Lexicalisation of temperature concepts in Gbaya (an Ubanguian language of C.A.R.)

Paulette Roulon-Doko

This chapter provides a systematic description of the temperature terms found in Gbaya, an Ubanguian language spoken in Central Africa. Gbaya has very few nouns and verbs dedicated to temperature but many adjectives: verbal adjectives and ideophonic adjectives. I first present the word classes and the syntactic constructions involved in expressing temperature and examine the different systems of temperature terms with respect to the following five domains: weather conditions, body parts, the house, food, and water. I then indicate the main cultural specificities or metaphors used to refer to temperature. In conclusion, the domain of temperature in Gbaya is organised opposing two levels warm/cold and it is only by juxtaposing the many lexical and syntactic possibilities that an understanding of ways of expressing temperature emerges.

Published online: 11 February 2015
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.107.05rou

References

Greenberg, Joseph H.

(ed.) 1966 Universals of Language, 2nd edn. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.

Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria & Rakhilina, Ekaterina V.

2006 "Some like it hot": On the semantics of temperature adjectives in Russian and Swedish. STUF (Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung) 59(2): 253-269. Special issue The Lexicon: Typological and Contrastive Perspectives, Giannoula Giannoulopoulou & Torsten Leuschner (eds).

Roulon-Doko, Paulette

1995 Le système verbal gbaya. In Le système verbal dans les langues Oubanguiennes [Lincom Studies in African Linguistics 07], Raymond Boyd (ed.), 25-80. München: Lincom.

1998 La prédication non processive en gbaya ‘bodoe. In Les manières d' ‘être’ et les mots pour le dire dans les langues d'Afrique Centrale, Paulette Roulon-Doko (ed.), 111-134. Munich: Lincom.

2001 Le statut des idéophones en Gbaya. In Ideophones [Typological Studies in Language 44], F.K. Erhard Voeltz & Christa Kilian-Hatz (eds), 287-301. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

2008 Le gbaya. In La qualification dans les langues Africaines, Holger Tröbs, Eva Rothmaler & Kerstin Winkelmann (eds), 87-101. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.