Language strategies for color

This chapter studies three strategies giving rise to color categories and descriptions for them: a strategy for basic hue terms (``yellow'', ``blue'', ``green'', etc.), for brightness terms (``shiny'', ``dull'', etc.) and for graded membership terms (as in: ``very blue'' or ``slightly blue''). For each strategy, experiments are performed for the reconstruction, acquisition and formation of a language system. The paper then turns to an investigation of the selectionist dynamics at the level of strategies, modelling the competition between a brightness-based and hue-based color system and achieving a shift from brightness to hue as attested in the historical record.