View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by DSpace at Tartu University Library KAIDI RÄTSEP DISSERTATIONES LINGUISTICAE UNIVERSITATIS TARTUENSIS 32 Colour terms in Turkish, Estonian and Russian: How many basic blue terms are terms Estonian blue many there? and inbasic Russian:Colour Turkish, How KAIDI RÄTSEP Colour terms in Turkish, Estonian and Russian: How many basic blue terms are there? Tartu 2018 1 ISSN 1406-5657 ISBN 978-9949-77-919-2 DISSERTATIONES LINGUISTICAE UNIVERSITATIS TARTUENSIS 32 DISSERTATIONES LINGUISTICAE UNIVERSITATIS TARTUENSIS 32 KAIDI RÄTSEP Colour terms in Turkish, Estonian and Russian: How many basic blue terms are there? University of Tartu, Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics Dissertation accepted for the commencement of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy on October 11st, 2018 by the Committee of the Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Tartu Supervisors: Professor Urmas Sutrop, University of Tartu Associate Professor Mari Uusküla, Tallinn University Opponent: PhD Anetta Kopecka, Université de Lyon Commencement: December 14th, 2018 at 14.15, Jakobi 2–438, Tartu This study has been supported by the Graduate School of Linguistics, Philosophy and Semiotics; funded by the European Social Fund and European Regional Development Fund (University of Tartu ASTRA Project PER ASPERA). European Union Investing European Regional in your future Development Fund ISSN 1406-5657 ISBN 978-9949-77-919-2 (print) ISBN 978-9949-77-920-8 (pdf) Copyright: Kaidi Rätsep, 2018 University of Tartu Press www.tyk.ee ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The experimental colour data found in the thesis can be used for a wide array of applications. They can be used to investigate language-specific terms, compare the naming of stimuli in Turkish, Estonian and Russian, investigate the grouping of colours and the strategies employed by language guides, and much more. I hope that the reader will find the data useful for generating new avenues of thought, and that the thesis will add to the knowledge and research of others. The journey to my PhD thesis began with a misheard word. About a decade ago I was in a grammar lecture when I heard the lecturer say: “Today we will be talking about colours”. Unfortunately, or fortunately, it was about verbs since the Estonian värvid ‘colours’ and verbid ‘verbs’ can in fact be mistaken, but I still remember the elation I felt when I thought it would be about colours. For my bachelor thesis A Comparison of Estonian and Turkish Basic Color Terms and the Underlying Mechanism for Cultural Divisions of Color (Rätsep 2006) I first learned about Brent Berlin and Paul Kay’s idea of universal colour terms. My BA thesis opponent was Urmas Sutrop, who later became the advisor for both my master’s thesis and my doctoral dissertation. Under his guidance, I gained valuable opportunities to do fieldwork for my research. Mari Uusküla, who is my thesis co-advisor, later joined me on my PhD journey. The importance of their work for colour research in general and for my thesis especially cannot be overstated. I am grateful for the time and thought that reviewers Anetta Kopecka, PhD and Anders Steinvall, PhD have invested in this thesis. Their constructive criticism is very much appreciated and wherever applicative their suggestions have been taken into consideration. My master’s thesis Turkish basic and non-basic colour terms (Rätsep 2010) resulted in my first ever published article Preliminary research on Turkish basic colour terms with an emphasis on blue (Rätsep 2011) at the colour conference Progress in Colour Studies (PICS) 2010 volume (Biggam 2011), which transitioned itself into this thesis. Brent Berlin and Paul Kay’s basic colour terms paradigm (Berlin and Kay 1999) is the theoretical standpoint of the thesis; however, the focus is on the blue category and the number of possible basic level categories in it in Turkish, Estonian and Russian. At the PICS 2012 conference I analysed my Estonian results in the presentation “Sorting and naming blue: an Estonian case study” (Rätsep 2012). I am grateful for the opportunity to participate and the chance it gave me to present, and above all to meet researchers with a similar interest in colour from all over the world. The work in question would not come to fruition without the impetus and help given by my supervisors Prof. Urmas Sutrop and Dr. Mari Uusküla, to whom I am greatly indebted. The research was also supported by the grants “Areal or universal: Basic colour terms in the Baltic Sea, Central-European and Mediterranean areas” (Estonian Science Foundation grant no. 8168, grant holder Mari Uusküla) and “Word and concept in the development