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MARI UUSKÜLA Basic Colour Terms in Finno-Ugric and Slavonic Languages

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MARI UUSKÜLA Basic Colour Terms in Finno-Ugric and Slavonic Languages DISSERTATIONES LINGUISTICAE UNIVERSITATIS TARTUENSIS 9 DISSERTATIONES LINGUISTICAE UNIVERSITATIS TARTUENSIS 9 MARI UUSKÜLA Basic colour terms in Finno-Ugric and Slavonic languages: Myths and facts University of Tartu, Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics; Institute of the Estonian Language; Doctoral School “Linguistics and Language Technology” Dissertation accepted for the commencement of the degree of Doctor of Philo- sophy on May 6th, 2008 by the Committee of the Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Tartu Supervisor: Prof. Urmas Sutrop, Doctor of Philosophy, University of Tartu, and the Institute of the Estonian Language External PhD faculty opponent: Galina V. Paramei, Doctor of Philosophy, Liverpool Hope University, Great Britain Commencement: June 30th, 2008 at 12.00 in the University’s Council Hall This study has been supported by Estonian Science Foundation grants No. 5040 “Structure of the Estonian Vocabulary” and No. 6744 “Language family tree and some lexico-semantic fields (colours, the human being)”, The base funding was from the Institute of the Estonian Language (“Meaning and usage of perceptual and action vocabulary”) and the Doctoral School “Linguistics and Language Technology”. Printing costs have been covered by the Institute of the Estonian Language and the Doctoral School “Linguistics and Language Technology”. ISSN 1406–5657 ISBN 978–9949–11–891–5 (trükis) ISBN 978–9949–11–892–2 (PDF) Autoriõigus Mari Uusküla, 2008 Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus www.tyk.ee Tellimus nr. 218 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Work on the present dissertation was carried out from September 2005 to April 2008 at the Institute of the Estonian Language, Tallinn, Estonia, and from September 2005 also within the framework of the doctoral school “Linguistics and Language Technology”. Collection of the data on Hungarian colour terms had already been started in 2002 during my Bachelor studies at the University of Tartu. The research was supported by the grants “Structure of the Estonian vocabulary” (No. 5040) and “Language family tree and some lexico-semantic fields (colours, the human being)” (No. 6744) from the Estonian Science Foundation, which are gratefully acknowledged. I am also grateful to many people who helped me to carry out and complete this study. First of all, my sincere thanks go to my supervisor Prof. Urmas Sutrop, an excellent tutor and inspiring role model for me for the past six years. It was he who encouraged me to continue my studies as a PhD student. He contributed to this work with his fruitful ideas, valuable advice and limitless energy. Apart from being my supervisor, Urmas Sutrop is also the co-author of two publi- cations included in the present dissertation. In addition, he helped in the prepa- ration of several of my conference presentations. In addition, I am indebted to my former and present tutors: Valve-Liivi Kingisepp, Acc. Prof. Tõnu Seilenthal, Ago Künnap, Prof. emer. Haldur Õim, Prof. Karl Pajusalu, and Prof. emer. Mati Erelt at the University of Tartu, Dr. Erzsébet Fejes at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest (Hungary), Prof. Alberto Nocentini, Dania Amici Burato, and Valeria Salvini at Università degli Studi di Firenze (University of Florence, Italy), Nicola Owtram and David Bowskill at the European University Institute, Florence, Italy. Each of these persons played an important role in my progress over many years. Numerous people helped me in finding the 320 subjects who were inter- viewed in Hungary, Finland, the Czech Republic and Italy. My special thanks go to Outi Karanko Pap, Kinga Pap, Anna Sammalkorpi, Veronika and Risto Hassinen, Michael Voříšek, Zuzana Loubet del Bayle, Jaroslava Dejsová, Irena Vaňková and Camilla Salvi. I thank all the editors who have considered and published my articles in their journals and the anonymous readers for their important comments. I acknowledge Tiina Randviir, Sirje Ainsaar, and Nicola Owtram for proof- reading my articles in English, Ants Pihlak for translating the article “Pre- liminary study of basic colour terms in modern Hungarian”, David Barnes for proofreading the introductory part of the dissertation, and Maria-Maren Sepper for editing the extended summary in Estonian. Many thanks go to my colleagues in the Institute of the Estonian Language, Tallinn: Vilja Oja, Ene Vainik, Maria-Maren Sepper, Kaidi Rätsep, Silja Grün- berg, Margit Langemets, Hille Pajupuu, Meelis Mihkla and many others for 2 5 their willing support. In particular, I am grateful to Ene Vainik and Kaidi Rätsep for taking the time to read my dissertation with a critical eye. My deepest gratitude also goes to my parents and grandparents who have always had faith in me and supported the choices I have made in my life. Above all, I would like to express my deepest love and heartfelt thanks to my husband Lenno, whose love, encouragement, and patience have made this endeavour possible. