Building semantic maps for closely related languages: Words for ‘grain’ and their kin in South Mande

Abstract This study is an exercise in micro-scale comparison based on the semantic map approach. A semantic map is constructed for meanings associated with the word for ‘grain’ in four closely related South Mande languages: Dan Blowo, Tura, Mwan, and Wan. Although non-cognate, the words show remarkable similarity in their range of meanings, suggesting that newly introduced words are associated with the same networks of meanings as the words they come to replace. Differences between the languages boil down to the unavailability or reduced productivity of particular uses in one or two of the languages (Wan and to some extent Mwan). The original network is shown to have become significantly reduced in Wan, and to a lesser extent in Mwan. A major challenge in micro-comparison is due to the small sample size and the idiosyncratic nature of some of the semantic relationships, which together make it hard to explore the network’s internal structure. Language-internal evidence can occasionally be used to compensate for the missing evidence from large-scale typological sampling. Overall, the approach proves promising for research on the history of closely related languages and has the potential to help lexicographers and fieldworkers identify possible gaps in lexical descriptions.