It is important to note that diverse somatic objects are usually described by different features. It is not surprising then that there are features relevant for one somatic object but irrelevant for other objects. For example, one can speak about the form of the hand or the size of the stomach but hardly about the form and the size of liquids like blood or sweat. Head, arms, hands and fingers are associated with specific kinds of clothing (hat, sleeve, glove and thimble), but inner organs are not.
Nevertheless, one shouldn’t suppose that if the feature is relevant for several somatic objects then it is equally significant for each of them. Although it is possible to speak about the colour of most somatic objects that can be seen, this feature is significant for a very few of them. For example, colour is significant for eyes, face, hair and skin, but not for legs, back or stomach. As I have said, this does not mean that one cannot say His back is red or Her legs became white – there are contexts that allow to denote the colour of legs or back as well. But when denoting the colour (or the value of any other feature) of the body part one should always keep in mind the difference between the situations in which the feature is significant, if not necessary, and the situations in which the feature is optional.
I would like to put two examples of the situations where the features “colour of skin” and “colour of eyes” play an important part. Firstly, if somebody describes, say, how a person looks like, he usually mentions the colour of his or her eyes, face, hair and skin, for without these characteristics the description will not be full. Secondly, the colour of skin is culturally significant, as it allows to judge about the race and the place where the person lives (people with dark skin live in the southern countries with plenty of sunshine, whereas people with white skin inhibit the cold and windy territories in the North). As for the colour of eyes, it is well-known that different cultures have specific attitudes towards the dark (black) eyes and the blue eyes. For instance, in Russia and the Northern Europe there was a traditional belief that black eyes bring evil, whereas the Italians used to fear blue eyes.
2.5 The procedure of describing a feature
Alongside with the description of somatic objects one should also focus on the description of the features that characterize them. There is a specific procedure of describing a body part feature, which includes four steps.
The first step is to provide a formal definition of the term that denotes the feature given. In other words, when describing the features like form or function, one should denote what the terms form and function stand for. If the name of the feature does not belong to everyday Russian (like orientation or mereology), one should also supply the description with a informal commentary upon these terms and how to use them in the metalanguage.
The second step is to reveal and explicate the paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships between the feature given and some other features of the system. This step also presupposes the disclosure of such relationships between those NL and BL items that represent the values of the features. For example, there is a close relationship between the features “form” and “size”, which can be proved by plenty of Russian words and expressions that denote both form and size of a somatic object at the same time, cf. glazky-vishenki lit. ‘eyes that are small, round and dark like cherries’ and lebedinaja sheja lit. ‘a swan’s neck that is long and straight and looks beautiful’; cf. also the gesture of bow, in which the changes in the form and the size of the body are represented simultaneously: the one who bows bents his body and in this way decreases his height.