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Article published In: Linguistics in the Netherlands 2024
Edited by Marco Bril and Kristel Doreleijers
[Nota Bene 1:2] 2024
► pp. 333–351

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The example of ‘yawning’

Towards a typology of bodily actions

 | Universiteit Leiden
 | Universiteit Leiden
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Leiden University.

Published online: 24 January 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/nb.00020.hei
Abstract
Body part terminology has been studied cross-linguistically, but there are few studies on the typology of body actions. We present a pilot for a typological study of body action lexicalization taking the action of “yawning” as a test case. We look into the morphological properties of words for yawning cross-linguistically, but we also look into what is considered to be the stimulus of the action and to what extent it is under control: in popular opinion (culture), in linguistic expression, and biomedically. The pilot results in recommendations for data collection for such a typological study.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Linguistic expression
  • 3.Causes, contagiousness, social acceptability, and control
    • 3.1Causes or stimuli
      • 3.1.1Fatigue
      • 3.1.2Relaxation
      • 3.1.3Boredom
      • 3.1.4Hunger
      • 3.1.5Sadness
    • 3.2Contagiousness
    • 3.3Social acceptability
    • 3.4Control
  • 4.Biomedical explanation
    • 4.1Neuroanatomy
    • 4.2Neurochemistry
    • 4.3Function
    • 4.4Control
    • 4.5Contagiousness
    • 4.6Summary: Yawning in medical terms
  • 5.Summary on yawning
  • 6.Conclusions and recommendations for typological research
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
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