Colors in ancient Greek: the case of khlorós

• Grant number: 17/26698-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2018
• End date: April 30, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Classical Languages
• Principal Investigator: José Marcos Mariani de Macedo
• Grantee: Victor Moraes de Oliveira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Ancient Greek color terminology composes a long discussed problem, with reflexes in linguistic theory and in texts' translation and reception. The elaboration by Moonwomon (1994) of a color description for Archaic Greek, following Berlin & Kay's evolutionary model, raises questions, which remain without answer. In particular, there is the violation of the basic binary partition of the spectrum as established by Heider (1972): Moonwomon postulates to exist color terms occupying a warm and dark portion of the spectrum, as well as terms corresponding to a cold bright portion. This project seeks to investigate khlorós, one of the problematic terms in Moonwomon categorization. The term was chosen for its broad representation in the corpora and large network of etymologically related terms in the Greek branch and other five Indo-European branches. The methodology of research involves the exhaustive gathering of Greek terms, and the collection of data in etymological dictionaries of the other languages. All the terms will be then classified morphologically and semantically. Regarding the theoretical domain, there will be a confrontation of Moonwomon bibliography (1994) with contemporary paradigms of Cognitive Linguistics with respect to color terminology. Finally, the data, by means of the theoretical synthesis, will serve as subtract for the elaboration of a new exam of Moonwomon article, furthering the discussion of color terminology. (AU)