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

5.2.4. summary 
In this section, a typology of the 2
nd
order properties has been presented. 2
nd
order properties are those that are composed of some 1
st
order properties. There are two 
2
nd
order properties: , composed of  and 
; and , composed of  and . All 2
nd
order properties are B level properties; that is, they are only applicable to some senses. 
Table 5.4 shows this typology.
The same symbols used in Table 5.1 above are applicable here. A level properties 
(1
st
order properties here only) have both negative and positive values represented by 
yes
and 
no
respectively. B level properties have a 
yes
only in those senses to which they can 
be applied and empty boxes for the rest. 
2
nd
order 
1
st
order 
VISION 
HEAR 
TOUCH 
SMELL 
TASTE 
 
yes
yes
yes
 
yes
no
yes
yes
yes
 
yes
yes
yes
no
yes

yes
yes
 
no
yes
no
yes
yes
 
no
no
yes
yes
yes
Table 5.4: Organisation of 2
nd
order properties in the sense modalities. 
5.3. properties vs. semantic features 
In the previous section, a typology of the properties that characterise sense 
perception has been presented. These properties should not be confused with the so-
called ‘semantic features (components, markers)’ introduced in the framework of 
Componential Analysis (Katz and Fodor 1963; Katz and Postal 1964; Weinreich 1966; 
Bierwisch 1970; Katz 1972). In this approach, the meanings of lexical items are not 
unitary concepts, undifferentiated wholes. Meanings can be analysed into atomic 
conceptual elements related to each other in several ways; they are complexes formed by 
different components of meaning. These atomic concepts are in themselves semantic 

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B. Iraide Ibarretxe-Antuñano 
Polysemy and metaphor in perception verbs 
158
primitives – they cannot be reduced to smaller units – and are symbolically represented 
by semantic markers
127
. 
These semantic features (markers, components) are theoretical constructs 
intended to represent a concept that is part of the sense of a lexical item and other 
constituents in natural languages. As Bierwisch (1970: 181) puts it “they are not defined 
in terms of physical properties and relations outside the human organism but symbols for 
the internal mechanism by means of which such phenomena are conceived and 
conceptualised”. 
For example, the meaning of the lexical item man is composed of the following 
semantic features: [animate], [human], [male] and [adult]. 
Semantic features reflect the systematic semantic relations that exist between a 
lexical item and the rest of the vocabulary of the language. They exhibit the semantic 
structure in a dictionary entry and the semantic relations between dictionary entries. In 
other words, they are used to structure the vocabulary of a language.
A classical example of how these features structure the vocabulary is illustrated 
in the analysis of the word bachelor (see Katz and Postal 1963). This word can have four 
different meanings (i) a person never married, (ii) a young knight serving under the 
standard of another knight, (iii) a person who has the lowest academic degree, and (iv) a 
young fur seal without a mate during the breeding time. Semantic features can represent 
the semantic relations that hold among these four senses of the same lexical item. For 
instance, meanings (i), (ii) and (iii) are opposed to (iv) on the basis of the feature 
[human] vs. [animal]
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. 
Semantic features do not only show the relations that exist between the different 
senses of the same lexical item, but also those between different lexical items. For 
example, the word bachelor and the word spingster share the features [human], 
[unmarried] and [old], but are differentiated by the feature [male]-[female]. 
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Katz and Fodor (1963) and Katz and Postal (1964) distinguish between ‘semantic markers’ 
and ‘semantic distinguishers’. Both are the symbolic devices which represent the atomic concepts that 
form the meaning of a lexical item, but whereas markers are “the formal elements that a semantic 
component uses to express general semantic properties”, distinguishers are “the formal elements employed 
to represent what is idiosyncratic about the meaning of a lexical item” (Katz and Postal 1964: 14). 
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The formal representation of an incompatible pair of features such as [human]-[animal], 
[male]-[female], is represented by the value + or – of one feature (see Kempson 1977 for a discussion of 
this representation). 

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Semantic features are not part of the language being described, but part of a 
meta-language, the theoretical vocabulary set up to describe languages. A feature like 
[human] or [male] is not an English word, but a construct represented by one. Therefore, 
these features are not particular to a language, a semantic field; they are universal (see 
Kempson 1977: 88, for a discussion on this universal character of features). 
In sum, semantic features are abstract, universal, theoretical constructs. They are 
the means by which meanings of lexical items can be decomposed into atomic concepts, 
for structuring the vocabulary of natural languages. 
The properties defined in Section 5.2 are totally different from semantic features. 
These properties are not abstract, theoretical constructs. As we have seen in the 
discussion, these properties come from the description of the physiology of the five 
senses and from our perception of these perceptual acts. They are understood as 
shorthand ways of referring to the defining properties that describe how we perceive 
through these senses.
These properties are not semantic primitives, components of meaning grouped 
together to form the complexes that make up the meaning of words. As will be shown in 
the next chapter, these properties represent and describe the bodily basis upon which 
metaphorical and non-metaphorical extended meanings in the field of perception verbs 
are based. 
These properties are not an exhaustive specification of the meaning of words (as 
there is much more to perceiving than shown in Table 5.5 below). They are much more 
akin to meaning postulates than componential analysis – but again they differ in that the 
relation is not a purely logical one and what is being characterised is not a relation 
between vocabulary items but physical characteristics obtained independently of 
language. 
These properties are not to be considered universal and applicable to any 
semantic field as semantic features are. They only apply to the field of sense perception. 
It will be necessary to define a totally different set of properties for the description of 
other semantic fields. As a consequence, these properties cannot be used to structure the 
vocabulary of natural languages, either syntagmatically or paradigmatically. 

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