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Part of
The Typology of Physical Qualities
Edited by Ekaterina Rakhilina, Tatiana Reznikova and Daria Ryzhova
[Typological Studies in Language 133] 2022
► pp. 57–78

Chapter 3
A matter of degree?

The domain of wetness in a typological perspective

| HSE University
| Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences
| RANEPA

The article studies the domain of wetness in 20 languages. In many of them the domain features two main words (e.g. German nass, feucht; Mongolian nojton, čijgleg; Moksha načkə, l’et’kə) and the difference between them tends to be described in terms of degree, i.e. ‘intensely’ versus ‘slightly wet’. Typological analysis shows that in each case the degree of humidity receives a specific interpretation depending on the noun that is being modified, so that the choice of a particular synonym is based not simply on the quantity of the fluid, but on the situation as a whole (including the source of moisture, intentional versus non-intentional event, etc.). We also discuss the additional factors relevant to the domain in the languages that have more than two words in it, that is, the additional words with a positive or a negative connotation, or moisture from contact with a liquid versus moisture absorbed from humid air.

Keywords: physical qualities, semantics of degree, wetness, lexical typology
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Amount of moisture and other properties
  • 3.Basic systems: Situations and frames
  • 4.Richer systems
  • 5.Constructing a semantic map
  • 6.Lexicalization of the domain of wetness in individual languages
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
  • Dictionaries and corpora
Published online: 25 May 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.133.03rez
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Dictionaries and corpora

deTenTen13 – German Web Corpus on the Sketch Engine platform
[URL]> (20 August 2018).
Duden – Duden Online-Wörterbuch
[URL]> (20 August 2018).
enTenTen15 – English Web Corpus on the Sketch Engine platform
[URL]> (20 August 2018).
jaTenTen11 – Japanese Web Corpus on the Sketch Engine platform
[URL]> (20 August 2018).
Merriam-Webster – Merriam-Webster Dictionary
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Moliner – Moliner, M.
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RNC – Russian National Corpus
[URL]> (20 August 2018).