Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T05:20:16.739Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Metaphorical Use of Body Parts in Forming Counting expressions: Evidence from Tāti Language Group

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2022

Jahandust Sabzalipur Open the ORCID record for Jahandust Sabzalipur [Opens in a new window]  and
Raheleh Izadifar Open the ORCID record for Raheleh Izadifar [Opens in a new window]
Jahandust Sabzalipur*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Humanities, Rasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Rasht, Iran
Raheleh Izadifar
Affiliation:
Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran
*
*Corresponding author sabzalipor@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Mathematics is a particularly important challenge for embodied approaches to cognition, as it is probably the most abstract domain of human knowledge. Humans use metaphors in all aspects of life. This paper studies the effects of human body parts on numerals, numeral systems, and mensural and sortal classifiers. The evidence for this paper comes from the Tāti language group, an endangered Iranian language of the Indo-European language family. The Tāti data shows these languages make use of base-10, base-20, and base-50 numeral systems, some of which are among the most common and earliest counting systems worldwide, while the last is unique and peculiar to the area. Body parts may also play an important role in forming mensural and sortal classifiers, as is the case in the Tāti language group.

Keywords

CountingMensural classifiersNumeralsNumeral SystemsSortal classifiersTāti
Type
Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , October 2022 , pp. 1025 - 1043
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Association for Iranian Studies

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Avelino, Heriberto. “The Typology of Pamean number systems and the limits of Mesoamerica as a linguistic area.” Linguistic Typology 10, no. 1 (2006): 41–60. https://doi.org/10.1515/LINGTY.2006.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bagge, Lilian M. “The Early Numerals.” The Classical Review 20, no. 5 (1906): 259-267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calude, Andreea S. and Verkerk, Annemarie. “The typology and diachrony of higher numerals in Indo-European: a phylogenetic comparative study.” Journal of Language Evolution 1, no. 2 (2016): 91–108. https://doi.org/10.1093/jole/lzw003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cheng, Gong. “Comparison of metaphorical expressions of the heart between Chiness and English.” English Language Teaching 14, no. 3 (2021): 25–31. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v14n3p25CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conant, Levi Leonard. The Number Concept: Its Origin and Development. New York: MacMillan, 1931.Google Scholar
Crawfurd, John. “On the Numerals as evidence of the progress of civilization.” Transactions of the Ethnological Society of London 2 (1863): 84–111. https://doi.org/10.2307/3014307CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallese, Vittorio, and Lakoff, George. “The brain's concepts: the role of the sensory-motor system in conceptual knowledge.” Cognitive Neuropsychology 22, no. 3 (2005): 455–479. DOI: 10.1080/02643290442000310CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Göbel, Silke M., et al. “The cultural number line: a review of cultural and linguistic influences on the development of number processing.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 42, no. 4 (2011): 543–565, doi:10.1177/0022022111406251CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goschler, Juliana. “Embodiment and Body Metaphors.” Metaphorik 9 (2005): 33–52.Google Scholar
Hammarström, Harald. Unsupervised Learning of Morphology and the Languages of the World. PhD diss., Chalmers University, 2009.Google Scholar
Her, One-Soon and Tang, Marc. “A statistical explanation of the distribution of sortal classifiers in languages of the world via computational classifiers.” Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 27, no. 2 (2020): 93–113. https://doi.org/10.1080/09296174.2018.1523777CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kövecses, Zoltan. Metaphor: A Practical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George and Núñez, Rafael E.. Where mathematics comes from: how the embodied mind brings mathematics into being. New York: Basic books, 2000.Google Scholar
Laycock, D. C. “Observations on Number System and Semantics.” In New Guinea Area Languages and Language Study: Papuan Languages and the New Guinea Linguistics Scene, edited by Wurm, Stephen Adolphe, 219-233. Canberra: Australian National University. 1975.Google Scholar
Littlemore, J. and Perez-Sobrino, P.. “Eyelashes, speedometers or breasts? An experimental cross-cultural approach to multimodal metaphor and metonymy in advertising.” In Figurative language we live by. The cognitive underpinnings and mechanisms of figurativity in language, edited by Baicchi, A. and Bagasheva, A., 197–222. Rome: Textus 2017. DOI: 10.7370/87674Google Scholar
MacLane, Saunders. Mathematics Form and Function. New York: Springer Verlag, 1986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peggy, Li, et al. “Learning that classifiers count: Mandarin-speaking children's acquisition of sortal and mensural classifiers.” Journal of East Asian Linguistics 19, no. 3 (2010): 207–230. DOI: 10.1007/s10831-010-9060-1Google Scholar
Plank, Frans. “Senary summary so far.” Linguistic Typology 13, no. 2 (2009): 337–345. https://doi.org/10.1515/LITY.2009.016CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sabzalipur, Jahandust. The Tati Dictionary. Rasht: Ilia, 2011.Google Scholar
Sharifian, Farzad. Cultural Linguistics: Cultural Conceptualisations. Amsterdam, PA: John Benjamins, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stilo, Don. “5. The Caspian region and south Azerbaijan: Caspian and Tatic.” In The languages and linguistics of Western Asia: An areal perspective, edited by Haig, Geoffrey and Khan, Geoffrey, 659–824. Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter Mouton, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110421682-019CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stilo, Don. “Numeral classifier systems in the Araxes-Iran linguistic area.” In The Diachrony of Classification Systems, edited by McGregor, William B. and Wichmann, Søren, 135–164. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.342.06stiCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stilo, Don. “The Tati Language Group in the Sociolinguistic Context of Northwestern Iran and Transcaucasia.” Iranian Studies 14, no. 3/4 (1981): 137–187. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4310364CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tylor, A. “The Origin of Numerals: or the Object-Origin of Prehistoric Thoughts and Ideas Illustrated by the History of the Invention of the Art of Calculation and Some Other Useful Arts.” The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 6 (1877): 125–136. https://doi.org/10.2307/2841127CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tylor, Edward Burnett. “The Art of Counting.” In Primitive Culture. Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom. Vol. 2, edited by Tylor, Edward Burnett, 240–272. Charleston, SC: Forgotten Books, 1974.Google Scholar
Wang, Y. “A Review of Philosophy in the Flesh by Lakoff and Johnson.” Contemporary Linguistics, no. 3 (2002): 88.Google Scholar
Winter, Bodo and Yoshimi, Jeff. “Metaphor and the philosophical implications of embodied mathematics.” Frontiers in Psychology 11 (2020), article 569487. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.569487CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woodruff, Charles E. “The Evolution of Modern Numerals from Ancient Tally Marks.” The American Mathematical Monthly 16, no. 8/9 (1909): 125–133. https://doi.org/10.1080/00029890.1909.11997503CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yar-Shater, Ehsan. A Grammar of Southern Tati Dialects. The Hague: Mouton, 1969.Google Scholar
Yar-Shater, Ehsan. “The dialect of Karingān.” In Iranian languages and texts from Iran and Turan: Ronald E. Emmerick memorial volume, edited by Macuch, Maria, Maggi, Mauro & Sundermann, Werner, 443–463. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2007.Google Scholar
Yu, N. “Embodiment, culture, and language.” In The Routledge handbook of language and culture, edited by Sharifian, F., 227–239. London: Routledge, 2015. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315793993Google Scholar
Zhang, Hong. “Numeral Classifiers in Mandarin Chinese.” Journal of East Asian Linguistics 16 (2007): 43–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar