“Hard sun, hot weather, skin pain”:

The ethnosyntax and semantics of temperature expressions in Ewe

Felix K. Ameka

APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE-COGNITION RESEARCH

Domain-centered approach Lucy 1997

A domain-centered approach begins with a certain domain of experienced reality and asks how various languages encode or construe it. Usually the analysis attempts to characterize the domain independently of language(s) and then determine how each language selects from and organizes the domain.

Domain-centered approach -2

In a sense, this approach “asks” of each language how it would handle a given referential problem so as to reveal the distinctiveness of its functioning; ideally it makes clear the various elaborations and gaps characteristic of each language’s coding of a common reality. The strength of the approach lies in its precision and control.

Domain-centered approach weaknesses (Lucy 1997)

Domain-centered approaches are susceptible to several characteristic weaknesses. First, there is strong pressure to focus on domains that can be easily defined rather than on what languages typically encode. This can result in a rigorous comparison of a domain of marginal semantic relevance (e.g. a few select lexical items).

Weaknesses (2)

Second, the high degree of domain focus, especially in elicitation procedures, tends to give a very narrow and distorted view of a language’s semantic approach to a situation. … Thus the key question for any domain-centered approach is how the domain has been delineated in the first place and what the warrant is for including or excluding particular forms and meanings.

Weaknesses (3)

Third, this approach tends to create bogus structures. Components of a language that lack structural unity or significance but that happen to be deployed together functionally in referring to the domain are treated as unified properties of the language. Apparent unity is often an artifact of the elicitation process. The remedy is to demonstrate structural coherence on language-internal grounds.

Weaknesses (4)

Finally, in seeking influences on thought, studies adopting this approach often have difficulty establishing the significance of purported effects, because the approach emphasizes what it is possible to say, not what is structurally salient or habitually said.

IS “TEMPERATURE” A LINGUISTIC CATEGORY IN EWE?

Are there basic ‘temperature” words in Ewe?

… the vocabulary [and the grammar FA] of different languages reflect[s] different ways of conceptualizing the physical world. (Goddard and Wierzbicka 2007: 788)

Fire in Ewe

-

dzo

N.

‘fire; juju, black magic’ Aƒé-á bi dzo - House-DEF burn fire ‘The house burnt down’ - Dzo bi aƒé-á - Fire burn house-DEF ‘Fire consumed the house’

Aƒé-á dze - House-DEF contact ‘The house is on fire’ dzo fire - Dzo dze aƒé-á - Fire contact ‘Fire hit the house’ house-DEF

‘Hot’ Based on fire

Aƒé-á House-DEF me (Inside) the house is hot dze dzo containing.region contact fire Aƒé-á me xɔ House-DEF containing.region get (Inside) the house is hot ’ dzo fire

‘Hot’ Based on fire 2

- The noun

dzo

‘fire’ can be reduplicated and suffixed with the diminutive marker to form an adjectival modifier -

dz

o

́-dzo-e

‘hot’

nú dz

ó

-dzo-e

‘a hot thing’ -

tsi dzó-dzo-e

‘hot water

‘Hot’ Based on fire (3)

- The predicate expressions for ‘hot’ are morphologically compositional which works against their basic status.They can be an input for forming modifiers following normal adjectivalisation processes. - They are salient. The nominalised form of one of them is what speakers will offer as translation of ‘temperature’, namely, dzoxɔxɔ

Applicability – ‘hot’ terms

Body temperature Ta wò xɔ - Head-2SG / dze get / contact - Your head is hot dzo fire Object temperature Tsi-ɛ xɔ / dze - Water-DEF get / contact - The water is hot dzo fire

Applicability – ‘hot’ terms (2)

Food temperature Dzogbɔ-a xɔ palp-DEF get / / The palp is hot dze contact dzo fire Ambient temperature Ya-a me xɔ / air-DEF in The air is hot get / dze contact dzo fire

Fá ‘cold’ - a basic term?

-

Fá

‘become cold, cool’ - Body temperature Así-wò fá - Hand-2SG become.cold

- Your hands are cold Ɖeví-á ƒé lãme fá - Child-DEF POSS bodybecome cold - The child( ‘s body) is cold (i.e lower than normal body temperature)

Cold (2)

Object temperature Tsi ɛ fá water-DEF become.cold

The water is cold Food temperature Dzogbɔ́-a fá palp-DEF become.cold

The palp is cold

Cold (3)

Ambient temperature - Ya-a me - Air-DEF containing.region

- The air is cold fá become.cold

- The intransitive verb fá can be reduplicated to form an adjectival and this adjectival can be further marked with the diminutive

Cold (4)