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS SUMMARY ..................................................................................................... 8 LIST OF AUTHOR’S PUBLICATIONS ........................................................ 10 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................ 11 1.1. Research question: objectives of the dissertation ................................. 11 1.2. Structure of the introductory part ......................................................... 13 1.3. Brief overview of the articles included and the author’s contribution to the co-authored studies ................................................ 14 2. BACKGROUND TO THE RESEARCH ..................................................... 16 2.1. A review of the research problem: The basic colour term theory and recent updates ................................................................................ 16 2.2. Definition of a basic colour term ......................................................... 26 3. METHODS USED IN THE STUDY .......................................................... 30 4. RESULTS ................................................................................................... 34 5. MAIN FINDINGS OF THE DISSERTATION .......................................... 40 6. CONCLUSIONS AND RESEARCH OUTLOOK ..................................... 41 REFERENCES ................................................................................................. 43 SUMMARY IN ESTONIAN ........................................................................... 51 Lühikokkuvõte.................................................................................................. 51 1. Sissejuhatus ................................................................................................. 52 1.1. Uurimisülesande püstitus ja töö eesmärgid .......................................... 52 1.2. Sissejuhatava osa ülesehitus ................................................................. 54 1.3. Artiklite lühikokkuvõte ja autori panus kaasautorlusega töödes .......... 55 2. Uurimuse taust ............................................................................................ 56 2.1. Ülevaade uurimisprobleemist: põhivärvinime teooria ja selle edasiarendused ..................................................................................... 56 2.2. Põhivärvinime definitsioon ................................................................... 63 3. Uurimismeetodi kirjeldus ............................................................................. 65 4. Tulemused .................................................................................................... 68 5. Uurimuse põhiteesid ..................................................................................... 73 6. Lõpetus ja edasised uurimisvõimalused ....................................................... 73 ARTICLES ...................................................................................................... 75 7 SUMMARY The present dissertation considers colour naming in three Finno-Ugric (Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian) and two Slavonic (Czech and Russian) lan- guages. The dissertation pursues three main objectives: (1) to establish the basic colour terms in two Finno-Ugric languages, Hungarian and Finnish, and one Slavonic language, Czech; (2) to examine the intriguing case of the two reds, which are allegedly basic in Hungarian according to Berlin and Kay; and (3) to compare the denotata of focal colours of the basic colour terms identified across the three studied languages and relate these to foci in English, Russian and Estonian studied earlier by others. The theoretical background of this study is the theory of universal basic colour terms put forward by Brent Berlin and Paul Kay (1969). In field studies the author carried out 245 individual interviews in Hungary, Finland, and the Czech Republic. Data was collected using the field method developed by Davies and Corbett (1994, 1995): (i) A list task elicited a variety of colour terms in each language. Based on term frequency and mean position, salience indices of individual colour terms were inferred (Sutrop 2000, 2002), which enabled identification of the terms having basic status. (ii) In a subsequent psycholinguistic experiment, called the ‘colour naming task’, colour term mapping was carried out using the Color Aid Corporation’s set of colour tiles. A further goal of the experiment was the establishment of the focal colours for the basic colour terms in the languages of interest. The main findings of these experiments
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