English Colour Terms

English colour terms: etymology, chronology, and relative basicness takes a closer look at 100 English colour terms, trying to find answers to the following questions. When were English colour terms created? What kinds of terms were used in colour naming? What languages affected English colour terms? Does the diachronic development of English colour terms provide evidence of universal trends? This work also approaches basicness from an alternative angle, presenting a model for measuring relative basicness, which allows comparing how advanced colour terms are in relation to each other. The methods used introduce derivation as one of the major criteria for the study of basicness.