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Article published In: Aspects of Metaphor
Edited by Maria Theodoropoulou
[Review of Cognitive Linguistics 23:1] 2025
► pp. 229–256

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Conceptualizing achromaticity

The semantics of Finnish basic colour term harmaa (‘grey’)

ORCiD logo with link | University of Helsinki
Published online: 12 December 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00167.hat
Abstract
The word for grey has been studied in different languages as part of the definition of basic colour terms, and in historical linguistics some studies have addressed grey as their main focus. The Finnish basic colour term harmaa (‘grey’) has been addressed before in data from early to mid-twentieth century and as a basic colour term, but in contemporary language harmaa has not been analysed with corpus methods before. This study presents the semantics of harmaa in written communicational use of language, internet conversation, in the framework of Cognitive Grammar and access semantics, using qualitative corpus analysis. The study results show that the shade or set of shades that harmaa profiles in different contexts vary, and surface textures, mood, or evaluative aspects can also be profiled. However, more studies are needed to reveal the semantics of harmaa in different interactional situations.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The semantics of colour terms
    • 2.1Focal colours, category, and context
    • 2.2Encyclopedic knowledge and domains
  • 3.Data and methodology
  • 4.Conceptualizing harmaa as a colour
    • 4.1Harmaa as a colour category
    • 4.2Harmaa as a property marker
    • 4.3Harmaa as a marker of colourlessness
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (54)
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