Альберт Давлетшин о реконструкции цветообозначений в пратепеуа-тотонакском

Basic colour terms in Proto-Tepehua-Totonacan

Albert Davletshin

Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow

A linguist frequently finds themselves in a situation when different words are reconstructed for a certain meaning in different branches of a language family and, therefore, a proto-lexical item is impossible to reconstruct. This is exactly the case of Proto-Tepehua-Totonacan basic colour terms: ‘black’, ‘green’, ‘red’, ‘white’ and ‘yellow’. The main objective of this talk is to show that Proto-Tepehua-Totonacan basic colour terms can be reconstructed after all, thanks to the fact that original roots survive in lexical compounds, in particular, animal and plant names. Interestingly enough, the reconstructed root for ‘yellow’ has not been attested as a basic colour term in any of the subgroups. These findings are interesting from a methodological point of view, also because they allow us to reconsider the time-depth limitations of the comparative method.