The structure of deictic day-name systems

• Autores: Jan Tent
• Localización: Studia linguistica: A journal of general linguistics, ISSN 0039-3193, Vol. 52, Nº 2, 1998, págs. 112-148
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This paper is a cross-linguistic study examining the structure of deictic day-name systems of 157 of the world’s languages. Most of these systems reveal a recurring structural symmetry in the number of diurnal units identified either side of ‘today’. As well as this type of numerical symmetry, most languages exhibit a morphological symmetry, and several a lexical symmetry. A small number of languages have numerically and/or morphologically asymmetrical systems. The nature of these symmetries and asymmetries is briefly explored.