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

CHAPTER 6: PROPERTY SELECTION 
PROCESSES. 
In the previous chapter, it has been seen how the physiology and function of 
human perceptual systems influence and determine the way in which we use our 
language relative to sense perception. The way in which we experience, perceive and 
interact with the world that surrounds us must be reflected in our vocabulary, because, as 
Rudzka-Ostyn puts it, “a word that has taken root in a language cannot acquire just any 
new sense” (1995: 218). The five different perceptual systems were characterised in 
terms of properties. These properties are the means by which it is possible to solve the 
question of why some source domains are mapped onto very specific target domains and 
not others. 
In this chapter two other unsolved puzzles are discussed. Once the source domain 
is characterised by these properties, the next question is which, how, and how many of 
these properties are to be present in the target domain in order to constrain metaphor. 
Section 6.1 illustrates how these properties are applied to language. Here, only two 
properties  and are analysed in order to show that 
conceptual mappings between source and target domains are not a matter of sheer 
chance but constrained by our experience of perception. In Section 6.2 Property 
Selection Processes are introduced. These processes are constraints on mappings 
between the source and the target domain, both in metaphorical and physical extended 
meanings. Finally, some conclusions are drawn in Section 6.3. 
6.1. perception and language 
In the previous chapter, it has been described how human perceptual systems and 
processes function (Section 5.1.). This was followed by a typology of the main 
properties corresponding to these descriptions (Section 5.2). The question now is 
whether, as predicted by Cognitive Linguistics, it is true that the properties that 
characterise these senses can be traced in the way we use expressions related to these 
sense modalities.

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B. Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano 
Polysemy and metaphor in perception verbs 
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In this section, I pick up only some examples from the five different senses in 
order to give a taste of how this assumption works. In the next section, I shall 
concentrate on two of these senses – smell and touch –, and offer an analysis of the 
different meanings that olfactory and tactile verbs convey and how each meaning can be 
explained by using these properties.