Hostname: page-component-6766d58669-nqrmd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-23T12:54:07.451Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Verbs of Perception: A Quantitative Typological Study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2026

Elisabeth Norcliffe  and
Asifa Majid
Elisabeth Norcliffe*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
Asifa Majid*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
*
Norcliffe, Department of Experimental Psychology, Anna Watts Building, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford, OX2 6GG, UK, [elisabeth.norcliffe@psy.ox.ac.uk], [asifa.majid@psy.ox.ac.uk]
Norcliffe, Department of Experimental Psychology, Anna Watts Building, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter, Woodstock Road, Oxford, OX2 6GG, UK, [elisabeth.norcliffe@psy.ox.ac.uk], [asifa.majid@psy.ox.ac.uk]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Previous studies have proposed that the lexicalization of perception verbs is constrained by a biologically grounded hierarchy of the senses. Other research traditions emphasize conceptual and communicative factors instead. Drawing on a balanced sample of perception verb lexicons in 100 languages, we found that vision tends to be lexicalized with a dedicated verb, but that nonvisual modalities do not conform to the predictions of the sense-modality hierarchy. We also found strong asymmetries in which sensory meanings colexify. Rather than a universal hierarchy of the senses, we suggest that two domain-general constraints—conceptual similarity and communicative need—interact to shape lexicalization patterns.

Keywords

perception verbscolexificationlexical-semantic typologysensory languagecommunicative efficiency

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 100 , Issue 1 , March 2024 , pp. 81 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © 2024 Linguistic Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 836921 [LexPex]. Particular thanks to Harald Hammarström for sharing his digital collection of grammars and dictionaries. Many thanks also to Sebastian Sauppe and Claudia Mazzuca for their input at various stages, to Rik van Gijn for help with the Yuracaré data, and to the audiences at the 12th Dubrovnik Conference on Cognitive Science 2021, the Cross-linguistic Perspectives on Processing and Learning 2021, the 16th International Conference of Cognitive Linguistics 2023, and the Linguistics Association of Great Britain annual meeting 2023. Finally, we are grateful to Bodo Winter and Åke Viberg (who made themselves known as referees for this paper) and an anonymous referee for their substantial and constructive feedback on earlier drafts, and to John Beavers and Kristen Syrett for their editorial input throughout.

References

Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y., and Storch, Anne. 2013. Linguistic expression of perception and cognition: A typological glimpse. Perception and cognition in language and culture, ed. by Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. and Storch, Anne, 1–45. Leiden: Brill. DOI: 10.1163/9789004210127_002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arita, Héctor T. 2016. Species co-occurrence analysis: Pairwise versus matrix-level approaches [Correspondence]. Global Ecology and Biogeography 25(11). 1397–1400. DOI: 10.1111/geb.12418.10.1111/geb.12418CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bentz, Christian, Alikaniotis, Dimitrios, Cysouw, Michael; and Ferrer-i-Cancho, Ramon. 2017. The entropy of words—Learnability and expressivity across more than 1000 languages. Entropy 19(6):275. DOI: 10.3390/e19060275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berlin, Brent, and Kay, Paul. 1991. Basic color terms: Their universality and evolution. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bickel, Balthasar. 2013. Distributional biases in language families. Language typology and historical contingency: In honor of Johanna Nichols, ed. by Bickel, Balthasar, Grenoble, Lenore A., Peterson, David A., and Timberlake, Alan, 415–44. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/tsl.104CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blackings, Mairi John. 2000. Maʾdi-English, English-Maʾdi dictionary. (Languages of the world 25.) Munich: LINCOM Europa.Google Scholar
Bowern, Claire. 2010. Historical linguistics in Australia: Trees, networks and their implications. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 365(1559). 3845–54. DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2010.0013.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brochhagen, Thomas, and Boleda, Gemma. 2022. When do languages use the same word for different meanings? The Goldilocks principle in colexification. Cognition 226:105179. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105179.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brugman, Claudia Marlea. 1988. The story of over: Polysemy, semantics, and the structure of the lexicon. (Outstanding dissertations in linguistics.) New York: Garland.Google Scholar
