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

5.1.1.3. Touch 
The stimulus for touch consists of mechanical disturbances of the skin when in 
contact with a different object. The main characteristic of this sense perceived by the PR 
is in fact the contact that exists between the PR and OP
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. This characteristic comes 
under the property yes
> in the following section. 
These mechanical disturbances, even the smallest ones, are registered by several 
different kinds of specialised ‘mechanoreceptors’ situated in various layers of the skin. 
In the following section, the fact that even a minimal disturbance stimulates the sense of 
touch is represented by the property yes
>. These mechanoreceptors are 
sensitive to mechanical pressure or deformation of the skin. Afferent fibres from these 
mechanoreceptors carry neural impulses caused by tactile stimulation into the dorsal side 
of the spinal cord. Inside the spinal cord, these afferents make synaptic contact with two 
major classes of neurones: interneurones and those constituting the lemniscal pathway. 
A circuit composed of interneurones, motor neurones and afferents mediates reflex 
reactions. Interneurones synapse onto motor neurones, whose axons go out the spinal 
cord and travel to muscles near the body area where the afferents originated. The other 
class of spinal cord neurones in the lemniscal pathway carries information to particular 
regions in the brain stem. Information about pain and temperature is carried to the brain 
by a different pathway, the spinothalamic tract. Within the brain, touch information is 
processed in various specialised cortical regions that contain maps of the surface of the 
body. Touch information is received and processed by the somatosensory cortex. This 
cortical region is subdivided into two major parts: S-I (first somatosensory area) and S-II 
(second somatosensory area). Both receive input from the thalamus, but S-II seems to 
receive information from S-I as well. 
Unlike other senses, touch sensations can arise from stimulation anywhere on the 
body’s surface. The hand is, however, usually the most common organ of stimulation. It 
is important to notice that tactile perception is always superficial and thus, the PR can in 
this way obtain information about the temperature, shape, size, and surface of the OP.
By touching an object, the PR can tell what the limits of the OP are. These two 
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This can be seen in many metaphorical expressions in language; for instance, keep in touch, to 
loose touch with reality. 

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B. Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano 
Polysemy and metaphor in perception verbs 
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characteristics are represented by the properties no
> and yes
> 
respectively, in Section 5.2.