Polysemy and metaphor in perception verbs: a cross-linguistic study

partake of it and as a consequence they were left out. 
(119) Gipuzkoa 
eta
Arabako 
AEK urte 
erdiko 
subentzioa jaso
ezinean,
eta
Bizkaikoa
urte 
osokoa 
usaindu ere 
gabe 
guipuzcoa 
and 
alava.
ADN
AEK
year
half.
ADN
funding.
ABS
receive
impossibility.
INE
and
biscay.
ADN
.
ABS
year 
whole.
ADN
.
ABS
smell
also
without 
‘AEK in Guipuzcoa and Alava could not receive half a year’s funding, 
but the one in Biscay did not get the whole year’s funding at all’ (
EEBS
) 
Finally, the meaning ‘to prophesy’ is also found in Basque smell verbs as in 
(120). 
(120) […] alaba
onek […]
etorkizun
illunpeak
urratu eta 
erdi-ikusi
edo
usnatu zuela,
esan genezake 
daughter 
this.
ERG
future 
obscurity.
ABS
.
PL
break and
half-see 
or 
smell 
aux.
COMP
say
could.1.
PL
‘We could say that this daughter could explore and foresee
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the
hidden future’ (
EEBS
)
In this section I have analysed the related and non-related extended meanings of 
the sense of smell in English, Basque and Spanish. These are summarised in Table 2.7. 
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Lit. she ‘smelled, half-saw and broke into’. 

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B. Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano 
Polysemy and metaphor in perception verbs 
82
Meanings English 
Basque 
Spanish 
‘to trail something’ 
√ 
√ 
√ 
‘to suspect’ 
√ 
√ 
√ 
‘to guess’, ‘to sense’ 
√ 
√ 
√ 
‘to investigate’ 
√ 
√ 
√ 
‘to disdain’, ‘to show contempt’ 
√ 
‘to corrupt’ 
√ 
‘to prophesy’ 
√ 
‘to go unnoticed’ 
√ 
Table 2.7: Extended meanings in smell in English, Basque and Spanish 
2.3.5. TASTE 
The physical sense of taste is generally linked to personal likes and dislikes in the 
mental world. Perhaps the reason why this is so lies in the fact that the sense of taste is 
most closely associated with fine discrimination. According to Buck (1949:1031), 
among Hindus there are six principal varieties of taste with sixty-three possible mixtures 
and among Greeks six, including the four fundamental ones: ‘sweet’, ‘bitter’, ‘acid’ and 
‘salt’. This makes the sense of taste very accurate from a descriptive point of view as it 
allows us to express ourselves very precisely when we want to describe a taste. Although 
this relation between taste and likes / dislikes is very common cross-linguistically, this 
meaning seems to be encoded only by taste nouns in Basque, English and Spanish. It is 
for this reason that apart from the analysis of taste verbs, I devote a small subsection to 
the analysis of the meanings in taste nouns here as well.
The verbs used in this sense are taste and savour in English, dastatu in Basque, 
and gustar, saber and saborear in Spanish. The nouns used are taste in English, zapore 
and gustu in Basque
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and, sabor and gusto in Spanish. 
One of the extended meanings that taste verbs have cross-linguistically is ‘to 
experience something’ as in (121), (122) and (123). 
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As discussed in the chapter devoted to the etymology (Chapter 3), unlike in the other senses, 
Basque does not seem to have a taste system of its own. Taste words are borrowed from Latin (verbs) and 
Spanish (nouns). 

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B. Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano 
Polysemy and metaphor in perception verbs 
83
(121) He 
has 
tasted the frustration of defeat (
AMGD
) 
(122) (Hark) Ilabete bat
eta
erdiz
presondegia jastatu
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zuen 
he.
ERG
month one
and
half.
INSTR
jail.
ABS
taste
AUX
‘He tasted the life in prison for a month and a half’ (
LM
) 
(123) (Ellos) 
gustaron
las 
mieles del
triunfo 
they
tasted
the
honeys of-the victory 
‘They tasted the sweet taste of victory’ (
OSD
) 
Although in the English translation of (123) it could be argued that this sentence 
could also mean ‘enjoy’, in the Spanish example this interpretation is not possible. As 
we shall see in the examples of the following meaning, the verb gustar in sentences like 
(131) below does mean ‘enjoy, like’, but in (123), it means experience something, in this 
case a victory. The verb gustaron can be substituted by the verb probaron (probar
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‘taste, try’), which does not imply enjoyment as in (124) below. 
(124) (Ellos) 
Probaron
las
mieles del
triunfo 
they
tried
the
honeys of-the victory 
‘They tasted the sweet taste of victory’ 
The other extended metaphorical meaning in taste verbs is ‘to enjoy’. 
(125) I 
savour the sweet taste of revenge 
According to the OED, taste used to mean ‘enjoy, take pleasure’ as in (126). This 
use, however, is archaic nowadays. 
(126) If I wondered at Johnson not tasting the works of Mason and Gray, still 
more have I wondered at their not tasting his works (
OED
-1791) 
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Jastatu is a dialectal variation of dastatu.
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As discussed in Section 2.2, Spanish does not have an activity taste verb. In this case the verb 
probar (lat. prôbare ‘try, experiment’) is used instead. 

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B. Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano 
Polysemy and metaphor in perception verbs 
84
(127) (Hark) Munduko
plazerrak
dastatu
zituen 
he.
ERG
world.
ADN
pleasure.
ABS
.
PL
taste
AUX
‘He tasted the pleasures of this world’ (
ELH
) 
(128) Garaipena 
dastatzen
hasiak
zirelarik, 
(haiek)