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Lexicalization patterns in color naming: A cross-linguistic perspective
Edited by Ida Raffaelli, Daniela Katunar and Barbara Kerovec
[Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics 78] 2019
► pp. 23–44

Rethinking the category of “basic color term”

Evidence from Hungarian lexicalization patterns

| Corvinus University of Budapest
| Eötvös Loránd UniversityBudapest
One of the peculiarities of Hungarian is that two of its “basic color terms” (BCTs), as defined by Berlin and Kay (1969), do not conform to the established criteria used to identify such lexical items. By analyzing etymological data and the lexicalization patterns of [N/Adj + color term] constructions, the chapter challenges Berlin and Kay’s (1969) original definition of “basic color term” by calling into question the rigidity of this category. The chapter proposes instead a radial category structure for “basic color term”, where certain color terms are more typical (central) members than others. Such a flexible approach is able to account for more problematic cases of color terminology, as for example that exhibited by Hungarian.
Keywords: Hungarian, basic color term, corpus linguistics, lexicalization, radial category
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Anomalies
      • 1.1.1Two particularly salient (and rival) color terms share one color domain
      • 1.1.2Morphologically complex color terms
    • 1.2The foregrounding of psychological salience and the backgrounding of linguistic aspects in basic color term research
    • 1.3Attempts to redefine “basicness”
  • 2.Aims of the research
    • 2.1Hypotheses
  • 3.Methodology
  • 4.The emergence of Hungarian basic color terms
  • 5.Results of the corpus-based analysis
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 9 October 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sfsl.78.02ben
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