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Tarahumara color modifiers: category structure presaging evolutionary change

Authors :
Don Burgess
Robert E. MacLaury
Willett Kempton
Source :
American Ethnologist. 10:133-149
Publication Year :
1983
Publisher :
Wiley, 1983.

Abstract

To name colors, Tarahumara speakers use basic color terms carrying obligatory modifiers. The modifiers specify the grade of membership of a color stimulus in a color category. The internal structure of color categories is inferred from modifiers and from focal and mapping tasks. Some categories, though named by a single basic color term, have disjunctions in internal structure corresponding to separate categories predicted at later evolutionary stages, interinformant variation suggests that Tarahumara is in the process of evolving from one evolutionary stage to another. [cognitive anthropology, color, evolution, category structure, Tarahumara]

Details

ISSN :
00940496
Volume :
10
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
American Ethnologist
Accession number :
edsair.doi...........27e97a7cba3701cbf2214403660ef590