Relative basicness of color terms: Modeling and measurement

Seija Kerttula | Department of English, University of Helsinki, Finland

Color terms have been of great interest for nearly 150 years. After more than a century of cross-linguistic studies with relativistic emphasis, Berlin and Kay’s theory switched the focus to basic color terms and a supposed universal ground. Yet, towards the end of the 20th century, research based strictly on universal basicness seemed to have come to a standstill. Relativist voices were raised, broader approaches were developed, and multidisciplinary efforts began to shed light on the nature of color naming. There was a new need to combine universal and relativist approaches. Research described here shows that a concept I call “relative basicness” is worthwhile. This concept makes it possible to trace historical layers and universal trends. If proven applicable to terms in domains apart from color, the model could be used to clarify general semantic structures and relations.

Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 21 November 2007
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.137.11ker

Cited by

Cited by 7 other publications

Benczes, Réka & Erzsébet Tóth-Czifra

2019. In Lexicalization patterns in color naming [Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics, 78], ► pp. 23 ff.

Bimler, David

2013. In Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology, ► pp. 1 ff.

Bimler, David & Mari Uusküla

2017. A similarity-based cross-language comparison of basicness and demarcation of “blue” terms. Color Research & Application 42:3 ► pp. 362 ff.

Bimler, David L.

2016. In Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology, ► pp. 1081 ff.

Bimler, David L.

2020. In Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology, ► pp. 1 ff.

Bulakh, Maria

2019. In Lexicalization patterns in color naming [Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics, 78], ► pp. 159 ff.

Mylonas, Dimitris & Lindsay MacDonald

2016. Augmenting basic colour terms in english. Color Research & Application 41:1 ► pp. 32 ff.

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