Shades of entrenchment and conventionalization: the rise of marron in French

Abstract This article explores the evolution of colour terms in French, with a focus on the comparative analysis of brun, marron, and châtain, all of which fall within the spectrum of the colour brown in English. Within the framework of Schmid’s Entrenchment-and-Conventionalization model, we investigate how the system of colour terms, as patterns of associations in the minds of speakers and communicative behaviours among the members of a speech community, shapes the meanings and usages of these terms over time. We claim that marron has emerged as an all-purpose and denotatively focused expression, establishing it as a Basic Colour Term. Brun, by contrast, is characterized by its broad semantic scope which encompasses various hues and meanings, but it lacks the precise chromatic focus seen in marron.