Bürkner, Paul-Christian. 2017. brms: An R package for Bayesian multilevel models using Stan. Journal of Statistical Software 80(1). DOI: 10.18637/jss.v080.i01.10.18637/jss.v080.i01CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bürkner, Paul-Christian. 2018. Advanced Bayesian multilevel modeling with the R package brms. The R Journal 10(1). 395–411. DOI: 10.32614/RJ-2018-017.10.32614/RJ-2018-017CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bürkner, Paul-Christian. 2021. Bayesian item response modeling in R with brms and Stan. Journal of Statistical Software 100(5). DOI: 10.18637/jss.v100.i05.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butaev, Shavkat, and Irisqulov, Abbos. 2008. English-Uzbek, Uzbek-English dictionary: 70.000 words and expressions/Inglizcha-O'zbekcha, O'zbekcha-Inglizcha lug'at 70.000 so'z va ibora. Toshkent: O'zbekiston Respublikasi Fanlar akademiyasi ‘Fan’ nashriyoti.Google Scholar
Bybee, Joan, Perkins, Revere; and Pagliuca, William. 1994. The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect, and modality in the languages of the world. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Carr, Jon W., Smith, Kenny, Culbertson, Jennifer; and Kirby, Simon. 2020. Simplicity and informativeness in semantic category systems. Cognition 202:104289. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104289.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chen, I-Hsuan, Zhao, Qingqing, Long, Yunfei, Lu, Qin; and Huang, Chu-Ren. 2019. Mandarin Chinese modality exclusivity norms. PLOS ONE 14(2):e0211336. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0211336.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Classen, Constance. 1997. Foundations for an anthropology of the senses. International Social Science Journal 49(153). 401–12. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2451.1997.tb00032.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conway, Bevil R., Ratnasingam, Sivalogeswaran, Jara-Ettinger, Julian, Futrell, Richard; and Gibson, Edward. 2020. Communication efficiency of color naming across languages provides a new framework for the evolution of color terms. Cognition 195:104086. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104086.10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104086CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Corbett, Greville G. 2005. Suppletion in personal pronouns: Theory versus practice, and the place of reproducibility in typology. Linguistic Typology 9(1). 1–23. DOI: 10.1515/lity.2005.9.1.1.10.1515/lity.2005.9.1.1CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croft, William. 2001. Radical construction grammar: Syntactic theory in typological perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198299554.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croft, William. 2002. Typology and universals. 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511840579.10.1017/CBO9780511840579CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Croft, William. 2022. On two mathematical representations for ‘semantic maps’. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft 41(1). 67–87. DOI: 10.1515/zfs-2021-2040.10.1515/zfs-2021-2040CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gábor, Csárdi, and Nepusz, Tamás. 2006. The igraph software package for complex network research. Interjournal, Complex Systems, 1695. Online: https://igraph.org/.Google Scholar
Cyffer, Norbert, and Hutchinson, John. 1990. Dictionary of the Kanuri language. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110869231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dryer, Matthew S. 1989. Large linguistic areas and language sampling. Studies in Language 13(2). 257–92. DOI: 10.1075/sl.13.2.03dry.10.1075/sl.13.2.03dryCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Nicholas. 1988. Arguments for Pama-Nyungan as a genetic subgroup, with particular reference to initial laminalization. Aboriginal linguistics 1, ed. by Evans, Nicholas and Johnson, Steve, 91–110. Armidale: University of New England, Department of Linguistics. Online: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/10440.Google Scholar
Evans, Nicholas. 2007. Warramurrungunji undone: Australian languages in the 51st millennium. Language diversity endangered, ed. by Brenzinger, Matthias, 342–73. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110905694-017.Google Scholar
Evans, Nicholas. 2010. Semantic typology. The Oxford handbook of linguistic typology, ed. by Song, Jae Jung, 504–33. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199281251.013.0024.Google Scholar
Evans, Nicholas, and Wilkins, David. 2000. In the mind's ear: The semantic extensions of perception verbs in Australian languages. Language 76(3). 546–92. DOI: 10.2307/417135.10.2307/417135CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fedzechkina, Maryia, Jaeger, T. Florian; and Newport, Elissa L.. 2012. Language learners restructure their input to facilitate efficient communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109(44). 17897–902. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1215776109.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Floyd, Simeon, Roque, Lila San; and Majid, Asifa. 2018. Smell is coded in grammar and frequent in discourse: Cha'palaa olfactory language in cross-linguistic perspective. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 28(2). 175–96. DOI: 10.1111/jola.12190.10.1111/jola.12190CrossRefGoogle Scholar
