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
Authors: Huumo T
Publisher: MOUTON DE GRUYTER
Publication year: 2010
Journal: Linguistics
Journal name in source: LINGUISTICS
Journal acronym: LINGUISTICS
Volume: 48
Issue: 1
First page : 49
Last page: 97
Number of pages: 49
ISSN: 0024-3949
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/LING.2010.002(external)
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.