of Estonian vocabulary and place names” (Ministry of Education and Research grant no. 5 50037s10, grantholder Urmas Sutrop). Additionally, I have worked on the colour names in Estonian place names, most notably must ‘black’ and valge ‘white’. Publications on colours in Estonian place names include The colour term ‘black’ in Estonian place names (Rätsep 2012) and Must ‘black’ and valge ‘white’ in Estonian place names: Their naming motives in folk etymology (Rätsep 2016). The work would have not been possible without the help of native speakers of Turkish, Russian and Estonian. My language guides spent their valuable time helping me in my research for no other reason than good will. For that I am immeasurably thankful. To get reliable data, not only the interviewee but also the interviewers them- selves need to be fluent or native speakers. My Russian skills are geared towards the literary language and I do not consider myself fluent in conver- sation, so I am grateful to Olga Titova, whom I instructed on conducting the interviews and together with whom we conducted the first interview with the Russian speakers. For the most part the Russian interviews were conducted by Olga Titova under Mari Uusküla’s grant, but the data transcription and analysis were my own contribution. The Turkish part of the thesis benefited greatly from the advice from Ankara University professors Nese Özden, and Halil Ibrahim Usta. For the technical know-how I am deeply grateful to David Bimler from Massey University, New Zealand. David provided invaluable help in analysing the data and offered insightful comments and literary suggestions for this thesis. We have a co-authored draft of an article Estonian case study: Sorting and naming the BLUE in progress. The legibility of the text was greatly improved by Robin Hazlehurst, who edited the main body of text, and Geda Paulsen, who edited the Estonian summary. I have also had help from professors from the University of Tartu, whose lectures and coursework taught me the technological skills needed to analyse the data. Help with my programming skills came from University of Tartu lecturers Pärtel Lippus, Kristel Uiboaed, and Aki-Juhani Kyröläinen. I will conclude by noting my gratitude to my former colleagues from the Institute of the Estonian Language, most particularly Vilja Oja, and to friends and family members for their support. 6 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 11 I. THEORY, RESEARCH QUESTION AND METHODOLOGY ............... 14 Chapter 1 ........................................................................................................ 14 1.1 Theory of basic colour terms: background and the present position ... 14 1.2 Previous studies and the research question ......................................... 23 1.2.1 Turkish mavi and lacivert .......................................................... 25 1.2.2 Estonian sinine, helesinine and tumesinine ............................... 26 1.2.3 Russian sinij and goluboj .......................................................... 28 1.2.4 Other Slavic and Eastern European languages .......................... 29 1.2.5 Italian blu, azzurro and celeste .................................................. 32 1.2.6 Spanish celeste and Catalan blau marí and blau cel ................. 33 1.2.7 Greek galázio ............................................................................ 35 1.2.8 Arabic samawee and Persian narwa .......................................... 36 1.2.9 Further examples ....................................................................... 37 Chapter 2 ........................................................................................................ 40 1.3 Research question ................................................................................ 40 1.4 Methods and participants .................................................................... 41 1.4.1 List task ..................................................................................... 43 1.4.2 Naming task .............................................................................. 44 1.4.3 Sorting task................................................................................ 46 1.4.4 Stimuli ....................................................................................... 52 1.4.5 Participants ................................................................................ 55 1.4.6 Data preparation ........................................................................ 57 II. RESULTS ................................................................................................. 58 2.1 Introductory comments on Turkish colour terms ................................ 63 2.1.1 Turkish list task