Leksikalizimi i ngjyrave në gjuhën shqipe: huazimet dhe sinonimet
Lexicalization of Colors in the Albanian Language: Borrowings and Synonyms

Summary/Abstract: The etymological dictionary of the Albanian language, limited between the X-XII centuries (Orel, 1998) as well as that of Topalli (2017) record more than 20 color terms. Modern Albanian lexicography shows that Albanian language owns a rich lexicon of color terms both because of derivation capacity and language contacts throush the history of Albanian language development. Borrowings are considered to be products of the phenomenon of linguistic interference (according to Weinreich's 1963 terminology) with the socio-cultural linguistic basis as one of its foci. The hypothesis of this paper is that the social and cultural factors effect the lexico-semantic changes of a language, the lexicalization methods, hence also the limitation and definition of color categories. This paper is the result of a exhaustive study which have aimed to determin the basic color terms of contemporary Albanian, give the description of lexicalization forms used in Albanian and discuss the status of Albanian in the context of universalist vs. relativist theory of colors. The analysis of color terms and their synonyms is done on three levels: 1. morphological level, 2. semantic level based on Albanian lexicography, and 3. semantic level based on actual use of color terms. Drawing on the fact that the conceptual structure of the synonyms may change this paper has explored the domain of thier usage in comparison to their definitions registered in specialized and everyday. To determine the status of color terms as well as to determine the speakrs attitude toward borrowed terms we conducted a survey in which a hundred of speakers took place. The speakers are asked to name 24 color categories, as well as to share their opinion about how they might be named differently, or how others name them. The analysis of color terms usage is based on the NCAL, which summarizes about 20,000,000 tokens.

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