lexical semantics back to home page
In addition to dictionaries and lexical databases, I have done several papers on cultural aspects of lexical and grammatical semantics, mainly on kinship. The Heath & McPherson paper on action verbs shows that languages can lexicalize these verbs either on the basis of function/result (English) or manner/process (Dogon).
The kinship work was mostly based on Australian languages. In addition to the complex calculation of “classificatory” kin (e.g. MMBDD folded into MBD in some languages), Australian kin terms are linguistically complex. They often have dedicated morphology for pronominal person of “possessor” (i.e. propositus), special dyadic forms (‘mother-Dyad’ = ‘a mother and her child’), special vocative forms, and in some languages triangular kin terms that specify the relationship of two proposituses to the referent. Special linguistic registers (affinal respect, ritual clowning) simplify the kin-category system in interesting ways. My grammars of Australian languages (e.g. Nunggubuyu) typically include chapters or long sections on the morphosyntax and semantics of kin terms. For the Dhuwal volume, the main focus was kinship texts. I organized, co-edited, and contributed to a collective volume on Australian kinship linguistics.
book
1980a Dhuwal (Arnhem Land) texts on kinship and other subjects, with grammatical sketch and dictionary. (Oceania Linguistic Monographs, 23.) Sydney: Univ. of Sydney.
http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/117643
http://hdl.handle.net/11858/00-001M-0000-001A-292A-C
co-edited book
1982 J. Heath, F. Merlan & A. Rumsey, eds. Languages of kinship in Aboriginal Australia. (Oceania Linguistic Monographs, 24.) Sydney: Univ. of Sydney.
articles on kinship
2006 Kinship expressions and terms. In: Encyclopedia of languages and linguistics, 2nd ed., pp. 214-7. Amsterdam: Elsevier.
1982a Introduction. In: J. Heath et al. (eds.), Languages of kinship in Aboriginal Australia,1‑18.
1982b [Francesca Merlan and J. Heath] Dyadic kinship terms. In: J. Heath et al. (eds.), Languages of kinship in Aboriginal Australia, 107‑24.
1982c "Where is that (knee)?": Basic and supplementary kin terms in Dhuwal (Yuulngu/Murngin). In: J. Heath et al. (eds.), Languages of kinship in Aboriginal Australia, 40‑63.
review
1984 von Brandenstein, Carl G. Names and substance of the Australian subsection system. Language 60(2):466‑67. [book notice]
DOI: 10.2307/413679
http://www.jstor.org/stable/413679
Articles on non-kinship semantic issues are these:
articles
*2009 (J. Heath & Laura McPherson) Cognitive set and lexicalization strategy in Dogon action verbs. Anthropological Linguistics 51(1):38-63.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/40730831.pdf
2005 Person. In: Geert Booij, Christian Lehmann & Joachim Mugdan (eds.), Morphology: An international handbook on inflection and word-formation, Vol. II, 198-1015. Berlin, New York: De Gruyter (Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science, 17).
1988 Lexicon. In: Ulrich Ammon et al. (eds.), Sociolinguistics: An international handbook/ Soziolinguistik: Ein internationales Handbuch, 1153‑63. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter.
1980c Nunggubuyu deixis, anaphora, and culture. In: J. Kreiman & A. Ojeda (eds.), Papers from the Parasession on Pronouns and Anaphora, 151‑65. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jheath/Heath_articles_pdf/Heath_nunggubuyu_deixis_CLS_1980.pdf
1978d Linguistic approaches to Nunggubuyu ethnobotany and ethnozoology. In: L. Hiatt, ed., Australian Aboriginal concepts, 40‑55. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies.
reviews
2015 Ponsonnet, Maia. The language of emotions: The case of Dalabon (Australia). Anthropological Linguistics 57(2):225-228.
2010 Newman, John, ed. The linguistics of eating and drinking. Linguistic Typology 14(1):153-55.
https://doi.org/10.1515/lity.2010.005
1991 Grossmann, Maria. Colori e lessico: Studi sulla struttura semantica degli aggettivi di colore in catalano, castigliano, italiano, romeno, latino e ungherese. Language 66(4):868-69. [book notice]
DOI: 10.2307/414752
http://www.jstor.org/stable/414752
[last updated Oct 2017]