Oltre i colori focali: il lessico dei colori per i parlanti italiani

This work is focused on the perception and categorization of nonbcts in Italian. 50 Italian native speakers were asked to identify a specific colour sample for each bct in their mother tongues; then, they were asked to select unconstrainedly and to name some other Munsell samples for other colours in the chromatic areas of bct (eg. for a different kind of white, back, red and so on); last, but not least they were asked to select a specific Munsell sample for color terms morphologically derived from bcts (as rossiccio and verdognolo) previously selected by the researcher. the purpose of this experimental procedure was 3-fold: 1) to check the different kinds of color terms effectively selected by the speakers, who actually preferred “qualified basic” terms (e.g. giallo chiaro) and “qualified fancy” terms (e.g. bianco panna) on derivatives; 2) to investigate if the alterative suffixes -astro, -iccio, -ino, -one, -ognolo supplied each a peculiar semantic contribution in modifying some specific semantic feature of the bct they are suffixed to: the analysis has showed that -ino and -iccio lighten the tone of the bcts, while -one and -astro darken it; 3) to check gender differences in color naming: the women selected more “qualified fancy” terms, as it was expected, while the men selected more “qualified basic” terms but, when they used “qualified fancy” terms, sometimes they created new color terms, even with negative connotation (es. verde cacchina). A second experiment has been performed showing 18 pictures to 22 speakers, to understand the weight of the elicitation method as for color naming.