Selected Lexical-Semantic Groups (Colour Terms, Kinship Terms)

Abstract

CTs contrast with stylistically or collocationally restricted CTs, e.g. Rukrasnyj ‘red’ vs. bagrjanyjorrumjanyj. Second-order CTs are understood to be hyponyms of basic CTs (e.g. Rualyj/krasnyj). Nuances can be expressed by combining adjectives: Rukorič-nevato-želtyj ‘brownish-yellow’. The Sl languages can form new CTs very easily, e.g. Rupesočnyj ‘sand-coloured’ <pesok‘sand’. CTs in Sl languages can be expressed also asverbs: *bělěti ‘to appear white, to be white’. CTs are often borrowed: Bgpembenandmorav< Tk,oranževandrozov< Ru. According to Berlin and Kay, CSl would be astage-IV language, with apparently no CSl CT for BLUE. Collocationally restricted CTsare predicated of people’s eyes, hair or complexion or of animals’ coats, especially thoseof horses and cows: Polbułany‘dun; sorrel’,cisawy‘chestnut’, gniady‘bay’. Kinship is a biological category but, unlike other animals, human beings consciouslyand explicitly use the categories of kinship to define social relationships. CSl possessesa complicated terminology of kinship. In agricultural societies it was imperative to distin-guish patrilineal from matrilineal relatives: the husband’s relatives were important but not the wife’s. Some Sl languages retain many CSl KTs, while others, such as Ru, havelost most of them. CTs and KTs occur in a host of metaphorical uses. Show more