Body-part typology

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Body-part typology

Post by 2+3 clusivity »

I've notice that WALS has two chapters on body-part lexical typology: hand v. arm and hand v. finger. Does anyone know of a more comprehensive -- and hopefully comparative -- source for body-part term organization schemes?

EDIT: also of value, comparative sources on languages using body-part counting systems.
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Re: Body-part typology

Post by vec »

Spanish and Japanese don't distinguish fingers and toes. I bet there's a wealth of interesting typologies out there. But for a list of them, I can't help you.
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Re: Body-part typology

Post by 2+3 clusivity »

I found a good survey in Language Sciences 28 (2006) -- its the special issue . . . I think the issue number was 2-3. It covers a few universals and about 8 languages, half of which are PNG languages.
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Re: Body-part typology

Post by hwhatting »

There's also "leg vs. foot", which is parallel to "arm vs. hand". But I also don't know of a list.

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Re: Body-part typology

Post by Arzena »

I remember that Zompist discusses this (briefly) in his Lexipedia.

Quick googling, with the search 'linguistics body part typology', brought me this article (pdf) that might contain information that you're looking for.
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