating, but I'm trying to get at the underlying
methodology. What divides a "basic" color from an "extended" color, either in
theory or in semantics. For instance, as Chris Bates mentioned, Russian has
two words for blue, _sinij_ and _goluboj_ which are dark blue and light blue
respectively. I could translate them as "navy" and "teal," but that implies
that they are "extended" color words. They're not. In Russian, they are
"basic" color terms, like green and blue in English.
        Semantically, I guess we could define a "basic" color as the terms that are
most commonly used. The "default" for when people don't want to get more
specific, such as, "That car is blueish," which means that, while the speaker
recognizes that the car isn't "blue"-blue, it's closer to blue than to green
or to purple.
        But semantics only work within a language, not between languages. So again,
what determines a "basic" color as seen in the color universals or whatnot?
        :Peter
--
Oh what a tangled web they weave who try a new word to conceive!

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