Chapter 6. The domain of surface texture
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Egor Kashkin
Abstract
The paper deals with the typology of surface texture expressions, such as slippery road, smooth wooden board, rough hands, coarse or rough fabric. We discuss both their literal uses and metaphors formed with them, such as slippery person, smooth speech, rugged captain. Our language sample includes 10 Uralic languages (Finnish, Estonian, Meadow Mari, Erzya, Moksha, Udmurt, Komi-Zyrjan, Hungarian, Khanty, Nenets), as well as 5 languages from other families (Russian, English, Spanish, Chinese, and Korean). The categorisation includes primarily a division into visually perceived surfaces and surfaces perceived through physical contact. We discuss in what ways the antonymic areas under observation are asymmetrical in their semantics and combinability. One more focus is on evaluating variation in the texture lexicon in genetically related languages in comparison with its variation across a broader sample of languages.
Abstract
The paper deals with the typology of surface texture expressions, such as slippery road, smooth wooden board, rough hands, coarse or rough fabric. We discuss both their literal uses and metaphors formed with them, such as slippery person, smooth speech, rugged captain. Our language sample includes 10 Uralic languages (Finnish, Estonian, Meadow Mari, Erzya, Moksha, Udmurt, Komi-Zyrjan, Hungarian, Khanty, Nenets), as well as 5 languages from other families (Russian, English, Spanish, Chinese, and Korean). The categorisation includes primarily a division into visually perceived surfaces and surfaces perceived through physical contact. We discuss in what ways the antonymic areas under observation are asymmetrical in their semantics and combinability. One more focus is on evaluating variation in the texture lexicon in genetically related languages in comparison with its variation across a broader sample of languages.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Chapter 1. Introduction 1
- Chapter 2. Methodology at work 29
- Chapter 3. A matter of degree? 57
- Chapter 4. Quality as a two-place predicate 79
- Chapter 5. Typology of dimensions 117
- Chapter 6. The domain of surface texture 161
- Chapter 7. A new approach to old studies 189
- Chapter 8. Talking temperature with close relatives 215
- Chapter 9. Lexical typology of Mandarin Chinese qualitative features 269
- Chapter 10. The qualitative lexicon in Russian Sign Language from a typological perspective 289
- Chapter 11. Constructing a typological questionnaire with distributional semantic models 309
- Language index 329
- Subject index 333
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Chapter 1. Introduction 1
- Chapter 2. Methodology at work 29
- Chapter 3. A matter of degree? 57
- Chapter 4. Quality as a two-place predicate 79
- Chapter 5. Typology of dimensions 117
- Chapter 6. The domain of surface texture 161
- Chapter 7. A new approach to old studies 189
- Chapter 8. Talking temperature with close relatives 215
- Chapter 9. Lexical typology of Mandarin Chinese qualitative features 269
- Chapter 10. The qualitative lexicon in Russian Sign Language from a typological perspective 289
- Chapter 11. Constructing a typological questionnaire with distributional semantic models 309
- Language index 329
- Subject index 333
