Colours on hands: Phonological markedness of sign language color terms

Background. The notion ‘basic color term’ (BCT) was first defined by Berlin & Kay (1969, B&K). Based on a sample of 98 spoken languages, B&K argued that languages show considerable variation in their BCT systems, but that the attested variation is constrained by a hierarchy according to which BCTs appear in a language in a predictable order. B&K identify seven stages of complexity in this hierarchy. E.g., if a language has three BCTs, these will always be ‘black’, ‘white’, and ‘red’, and the language is at stage II; see Figure (1). To date, only few studies tried to apply the BCT-model to sign languages (SLs). Woodward (1989) investigates 10 SLs and argues that they follow the patterns identified by B&K. Nyst (2007), however, points out important methodological problems. She observes that color signs commonly involve pointing or fingerspelling – aspects that are problematic for B&K’s definition of BCTs. Given the above methodological problems, we approached SL color terms from a different perspective, the perspective of phonological markedness. Our working hypothesis was that across the different stages in (1), color signs increase in phonological markedness, i.e. there is a reverse correlation between the ‘basicness’ of a color and the markedness of the corresponding sign.