Calidum hoc est! Latin temperature terminology between lexical typology and cognitive semantics

This paper investigates how the TEMPERATURE domain is organized in Latin focusing on temperature terms and their patterns of polysemy in an Early Latin corpus. Building on the work started by Fruyt ( 2013), the study is framed within lexical typology (Koptjevskaja-Tamm 2015) and cognitive metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson 1980). We distinguish basic and nonbasic temperature terms using quantitative, morphological, and semantic criteria. The Latin temperature scale is arguably organized around two opposite poles, calor 'hot' and frigus 'cold', with tepor 'warm' occupying a marginal position oriented toward the HOT subdomain. Furthermore, we extensively describe and explain the metaphorical extensions of Latin temperature terms toward the domain of EMOTIONS and beyond. Interestingly, terms referring to both the HOT and the COLD pole can develop positively and negatively oriented metaphorical mappings, indicating that the perception of comfort related to TEMPERATURE and its target domains is subjective. Moreover, Latin data supports the hypothesis that, in the domain of EMOTIONS, metaphors related to HEAT seem to be primary with respect to metaphor related to COLD, which can be explained based on the greater and more immediately perceivable effects of strong emotions on bodily temperature.