“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 1997A 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 independentlyof language(s) and then determine how each language selects from andorganizes 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 characteristicweaknesses. 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 howthe 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 habituallysaid.

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’

- Aƒe-a bi dzo- House-DEF burn fire- ‘The house burnt down’

- Dzo bi aƒe-a- Fire burn house-DEF- ‘Fire consumed the house’

- Aƒe-a dze dzo- House-DEF contact fire- ‘The house is on fire’

- Dzo dze aƒe-a- Fire contact house-DEF- ‘Fire hit the house’

‘Hot’ Based on fireAƒe-a me dze dzoHouse-DEF containing.region

contact fire(Inside) the house is hot

Aƒe-a me xɔ dzoHouse-DEF containing.region get

fire(Inside) the house is hot’

‘Hot’ Based on fire 2- The noun dzo ‘fire’ can be

reduplicated and suffixed with the diminutive marker to form an adjectival modifier- dzo-dzo-e ‘hot’- nu dzo-dzo-e ‘a hot thing’- tsi dzo-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’ termsBody temperature

Ta-wo xɔ / dze dzo- Head-2SG get / contactfire- Your head is hot

Object temperature- Tsi-ɛ xɔ / dze dzo- Water-DEF get / contactfire- The water is hot

Applicability – ‘hot’ terms (2)Food temperature

Dzogbɔ-a xɔ / dze dzopalp-DEF get / contact fireThe palp is hot

Ambient temperatureYa-ame xɔ / dze dzoair-DEF in get / contact fireThe air is hot

Fa ‘cold’ - a basic term?- Fa ‘become cold, cool’

- Body temperature- Asi-wo fa- Hand-2SG become.cold- Your hands are cold

- Ɖevi-a ƒe lame fa- Child-DEF POSS body become cold- The child(‘s body) is cold (i.e lower than

normal body temperature)

Cold (2)Object temperature

Tsi-ɛ fawater-DEF become.coldThe water is cold

Food temperatureDzogbɔN-a fapalp-DEF become.coldThe palp is cold

Cold (3)Ambient temperature- Ya-ame fa- Air-DEF containing.region

become.cold- The air is cold

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

Cold (4)- Ya fa-fɛ- Air 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

Fa in emotion and disposition- When predicated of body parts

(metonymically for persons) or as possessed yield interpretations in the emotion domain

- Nye lame fa- 1SG body become.cold- I just froze - Na mia ŋuti na-fa- Give:IMP1PL skin SUBJV-cold- Grant us peace

Use with social ambience- Mia gbɔN fa- 1PL environs be.cool- There is no bad news at our place

- Mia gbɔN dze / xɔ dzo- 1PL environs contact /get fire- There is bad news at our place

AMBIENT TEMPERATURE

Grammatical structurePredications 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 subjectXexe.a.me faWorld become coldIt is cold

Xexe.a.me xɔ /dze dzoWorld get/ contact fireIt is hot

Xexe.a.me tsyɔWorld become.darkIt is dark

‘Ground/ earth’ as subject- Anyigba fa- Ground become.cold- The ground is cold

- Anyigba dze / xɔ dzo- Ground contact/get fire- The ground is hot

- Anyigba pɔN- Ground become.wet ‘- ‘The ground is wet’(Infer: it is cold)

‘Hard sun’ infer hot ambienceTexture to TemperatureŊdɔ nu le se-se-m akpaSun mouth be.at RED-hard

too.muchLit: The sun is too hard

Ne ŋdɔ nu bɔbɔ la …CONDsun mouth soft TPWhen the sun goes down … Lit: when the sun is soft ….

Bodily symptoms of ambient temperature

- Afifia wɔ etsɔ za me- Sweat do day.from.today night

in- It was hot last night

Nye ŋui-fu ɖo to1SG skin-hair reach downI am feeling cold

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

Tsi-ɛ faWater-DEF become.cold/cool‘The water is cool/cold’

Tsi-ɛ gblɔWater-DEF become.lukewarm‘The water is lukewarm’

Talking about water temperature (2)Tsi-ɛ xɔ dzoWater-DEF get fire‘The water is hot’Tsi-ɛ veWater-DEF pain‘The water is painfully hot’Tsi-ɛ fieWater-DEF boil‘The water has boiled’

Water and cultural domainsVerb Cultural practice Applicability to

other object

Fa ‘become, cold cool’

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

Applied for temperature widely; extended to emotion and social ambience

gblɔ ’lukewarm’ Drink, when one cannot take cool water and for medicinal purposes; bathing in not so hot weather

Not applied outside water

Dze/ xɔ dzo contact/get fire

Bathing, also as base for some food preparation or medicine preparation

Applied widely for ‘hot’ temperature

Ve ‘painfully hot’ ‘Bathing (the point at which one can put one’s hand in it without feeling burnt’

Used only for temperature with respect to water; but uesd in other domains, taste; bodily sensation, emotion etc.

Fie ‘boil’ 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;

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?