Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
1103664 Language Sciences 2006 19 Pages PDF
Abstract
This article explores the lexicon of body part terms in Jahai, a Mon-Khmer language spoken by a group of hunter-gatherers in the Malay Peninsula. It provides an extensive inventory of body part terms and describes their structural and semantic properties. The Jahai body part lexicon pays attention to fine anatomical detail but lacks labels for major, 'higher-level' categories, like 'trunk', 'limb', 'arm' and 'leg'. In this lexicon it is therefore sometimes difficult to discern a clear partonomic hierarchy, a presumed universal of body part terminology.
Related Topics
Social Sciences and Humanities Arts and Humanities Language and Linguistics
Authors
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