A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Is perception a directional relationship? On directionality and its motivation in Finnish expressions of sensory perception




AuthorsHuumo T

PublisherMOUTON DE GRUYTER

Publication year2010

JournalLinguistics

Journal name in sourceLINGUISTICS

Journal acronymLINGUISTICS

Volume48

Issue1

First page 49

Last page97

Number of pages49

ISSN0024-3949

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1515/LING.2010.002(external)


Abstract

This article examines the hypothesis that sensory perception is linguistically conceptualized as a directional relationship that involves the motion of a signal between the experiencer and the stimulus. The hypothesis is tested with data from Finnish. The study focuses on expressions of visual, auditory and olfactory perception. The data consist of sentences including a perception verb and a locative element that indicates the position of either the experiencer or the stimulus. There are three options for marking such a locative: a static 'in'/'on'/'at' case, a directional 'from' case, or a directional 'to' case. The results reveal crucial differences on the one hand between different verbs in each domain, on the other between the different sensory domains. Agentive perception verbs favor the directionality experiencer double right arrow stimulus to a greater extent than non-agentive or intransitive perception verbs. The opposite directionality (stimulus double right arrow experiencer) is favored if the stimulus is a signal or a mental content rather than a concrete entity. In general, expressions of visual perception favor the static coding to a greater extent than expressions of auditory and olfactory perception, which favor the directional stimulus double right arrow experiencer coding. It is argued that this difference follows from the conceptualization of auditory and olfactory perception as involving the motion of a signal (a sound or a smell) as opposed to visual perception, which is conceptualized as the perception of a concrete entity.



Research Areas



Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 12:15