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Vol. 47, no. 2 (Summer 2005)

Contents

Abstracts

Noun Classification in Carrier

William J. Poser
University of Pennsylvania and University of British Columbia

Abstract. Carrier, an Athabaskan language of the central interior of British Columbia, has an extensive and productive system of noun classification. This system is comprised of absolutive shape classifiers, a ‘body of water’ absolutive classifier, four sets of classificatory verbs, classificatory forms of third person singular possessors and objects of postpositions, demonstratives, relativizers, numeral classifiers, and a special system for the interrogative ‘how many?’ Although some subsystems make use of the same or related categories, there is a high degree of nonhomomorphism among the classifications.

Asserting Nationhood through Personal Name Choice: The Case of the Meithei of Northeast India

Shobhana L. Chelliah
University of North Texas

Abstract. Three styles of personal names are attested for the Meithei (Tibeto-Burman, Manipur State in northeast India): a native-Meithei style, a Hindu style introduced with the eighteenth-century adoption of Hinduism by the Meithei, and a "resistance" style typified by previously unattested structures and clan names. This article shows that those who espouse a clean break with Indian political and religious hegemony use resistance-style names, whereas those who favor strengthened ties between Manipur and India, while still cherishing pre-Hindu identity, move fluidly between use of Hindu and resistance-style names.

There Are No "Color Universals" But There Are Universals of Visual Semantics

Anna Wierzbicka
Australian National University

Abstract. The search for the "universals of color" that was initiated by Berlin and Kay's classic book is based on the assumption that there can be, and indeed that there are, some conceptual universals of color. This article brings new evidence, new analyses, and new arguments against the Berlin and Kay paradigm, and offers a radically different alternative to it. The new data on which the argument is based come, in particular, from Australian languages, as well as from Polish and Russian. The article deconstructs the concept of "color," and shows how indigenous visual descriptors can be analyzed without reference to color, on the basis of identifiable visual prototypes and the universal concept of seeing. It also offers a model for analyzing semantic change and variation from "the native's point of view."

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