François, Alexandre. 2008. Semantic maps and the typology of colexification: Intertwining polysemous networks across languages. In Vanhove 2008b, 163–215.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gast, Volker, and Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria. 2022. Patterns of persistence and diffusibility in the European lexicon. Linguistic Typology 26(2). 403–38. DOI: 10.1515/lingty-2021-2086.10.1515/lingty-2021-2086CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geeraerts, Dirk. 1997. Diachronic prototype semantics: A contribution to historical lexicology. (Oxford studies in lexicography and lexicology.) Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780198236528.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gentner, Dedre, and Bowerman, Melissa. 2009. Why some spatial semantic categories are harder to learn than others: The typological prevalence hypothesis. Crosslinguistic approaches to the psychology of language: Research in the tradition of Dan Isaac Slobin, ed. by Guo, Jiansheng, Lieven, Elena, Budwig, Nancy, Ervin-Tripp, Susan, Nakamura, Keiko, and Ozcaliskan, Seyda, 465–80. New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Georgakopoulos, Thanasis, Grossman, Eitan, Nikolaev, Dmitry; and Polis, Stéphane. 2022. Universal and macro-areal patterns in the lexicon: A case-study in the perception-cognition domain. Linguistic Typology 26(2). 439–87. DOI: 10.1515/lingty-2021-2088.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Georgakopoulos, Thanasis, and Polis, Stéphane. 2018. The semantic map model: State of the art and future avenues for linguistic research. Language and Linguistics Compass 12(2):e12270. DOI: 10.1111/lnc3.12270.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geurts, Kathryn Linn. 2002. Culture and the senses: Bodily ways of knowing in an African community. (Ethnographic studies in subjectivity 3.) Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, Edward, Futrell, Richard, Jara-Ettinger, Julian, Mahowald, Kyle, Bergen, Leon, Ratnasingam, Sivalogeswaran, Gibson, Mitchell, Piantadosi, Steven T.; and Conway, Bevil R.. 2017. Color naming across languages reflects color use. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114(40). 10785–90. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1619666114.10.1073/pnas.1619666114CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gibson, Edward, Futrell, Richard, Piantadosi, Steven P., Dautriche, Isabelle, Mahowald, Kyle, Bergen, Leon; and Levy, Roger. 2019. How efficiency shapes human language. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 23(5). 389–407. DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2019.02.003.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greenberg, Joseph Harold. 1966. Language universals: With special reference to feature hierarchies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110899771.Google Scholar
Griffith, Daniel M., Veech, Joseph A.; and Marsh, Charles J.. 2016. cooccur: Probabilistic species co-occurrence analysis in R. Journal of Statistical Software, Code Snippets 69(2). DOI: 10.18637/jss.v069.c02.Google Scholar
Guest, Steve, Catmur, Caroline, Lloyd, Donna; and Spence, Charles. 2002. Audiotactile interactions in roughness perception. Experimental Brain Research 146(2). 161–71. DOI: 10.1007/s00221-002-1164-z.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Güldemann, Tom, and Fehn, Anne-Maria. 2017. The Kalahari Basin Area as a ‘sprachbund’ before the Bantu Expansion. The Cambridge handbook of areal linguistics, ed. by Hickey, Raymond, 500–526. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/9781107279872.019.10.1017/9781107279872.019CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gábor, Győri. 2002. Semantic change and cognition. Cognitive Linguistics 13(2). 123–66. DOI: 10.1515/cogl.2002.012.Google Scholar
Hamid, Abdul. 1998. Ladakhi-English-Urdu dictionary, with an English-Ladakhi index. Leh: Melong.Google Scholar
Hammarström, Harald, and Donohue, Mark. 2014. Some principles on the use of macro-areas in typological comparison. Language Dynamics and Change 4(1). 167–87. DOI: 10.1163/22105832-00401001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hammarström, Harald, Forkel, Robert, Haspelmath, Martin; and Bank, Sebastian. 2023. Glottolog 4.8. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.8131084.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 1997. Indefinite pronouns. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198235606.001.0001.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2003. The geometry of grammatical meaning: Semantic maps and cross-linguistic comparison. The new psychology of language: Cognitive and functional approaches to language structure, vol. 2, ed. by Tomasello, Michael, 211–43. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. 2021. Explaining grammatical coding asymmetries: Form–frequency correspondences and predictability. Journal of Linguistics 57(3). 605–33. DOI: 10.1017/S0022226720000535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin, and Siegmund, Sven. 2006. Simulating the replication of some of Greenberg's word order generalizations. Linguistic Typology 10(1). 74–82. DOI: 10.1515/LINGTY.2006.004.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd, and Kuteva, Tania. 2003. On contact-induced grammaticalization. Studies in Language 27(3). 529–72. DOI: 10.1075/sl.27.3.04hei.10.1075/sl.27.3.04heiCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd, and Kuteva, Tania. 2005. Language contact and grammatical change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511614132.10.1017/CBO9780511614132CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hershberger, Henry D., and Hershberger, Ruth. 1982. Kuku-Yalanji dictionary. (Work Papers of SIL-AAB 7.) Darwin: Summer Institute of Linguistics, Australian Aborigines Branch.Google Scholar
