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This work looks at basic colour terms in Modern Irish by presenting the historical development of these terms since their earliest attestation and in comparison with the other Gaelic languages, namely, Scottish Gaelic and Manx. These terms are analysed based on lexicographical and didactic material, as well as their use in placenames and proverbs, resources with great potential but which have been underused in colour terminology research in general. Its conclusion is the presentation of fieldwork results with native speakers from all major Irish dialects based on their responses to the colours of items in pictures, research which has never been previously conducted, to see whether their use of colour terminology matches that as presented, and to comment on the current state of Irish basic colour terminology.
List of contents
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
General Introduction
1 Theoretical Background
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Pre-modern Research on Colours and Colour Terminology
1.3 Modern Research on Basic Colour Terms
1.4 Research on Goidelic Basic Colour Terms
1.5 Lexicographical Works on the Goidelic Languages from a Diachronic Perspective
1.6 Concluding Remarks
2 An Analysis of Goidelic Basic Colour Terms on the Basis of Lexicographical and Didactic Material
2.1 Introduction
2.2 The Basic Colour Terms
2.3 Common Celtic Basic Colour Terms
2.4 The Historical Period from Old Irish onwards and the Shift in Colour Terminology
2.5 Unsaturated and Semantically Specialised Colour Terms
2.6 Modern Outside Influences
2.7 Concluding Remarks
3 An Analysis of Sayings and Placenames
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Proverbs and Sayings
3.3 Placenames
3.4 Concluding Remarks
4 Fieldwork
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Fieldwork
4.3 Concluding Remarks
5 Conclusions
Appendix 1: Pictures
Appendix 2: Questionnaire
References
Index