Ya Air fá-fɛ RED-become.cold:DIM ‘pleasant cool breeze’ Fa is probably the sole basic temperature term. It is salient, has wide applicability and is extended to other domains

Fá in emotion and disposition

- When predicated of body parts (metonymically for persons) or as possessed yield interpretations in the emotion domain - Nye lãmefá - 1SG bodybecome.cold

- I just froze - Na - Give:IMP mía ŋútí ná-fá 1PL skin SUBJV-cold - Grant us peace

Use with social ambience

Mía - 1PL gbɔ́ fá environs be.cool

- There is no bad news at our place Mía - 1PL gbɔ́ dze / environs contact xɔ - There is bad news at our place dzo /get fire

AMBIENT TEMPERATURE

Grammatical structure

Predications about ambient temperature are expressed using structures that are more generally used for phenomenological utterances.

Such utterances have a structure in which the subject refers to an environmental phenomenon, weather phenomenon or a heavenly body.

West African languages in general do not use expletive subjects in such utterances

‘World’ as subject

Xéxé.á.me

World It is cold

fá

become cold

Xéxé.á.me

World It is hot xɔ

/dze

get/ contact

dzo

fire

Xéxé.á.me

World It is dark tsyɔ́ become.dark

‘Ground/ earth’ as subject

Anyígbá - Ground fá become.cold

- The ground is cold Anyigbá - Ground dze / - The ground is hot xɔ contact/get dzo fire Anyigbá - Ground pɔ́ become.wet ‘ ‘The ground is wet’(Infer: it is cold)

‘Hard sun’ infer hot ambience

Texture to Temperature Ŋdɔ nu le se-se ́-ḿ Sun mouth ákpá be.atRED-hard too.much

Lit: The sun is too hard Né ŋdɔ nu bɔbɔ lá … COND sun mouth soft TP When the sun goes down … Lit: when the sun is soft ….

Bodily symptoms of ambient temperature

Afífiá wɔ etsɔ - Sweat do zã me day.from.today nightin - It was hot last night Nye 1SG ŋui-fũ ɖó skin-hair reach I am feeling cold tó down

WATER TEMPERATURE

Anthropocentricity

- Language on the whole, and the linguistic domain of temperature in particular, is strongly governed by anthropocentricity. First, temperature attributes are chosen relatively to several temperature parameters, that are important and salient for humans, are distinguishable by simple procedures relating to the human body and have only very approximate physical correlates (KOPTJEVSKAJA-TAMM and RAKHILINA)

Talking about water temperature

Ts i-ɛ fá Water-DEF become.cold/cool ‘The water is cool/cold’ Tsi-ɛ gblɔ Water-DEF become.lukewarm

‘The water is lukewarm’

Talking about water temperature (2)

Tsi -ɛ xɔ dzo Water-DEF get fire ‘The water is hot’ Tsi ɛ vé Water-DEF pain ‘The water is painfully hot’ Tsi ɛ fie Water-DEF boil ‘The water has boiled’

Water and cultural domains

Verb

Fa ́ ‘become, cold cool’ gblɔ ’lukewarm’ Dze/ xɔ dzo contact/get fire

Cultural practice

Drink, food preparation, bathing (living humans especially in hot weather) washing and general cleaning etc

Applicability to other object

Applied for temperature widely; extended to emotion and social ambience Drink, when one cannot take cool water and for medicinal purposes; bathing in not so hot weather Not applied outside water Bathing, also as base for some food preparation or medicine preparation Applied widely for ‘hot’ temperature

Ve ́ ‘painfully hot’ Fie ‘boil’ ‘Bathing (the point at which one can put one’s hand in it without feeling burnt’ For bathing human corpses; this is carried out with boiling water and living humans are not supposed to heat their water for bathing to boiling point. It is also used for removing body hair from slaughtered or more generally dead animals; Used only for temperature with respect to water; but uesd in other domains, taste; bodily sensation, emotion etc.

also used for medicinal purposes i.e sterilizing ; the state of water needed for preparing certain foods

Concluding remarks

- Probably Ewe has only one basic temperature term Expressions for ‘hot’ are complex involving V and N collocations, but which are based on the word for ‘fire’. These partially support the suggestion by Goddard and Wierzbicka (2007) that the semantics of ‘hot’ words are linked to a ‘fire’ prototype.

Concluding remarks (2)

- Ambient temperature talked about using these ‘basic’ expressions as predicates of phenomenological entities; but it is also inferred from other predicates. In particular predications involving texture denoting verbs and the sun.

- Talking about water temperature reveals cultural concerns in temperature talk - Is temperature a linguistic category in Ewe?