Limb polysemy in Turkic languages Erhan Taşbaş Taşbaş, Erhan 2019. Limb polysemy in Turkic languages. Turkic Languages 23, 211–221. This work gives an overview of Turkic languages in terms of the presence of HAND/ARM and FOOT/LEG polysemy. This type of polysemy is based on whether the terms HAND and FOOT include or exclude the concepts of ARM and LEG, and vice versa. Due to the fact that the terms HAND and FOOT are meronyms of ARM and LEG, these words are mostly equated, and eventually one or both turn into a polysemous lexeme through semantic change. The majority of Eurasiatic languages display common features with regard to the extension of the limb polysemy, which can be from HAND to ARM as well as from FOOT to LEG. But some Turkic languages have a very strong tendency for the change to happen in the exten- sion of the whole (arm, leg) to part (hand, foot), whereas the rest of them show an oppo- site development or do not exhibit limb polysemy. In this paper, which determines the general outlines of Turkic limb polysemy, the disparity in question is argued to be the re- sult of semantic change that occurred under the influence of linguistic and extra-linguistic factors. Keywords: Turkic languages, limb polysemy, hand/arm, foot/leg. Erhan Taşbaş, Department of Turkish Language and Culture at National Chengchi Uni- versity No.64, Sec. 2, Zhinan Rd., Wenshan District, Taipei City 11605, Taiwan. E-mail: ertasbas@gmail.com Introduction Polysemy is a result of the extension of lexical meanings of words over time. In this respect, if we take into account that polysemy includes an intermediate stage of semantic change (Campbell 1998: 268; Wilkins 1996: 278), it is clear that the pro- cess of semantic change cannot be studied without considering polysemy (Győri 2002: 149; Traugott & Dasher 2004: 11). Despite detailed and insightful case studies of body part systems in specific lan- guages, semantic details are often left vague (Majid & Staden 2015: 574). Even though there are various factors causing semantic changes and polysemy, extra- linguistic factors, which include language contacts and socio-cultural changes and conditions, seem to have a particularly strong effect on the semantic field of limb terms. Previous studies (Brown 2005: 522–525; Witkowski & Brown 1985: 197– 214) have focused on cultural and geographical aspects of limb polysemy. These studies assumed that there is a strong relationship between limb polysemy and envi- ronment and latitudinal location. Witkowski & Brown (1985: 207) claim that the languages spoken in nonequatorial (cold) regions are more likely to have HAND/ARM distinction than those languages spoken in equatorial (warm) regions.