The PURPLE mystery: Semantic meaning of three purple terms in French speakers from Algeria, France, and Switzerland

Studies on the colour category PURPLE yielded inconsistent category boundaries, focal colours, and colour-emotion associations. In French, there are at least three colour terms referring to the shades of purple, potentially weighing on these inconsistencies. Thus, we tested the semantic breadth and richness in semantic meaning of violet (basic term), lilas (non-basic), and pourpre (non-basic). We collected free associations in 274 French speakers from Algeria, France, and Switzerland, yielding 2,079 responses, of which 436 were discrete and 275 were unique. Frequency analyses and semantic coding supported the basicness status of violet in French, within a hierarchically structured semantic system. Moreover, the meaning of the three terms was not synonymous. Violet had the most abstract meaning. Lilas had the narrowest meaning, mainly referring to Natural Entities. Pourpre seemed close to RED. We found no differences between the countries. Future studies should extend this approach to other languages and other colour terms.