Pjat'desjat ottenkov serogo: ponjatie i sposoby vyraženija nepredskazuemoj cvetovoj kategorii v diaxronii [Fifty Shades of GREY: on the Concept and Ways of Expressing the Unpredictable Colour Category in Diachrony]

The category GREY does not always follow the established hierarchical order, and was therefore referred to as “a wild card” category by the authors of the universalistic theory. In Chinese, this category can be traced already at the IV stage of colour lexicon development. It was originally included not only into the polysemantic term 蒼 cāng, but also expressed implicitly via the category BLACK and via the designations of some horses’ colours. The syssemantic character 灰 huī — which etymologically derives from the Sino-Tibetan root * wu ‘ashes’ — initially denoted ‘ashes of burnt shells’, ‘white pigment’, ash ’. As a colour term with the meaning ‘light black’, the lexeme 灰 huī crystallized fairly late. However, in Modern Standard Mandarin it demonstrates the entire set of criteria for the basic colour term for GREY.