Priestley, Carol (2017). Some key body parts and polysemy: A case study from Koromu (Kesawai). In Zhengdao Ye (Ed.), The semantics of nouns (pp. 147-179). Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI:10.1093/oso/9780198736721.003.0006
This chapter discusses body part nouns, a part of language that is central to human life, and the polysemy that arises in connection with them. Examples from everyday speech and narrative in various contexts are examined in a Papuan language called Koromu and semantic characteristics of body part nouns in other studies are also considered. Semantic templates are developed for nouns that represent highly visible body parts: for example, wapi ‘hands/arms’, ehi ‘feet/legs’, and their related parts. Culture-specific explications are expressed in a natural metalanguage that can be translated into Koromu to avoid the cultural bias inherent in using other languages and to reveal both distinctive semantic components and similarities to cross-linguistic examples.
Research carried out by one or more experienced NSM practitioners
