Cover not available

In:The Linguistics of Temperature
Edited by Maria Koptjevskaja-Tamm
[Typological Studies in Language 107] 2015
► pp. 832–857

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Temperature terms in northern Vanuatu

ORCiD logo with link
Published online: 11 February 2015
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.107.28fra
Oceanic languages generally have a small set of lexemes encoding temperature predicates – no more than two or three words in each language. Focusing on a sample of languages from northern Vanuatu, this study describes their temperature terms, analyses the syntax of their various case frames, and highlights relevant semantic contrasts. Their temperature lexicons in this area appear to display a limited array of polysemies across semantic domains – whether compared to other languages of the world, or to other semantic domains in the same languages.
References (25)
References
Clark, Ross. 2009. *Leo Tuai: A Comparative Lexical Study of North and Central Vanuatu languages [Pacific Linguistics 603]. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Codrington, Robert H. & Palmer, John. 1896. A Dictionary of the Language of Mota, Sugarloaf Island, Banks Islands. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crowley, Terry. 2000. The language situation in Vanuatu. Current Issues in Language Planning 1(1): ​47-132. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
François, Alexandre. 2000. Vowel shifting and cloning in Motlav: Historical explanation vs. formal description. In Proceedings of AFLA 7, The Seventh Meeting of Austronesian Formal Linguistics Association, Marian Klamer (ed.), 49-68. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001. Contraintes de Structures et Liberté dans l’organisation du Discours. Une description du Mwotlap, langue Océanienne du Vanuatu. PhD dissertation, Université Paris-IV Sorbonne, Paris.
. 2002. Araki. A Disappearing Language of Vanuatu [Pacific Linguistics 522]. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. La Sémantique du Prédicat en Mwotlap (Vanuatu) [Collection Linguistique de la Société de Linguistique de Paris 84]. Louvain: Peeters.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004a. La réduplication en mwotlap: Les paradoxes du fractionnement. In Les Langues Austronésiennes [Faits de Langues 23-24], Elizabeth Zeitoun (ed.), 177-194. Paris: Ophrys.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004b. Chains of freedom: Constraints and creativity in the macro-verb strategies of Mwotlap. In Complex Predicates in Oceanic Languages: Studies in the Dynamics of Binding and Boundness [Empirical Approaches to Language Typology], Isabelle Bril & Françoise Ozanne-Rivierre (eds), 107-143. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. A typological overview of Mwotlap, an Oceanic language of Vanuatu. Linguistic Typology 9(1):​115-146. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. Serial verb constructions in Mwotlap. In Serial Verb Constructions: A Cross-Linguistic Typology [Explorations in Linguistic Typology], Robert M.W. Dixon & Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald (eds), 223-238. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008a. An online Araki-English-French dictionary. <[URL]> (8 April 2013).
. 2008b. Semantic maps and the typology of colexification: Intertwining polysemous networks across languages. In From Polysemy to Semantic Change: Towards a Typology of Lexical Semantic Associations [Studies in Language Companion Series 106], Martine Vanhove (ed.), 163-215. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011a. Where *R they all? The geography and history of *R loss in Southern Oceanic languages. Oceanic Linguistics 50(1): 140-197. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. Shadows of bygone lives: The histories of spiritual words in northern Vanuatu. In Lexical and Structural Etymology: Beyond Word Histories [Studies in Language Change], Robert Mailhammer (ed.), 185-244. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. In prep. A Mwotlap–French–English dictionary.
Hyslop-Malau, Catriona. n.d. Dictionary of Vurës. <[URL]> (8 April 2013).
Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria. 2011. “It’s boiling hot!”: On the structure of the linguistic temperature domain across languages. In Rahmen des Sprechens. Beiträge zur Valenztheorie, Varietätenlinguistik, Kognitiven und Historischen Semantik, Sarah Dessì Schmid, Ulrich Detges, Paul Gévaudan, Wiltrud Mihatsch & Richard Waltereit (eds), 393–410. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, George & Kövecses, Zoltán. 1987. The cognitive model of anger inherent in American English. In Cultural Models in Language and Thought, Dorothy Holland & Naomi Quinn (eds), 195-221. Cambridge: CUP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Launey, Michel. 1994. Une grammaire omniprédicative: Essai sur la morphosyntaxe du nahuatl classique [Sciences du Langage]. Paris: CNRS.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lemaréchal, Alain. 1989. Les Parties du Discours, Syntaxe et Sémantique [Linguistique Nouvelle]. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lynch, John & Crowley, Terry. 2001. Languages of Vanuatu: A New Survey and Bibliography [Pacific Linguistics 517]. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ross, Malcolm, Pawley, Andrew & Osmond, Meredith (eds). 2003. The Lexicon of Proto Oceanic: The Physical Environment [Pacific Linguistics 545]. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tryon, Darrell. 1976. New Hebrides Languages: An Internal Classification [Pacific Linguistics C-50]. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Ursini, Francesco-Alessio & Yue Sara Zhang
2025. Syntactic Cartography meets semantic maps: charting the polysemy of Italian simple prepositions. The Linguistic Review DOI logo
Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria
2022. Talking temperature with close relatives. In The Typology of Physical Qualities [Typological Studies in Language, 133], ► pp. 215 ff. DOI logo
François, Alexandre
2021. Olfactory words in northern Vanuatu. In The Linguistics of Olfaction [Typological Studies in Language, 131], ► pp. 277 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 7 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue