Cold Colours in 19th-century English Literature
Cold Colours in 19th-century English Literature

Summary/Abstract: The paper is a frequency survey of five colour terms (black, white, grey, green, blue) used in 55 novels by 10 foremost 19th-century British writers. Both basic colour terms and terms with motivators have been registered - the latter (123 in all) are classified according to their semantic fields and morphological-syntactical types. The number of occurrences of white is equal to the combined occurrences of black and grey; with blue 50 p.c. more motivators are used than with green. Usage differs considerably with the writers but no particular colour dominates the perception of any writer. The author does not see any conflict between the universalist theory of Berlin-Kay and the relativist theory of Sapir and Whorf.

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