Hill, Jane H. 1988. Language, culture, and world-view. Linguistics: The Cambridge survey, vol. 4. Language: The socio-cultural context, ed. by Newmeyer, Frederick J., 14–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511620577.003.Google Scholar
Holmer, Sonja. 2021. The language of vision in four Aslian speech communities: An introductory investigation of basic vision verbs. Lund: Lund University B.A. thesis. Online: http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9041467.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J., and Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 2003. Grammaticalization. 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139165525.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Howes, David (ed.) 1991. The varieties of sensory experience: A sourcebook in the anthropology of the senses. (Anthropological horizons.) Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Howes, David. 2006. Charting the sensorial revolution. The Senses and Society 1(1). 113–28. DOI: 10.2752/174589206778055673.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huumo, Tuomas. 2010. Is perception a directional relationship? On directionality and its motivation in Finnish expressions of sensory perception. Linguistics 48(1). 49–97. DOI: 10.1515/ling.2010.002.10.1515/ling.2010.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Joshua Conrad, Watts, Joseph, Henry, Teague R., List, Johann-Mattis, Forkel, Robert, Mucha, Peter J., Greenhill, Simon J., Gray, Russell D.; and Lindquist, Kristen A.. 2019. Emotion semantics show both cultural variation and universal structure. Science 366(6472). 1517–22. DOI: 10.1126/science.aaw8160.10.1126/science.aaw8160CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jędrzejowski, Łukasz, and Staniewski, Przemysław. 2021. Rendering what the nose perceives: An introduction. The linguistics of olfaction: Typological and diachronic approaches to synchronic diversity, ed. by Jędrzejowski, Łukasz and Staniewski, Przemysław, 1–34. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/tsl.131CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jousmäki, V., and Hari, R.. 1998. Parchment-skin illusion: Sound-biased touch. Current Biology 8(6).R190–R191. DOI: 10.1016/S0960-9822(98)70120-4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jurafsky, Daniel. 1996. Universal tendencies in the semantics of the diminutive. Language 72(3). 533–78. DOI: 10.2307/416278.10.2307/416278CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karjus, Andres, Blythe, Richard A., Kirby, Simon, Wang, Tianyu; and Smith, Kenny. 2021. Conceptual similarity and communicative need shape colexification: An experimental study. Cognitive Science 45(9):e13035. DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13035.10.1111/cogs.13035CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kemp, Charles, and Regier, Terry. 2012. Kinship categories across languages reflect general communicative principles. Science 336(6084). 1049–54. DOI: 10.1126/science.1218811.10.1126/science.1218811CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kemp, Charles, Xu, Yang; and Regier, Terry. 2018. Semantic typology and efficient communication. Annual Review of Linguistics 4(1). 109–28. DOI: 10.1146/annurev-linguistics-011817-045406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirby, Simon, Tamariz, Monica, Cornish, Hannah; and Smith, Kenny. 2015. Compression and communication in the cultural evolution of linguistic structure. Cognition 141. 87–102. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2015.03.016.10.1016/j.cognition.2015.03.016CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Koch, Peter. 2008. Cognitive onomasiology and lexical change: Around the eye. In Vanhove 2008b, 107–37.Google Scholar
Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria, and Liljegren, Henrik. 2017. Semantic patterns from an areal perspective. The Cambridge handbook of areal linguistics, ed. by Hickey, Raymond, 204–36. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/9781107279872.009.Google Scholar
Krishna, P. Phani, Arulmozi, S.; and Mishra, Ramesh Kumar. 2022. Do you see and hear more? A study on Telugu perception verbs. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 51(3). 473–84. DOI: 10.1007/s10936-021-09827-7.10.1007/s10936-021-09827-7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lemoine, Nathan P. 2019. Moving beyond noninformative priors: Why and how to choose weakly informative priors in Bayesian analyses. Oikos 128(7). 912–28. DOI: 10.1111/oik.05985.10.1111/oik.05985CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levshina, Natalia. 2022. Communicative efficiency: Language structure and use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/9781108887809.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
List, Johann-Mattis. 2023. Inference of partial colexifications from multilingual word-lists. Frontiers in Psychology 14:1156540. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1156540.10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1156540CrossRefGoogle Scholar
