Kalmyk Adjectives of Tactile Perception: a Case Study of the Jangar Epic and Kalmyk National Corpus

The work deals with Kalmyk tactile adjectives. Materials. The paper analyzes texts of the Kalmyk heroic epic of Jangar and other materials contained in the Kalmyk National Corpus. Results. Adjectives are characterized by wide lexical co-occurrence, serving as means to depict human appearances, manners, and speech. Tactile adjectives denoting external properties of objects sometimes include both tactile and visual semes. For the description of outer properties, the paper examines tactile perception instrumental to obtaining and comprehending information that shape an individual image of the objective world. Tactile contact delivers data about external and internal structures of an object, its texture, e.g., smooth, dry, firm, wet, rough, silky. In tactile perception, man and an object interact and get materialized only when pressed, contacted, touched directly. The Kalmyk heroic epic of Jangar contains quite a limited number of tactile adjectives, some of the latter bearing figurative meanings, such as шyрyн сээхн хурдн ‘beautiful rapid speed’, хату дэн нутг ‘rough enemy country’, бат улан арз ‘hard, vigoruos’, хурц хойр нуди ‘sharp-sighted eyes’. The study of tactile adjectives makes it possible to distinguish several types of interaction with an object in tactile contact: pressing with application of force; visual perception; tactile interaction involving penetration. The epic narratives contain no mentions of tactile interaction involving the use of tongue, mouth, lips, back, or body.

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adjectives, epic, tactile, perception, touch, Kalmyk language

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