Color naming reflects optimal partitions of color space

by: Terry Regier, Paul Kay, Naveen Khetarpal

PNAS, Vol. 104, No. 4. (23 January 2007), pp. 1436-1441.

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Abstract

The nature of color categories in the world's languages is contested. One major view holds that color categories are organized around universal focal colors, whereas an opposing view holds instead that categories are defined at their boundaries by linguistic convention. Both of these standardly opposed views are challenged by existing data. Here, we argue for a third view based on a proposal by Jameson and D'Andrade [Jameson KA, D'Andrade RG (1997) in Color Categories in Thought and Language, eds Hardin CL, Maffi L (Cambridge Univ Press, Cambridge, U.K.), pp 295-319]: that color naming across languages reflects optimal or near-optimal divisions of an irregularly shaped perceptual color space. We formalize this idea, test it against color-naming data from a broad range of languages and show that it accounts for universal tendencies in color naming while also accommodating some observed cross-language variation. 10.1073/pnas.0610341104

@article{citeulike:1082074, abstract = {The nature of color categories in the world's languages is contested. One major view holds that color categories are organized around universal focal colors, whereas an opposing view holds instead that categories are defined at their boundaries by linguistic convention. Both of these standardly opposed views are challenged by existing data. Here, we argue for a third view based on a proposal by Jameson and D'Andrade [Jameson KA, D'Andrade RG (1997) in Color Categories in Thought and Language, eds Hardin CL, Maffi L (Cambridge Univ Press, Cambridge, U.K.), pp 295-319]: that color naming across languages reflects optimal or near-optimal divisions of an irregularly shaped perceptual color space. We formalize this idea, test it against color-naming data from a broad range of languages and show that it accounts for universal tendencies in color naming while also accommodating some observed cross-language variation. 10.1073/pnas.0610341104}, author = {Regier, Terry and Kay, Paul and Khetarpal, Naveen }, citeulike-article-id = {1082074}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0610341104}, journal = {PNAS}, keywords = {categories, colors}, month = {January}, number = {4}, pages = {1436--1441}, posted-at = {2008-02-13 14:22:14}, priority = {2}, title = {Color naming reflects optimal partitions of color space}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0610341104}, volume = {104}, year = {2007} }

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TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:1082074 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1082074 TI - Color naming reflects optimal partitions of color space JF - PNAS VL - 104 IS - 4 SP - 1436 EP - 1441 N2 - The nature of color categories in the world's languages is contested. One major view holds that color categories are organized around universal focal colors, whereas an opposing view holds instead that categories are defined at their boundaries by linguistic convention. Both of these standardly opposed views are challenged by existing data. Here, we argue for a third view based on a proposal by Jameson and D'Andrade [Jameson KA, D'Andrade RG (1997) in Color Categories in Thought and Language, eds Hardin CL, Maffi L (Cambridge Univ Press, Cambridge, U.K.), pp 295-319]: that color naming across languages reflects optimal or near-optimal divisions of an irregularly shaped perceptual color space. We formalize this idea, test it against color-naming data from a broad range of languages and show that it accounts for universal tendencies in color naming while also accommodating some observed cross-language variation. 10.1073/pnas.0610341104 KW - categories KW - colors AU - Regier, Terry AU - Kay, Paul AU - Khetarpal, Naveen PY - 2007/01/23/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0610341104 ER -

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