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

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B. Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano 
Polysemy and metaphor in perception verbs 
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what the difference between visual and auditory understanding is. For Sweetser the 
difference lies on the fact that “hearing is connected with the specifically 
communication aspects of understanding, rather than with intellection at large” 
(1990:43). 
These two senses, vision and hearing, are usually called in the literature (Sekuler 
and Blake 1994; Viberg 1984) ‘distant senses’ because contact is not needed in order to 
perceive through them. According to Sweetser, it is this distance requirement that links 
these two senses to objectivity and intellect, whereas in the cases of touch and taste – 
‘contact senses’ –, their necessity for closeness with the thing perceived makes them be 
connected with subjectivity, intimacy and emotion
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. 
The sense of touch has often been related to two fields: the general sense of 
perception and the emotional feeling. As Sweetser states, in many IE languages, at least 
one of the words that denotes ‘emotional feeling’ is related to the domain of physical 
feeling (Sweetser 1990:37) and consequently, expressions such as wounded, stroked, 
touched, which belong to the touch and tactile domain can also be used for emotional 
sensations
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. She also states that in all IE languages, the verb meaning ‘to feel’ in the 
sense of touch is the same as the verb indicating general perception. For example, the 
verb sentir (Lat < sentire) in Spanish. However, it seems that this statement is 
overstated; in Russian, the verb for ‘to feel’ cuvstvovat is used in some forms (‘to touch’, 
‘to taste’, ‘to smell’ experience verbs) but in itself it cannot describe any sensory 
modality (Moiseeva 1998: 160). 
The Indo-European root for taste seems to be *g’eus, which developed two 
different meanings in Romance languages, i.e. ‘taste’, and in Germanic and Celtic 
languages i.e., ‘try’ or ‘choose’. The sense of taste seems to be 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 
off control. This is reflected in the usage of the verbs of hearing, as for instance in the sentence: I heard 
her but I did not listen to her (Sp la oí pero no la escuchaba). 
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The implications of this contact/non-contact requirement are discussed in great detail in 
Chapter 5, where I will characterise sense perception in terms of properties. These properties will 
constitute the bodily basis that constrains the creation of the extended meanings presented in Chapter 2. 
This will be discussed in Chapter 6. 
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Recall that this ‘emotional feeling’ meaning was included as part of a wider domain ‘to affect’ 
in Section 2.3.3. 

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B. Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano 
Polysemy and metaphor in perception verbs 
(1949:1031), in Hindi, there are six principal varieties of taste with sixty-three possible 
mixtures and in Greek 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. It is 
worth noting, as a contrast, the case of smell, which as Aristotle pointed out, lacks any 
independent classification of smells similar to that of tastes. 
Many of the verbs indicating smell often derive from specific physical sensations 
or from aspects of the physical act of perception, whenever smell is differentiated from 
general tactile sensation. The Indo-European root seems to be *od- (cf. Lat odor) but it 
has also been suggested – in the case of English – that smell is related to the meaning of 
‘vapour’ or ‘steam’. Sweetser does not consider this sense as salient as the other ones in 
terms of abstract or mental connotations; she establishes only two: Bad smell to indicate 
bad character or dislikeable mental characteristics (e.g. stink) and the detection of such 
characteristics (e.g. the active verb smell)
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.
In Figure 4.1, Sweetser summarises the structure of English metaphors of 
perception. 
OBJECTIVE
+ INTELLECTUAL 
Sight Knowledge, mental vision (e.g. ‘I see’, ‘a clear presentation’) 
Control, monitoring 
Physical manipulation, grasping. (understanding = controlling) 
Mental manipulation, control. (understanding = grasping) 
INTERPERSONAL 
COMMUNICATION 
Hearing
(physical reception) 
Internal receptivity
(heedfulness vs. being deaf to a plea) 
Obedience 
(Dan lystre) 
SUBJECTIVE + EMOTIONAL 
FEEL
TASTE
EMOTION 
PERSONAL PREFERENCE 
Figure 4.1: The structure of perception metaphors (After Sweetser 1990:38). 
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Olfactory verbs, however, do have more metaphorical meanings than those proposed by 
Sweetser (see Section 2.3.4).

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B. Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano 
Polysemy and metaphor in perception verbs 
114