The Semantics of Colour
eBook - PDF

The Semantics of Colour

A Historical Approach

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

The Semantics of Colour

A Historical Approach

About this book

Human societies name and classify colours in various ways. Knowing this, is it possible to retrieve colour systems from the past? This book presents the basic principles of modern colour semantics, including the recognition of basic vocabulary, subsets, specialised terms and the significance of non-colour features. Each point is illustrated by case studies drawn from modern and historical languages from around the world. These include discussions of Icelandic horses, Peruvian guinea-pigs, medieval roses, the colour yellow in Stuart England, and Polynesian children's colour terms. Major techniques used in colour research are presented and discussed, such as the evolutionary sequence, Natural Semantic Metalanguage and Vantage Theory. The book also addresses whether we can understand the colour systems of the past, including prehistory, by combining various semantic techniques currently used in both modern and historical colour research with archaeological and environmental information.

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Yes, you can access The Semantics of Colour by C. P. Biggam in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Languages & Linguistics & Linguistic Semantics. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. The Semantics of Colour
  3. Title
  4. Copyright
  5. Dedication
  6. Contents
  7. List of tables
  8. Preface
  9. Abbreviations
  10. 1: What is colour?
  11. 2: What is colour semantics?
  12. 3: Basic colour terms
  13. 4: Non-basic and non-standard colour expressions
  14. 5: Basic colour categories
  15. 6: The evolutionary sequence
  16. 7: Different approaches
  17. 8: Historical projects: preliminaries
  18. 9: Synchronic studies
  19. 10: Diachronic studies
  20. 11: Prehistoric colour studies
  21. 12: Applications and potential
  22. Appendix: Metalanguage, signs and conventions
  23. Glossary
  24. Notes
  25. Bibliography
  26. Subject index