Colour Terms in the WHITE, BLACK and GRAY Areas in the History of the Italian Language

The present article is part of several studies that the authors have dedicated to the history of Italian colour terms. The Introduction illustrates some of the theses of Berlin, Kay (1969), with particular reference to the distinction between basic and non-basic terms. 2 is dedicated to the Latin colour terms in the WHITE, BLACK and GRAY areas and their reflexes in the Romance languages. In 3 the resources used for the research are presented. In 3.1. (From Old Italian to the 19th century) and 3.2. (From the end of the 19th century to today's Italian) the historical evolution and contemporary use of basic terms and other non-transparent colour terms are analyzed, also focusing on their figurative meanings and on the fixed collocations in which they occur. 3.3. deals briefly with the terms formed by means of various morphological and syntactic devices that are most frequently used in Italian for the enrichment of the colour lexicon.