An initial study about lexical field of the unconventional unit (estimated by hands and arms) in Vietnamese

Abstract

    The present study investigates the lexical field of hand and arm measuarement. Simultaneous existence of an unconventional unit (gang tay a span, nhúm, túm, nắm a handful, vốc a double handfiil, etc.) and a standard unit (kilo, cm, feet, etc.) in Vietnamese in particularly and in many languages in generally let us to have a question about the cultural features of the lexical system of the unconventional unit. In this paper, twelve lexical words are described, categorized and analyzed into two systems, length and distance (gang span, đốt handsbreadth, sải full span of the arms) versus weight and amount (nắm, nhúm, túm a handful) in comparison with English to understand more about the influence of Vietnamese agricultural way of life to the language expression.