Universal Foci and Varying Boundaries in Linguistic Color Categories

Universal Foci and Varying Boundaries in Linguistic Color Categories Terry Regier * (regier@uchicago.edu) Department of Psychology, 5848 S. University Ave. Chicago, IL 60637 USA Paul Kay (kay@cogsci.berkeley.edu) International Computer Science Institute, 1947 Center Street Berkeley, CA 94704 USA Richard S. Cook (rscook@icsi.berkeley.edu) International Computer Science Institute, 1947 Center Street Berkeley, CA 94704 USA Abstract Recent research has questioned the universal basis of color categorization and has instead emphasized cross-linguistic variation in boundaries of color categories. We propose that these cross-linguistically varying boundaries can be predicted from near-universal focal colors within the categories. In support of this proposal, we show that: (1) best example choices for color terms in 110 unwritten languages cluster near the prototypes for English white, black, red, green, yellow, and blue – we take these 6 points in color space to approximate universal foci; (2) best example choices cluster more tightly across languages than do category centroids; and (3) a computational model can predict color term boundaries from labelings of best examples reasonably well, for several languages, including one that has been taken to counterexemplify universal tendencies in color naming. Overview It has long been held that there are universal tendencies in color naming, in that linguistic color categories are organized around universally-shared focal points, or prototypes, in color space. Berlin and Kay (1969; BK Kay & Maffi, 1999) showed that the most reliable and widespread of these clusters correspond to the six Hering primaries: white, black, red, green, yellow, and blue – suggesting that these points in color space may constitute a universal foundation for color naming. These foci in color space have also appeared to be cognitively privileged, in non-linguistic tasks with speakers of languages that have dissimilar color naming systems (Heider, 1972; Heider & Olivier, 1972). Recently, however, Roberson, Davies, and Davidoff (2000; RDD for short; see also Davidoff, Davies, & Roberson, 1999) turned this universalist account on its head. RDD proposed that color categories are not universal, and are constrained only rather loosely – the most important constraint being that if two points in color space belong to the same linguistic color category, points between them should also belong to that category (p. 395). By implication, the actual location in color space of these categories is not taken to be constrained. RDD suggested moreover that color categories are not organized around universal foci, but are instead determined by naming distinctions made at category boundaries – which vary across languages. On their view, foci (best examples) are mere epiphenomena: once categories have been defined by language-determined boundaries, best examples may be derived secondarily as the centers of these already- determined categories (p. 395). The empirical basis for their inversion of the universalist view is: (a) they attempted to replicate, in Berinmo, a Papua New Guinea language, Heider’s findings of cognitively privileged status for focal points – and failed to do so; (b) best example choices for some Berinmo color terms are rather diffuse, rather than all falling at or very near the proposed universal foci; (c) Berinmo and English have different boundaries for color terms – and these differing boundaries appear to influence non-linguistic memory for color in speakers of these two languages. Are the cross-linguistically varying boundaries of color categories determined from universal prototypes (foci) – or are prototypes determined from language-demarcated boundaries? We wished to discriminate between these two proposals, to clarify the broader question of color naming universals. B&K’s original universalist findings were based largely on written languages of industrialized societies – thus, the regularities they found could have resulted from the global spread of industrialization, rather than from genuinely universal forces. Berinmo, in contrast, is a language spoken by an otherwise undocumented group that Corresponding author: regier@uchicago.edu