Chapter 167Lexical Fields as Grammatical Evidence
Plant, body-part, and weather expressions illustrating possession, number, predication, and regional lexical meanings.
167.1 Vocabulary as grammatical evidence
A semantic field groups words by meaning, but grammatical behavior must be established separately. Body parts illustrate possession; plant terms occur in noun formation and gathering predicates; weather expressions show several kinds of predication. The examples below connect these fields to constructions treated elsewhere in the grammar. Their meanings follow the cited regional descriptions.
167.2 Plants, fruit, and affiliative forms
Satō explains that Chitose epuyke can refer to a flower, bud, or fruit according to context. Its affiliative form epuykehe occurs in this grammatical illustration Satō (2008: 19).
This illustrates both a context-dependent lexical meaning and a possessive form without a separately stated possessor. The general patterns appear in Chapter 43 (Possessive Constructions and Alienability) and Chapter 45 (Affiliative Suffix Patterns). Gathering vocabulary also cuts across simple English equivalents: Satō's kar includes gathering wild edible plants, while Chitose ohawkina corresponds to pukusakina elsewhere Satō (2008: 95, 108).
167.3 Body parts, objects, and counting
Satō describes kema mainly for human legs and cikir mainly for legs of animals or objects. He explicitly notes an exception in cikir-uhosere ‘sit cross-legged’ Satō (2008: 255).
The example combines lexical selection, affiliative morphology, a numeral expression, and an aspectual construction. Each has its own distribution; the English translation alone cannot predict the Ainu noun or verb form. See Chapter 55 (Numeral Syntax, Ordinals, and Quantity).
167.4 Weather, surroundings, and perceived signs
Satō cautions that maw, often explained as ‘wind’, also occurs with meanings closer to a sign, presence, or impression. His examples include indications of rain, a person's presence, and dawn Satō (2008: 248).
Such lexical descriptions complement the grammatical treatment of surroundings and location in Chapter 52 (Relational Nouns, Spatial Forms, and Quasi-Incorporation). Motion terms likewise require their own spatial reference: movement landward from water should not automatically be translated as uphill movement.