List, Johann-Mattis, Terhalle, Anselm; and Urban, Matthias. 2013. Using network approaches to enhance the analysis of cross-linguistic polysemies. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computational Semantics (IWCS 2013)—Short papers, 347–53. Online: https://aclanthology.org/W13-0208.Google Scholar
Luo, Yongxian (ed.) 1999. A dictionary of Dehong, Southwest China. (Pacific linguistics C-145.) Canberra: Australian National University. Online: https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/bitstream/1885/146619/1/PL-C145.pdf.Google Scholar
Lynott, Dermot, and Connell, Louise. 2009. Modality exclusivity norms for 423 object properties. Behavior Research Methods 41(2). 558–64. DOI: 10.3758/BRM.41.2.558.10.3758/BRM.41.2.558CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lynott, Dermot, and Connell, Louise. 2013. Modality exclusivity norms for 400 nouns: The relationship between perceptual experience and surface word form. Behavior Research Methods 45(2). 516–26. DOI: 10.3758/s13428-012-0267-0.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lynott, Dermot, Connell, Louise, Brysbaert, Marc, Brand, James; and Carney, James. 2020. The Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms: Multidimensional measures of perceptual and action strength for 40,000 English words. Behavior Research Methods 52(3). 1271–91. DOI: 10.3758/s13428-019-01316-z.10.3758/s13428-019-01316-zCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Majid, Asifa, Roberts, Seán G., Cilissen, Ludy, Emmorey, Karen, Nicodemus, Brenda, O'Grady, Lucinda, Woll, Bencie, LeLan, Barbara; et al. 2018. Differential coding of perception in the world's languages. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115(45). 11369–76. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1720419115.10.1073/pnas.1720419115CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McElreath, Richard. 2020. Statistical rethinking: A Bayesian course with examples in R and Stan. New York: Chapman and Hall/CRC. DOI: 10.1201/9780429029608.10.1201/9780429029608CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miestamo, Matti, Bakker, Dik; and Arppe, Antti. 2016. Sampling for variety. Linguistic Typology 20(2). 233–96. DOI: 10.1515/lingty-2016-0006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miklashevsky, Alex. 2018. Perceptual experience norms for 506 Russian nouns: Modality rating, spatial localization, manipulability, imageability and other variables. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 47(3). 641–61. DOI: 10.1007/s10936-017-9548-1.10.1007/s10936-017-9548-1CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morucci, Piermatteo, Bottini, Roberto; and Crepaldi, Davide. 2019. Augmented modality exclusivity norms for concrete and abstract Italian property words. Journal of Cognition 2(1):42. DOI: 10.5334/joc.88.10.5334/joc.88CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Münch, Alla, and Dellert, Johannes. 2015. Evaluating the potential of a large-scale polysemy network as a model of plausible semantic shifts. Paper presented at the 6th Conference on Quantitative Investigations in Theoretical Linguistics (QITL-6), November 4–6, Tübingen.Google Scholar
Nelson, Douglas L., McEvoy;, Cathy L. and Schreiber, Thomas A.. 1998. The University of South Florida word association, rhyme, and word fragment norms. Online: http://w3.usf.edu/FreeAssociation/.Google Scholar
Norcliffe, Elisabeth, and Majid, Asifa. 2023. Word formation patterns in the perception domain: A typological study of cross-modal semantic associations. Oxford: University of Oxford, ms.Google Scholar
O'Meara, Carolyn, Speed, Laura J., Roque, Lila San; and Majid, Asifa. 2019. Perception metaphors: A view from diversity. Perception metaphors, ed. by Speed, Laura J., O'Meara, Carolyn, Roque, Lila San, and Majid, Asifa, 1–16. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Ong, Walter J. 1967. The presence of the word: Some prolegomena for cultural and religious history. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Palmer, Stephen E. 1999. Vision science: Photons to phenomenology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Pawley, Andrew. 2020. The depiction of sensing events in English and Kalam. Meaning, life and culture: In conversation with Anna Wierzbicka, ed. by Bromhead, Helen and Ye, Zhengdao, 381–402. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Online: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv1d5nm0d.26.Google Scholar
Pedersen, Thomas Lin. 2021. ggraph: An implementation of grammar of graphics for graphs and networks. R package version 2.0.5. Online: https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=ggraph.Google Scholar
Piantadosi, Steven T., Tily, Harry; and Gibson, Edward. 2012. The communicative function of ambiguity in language. Cognition 122(3). 280–91. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2011.10.004.10.1016/j.cognition.2011.10.004CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
R Core Team. 2022. R: A language and environment for statistical computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Online: https://www.r-project.org/.Google Scholar
Raatikainen, Oona. 2021. Colexification patterns of perception verbs in the Circum-Baltic area. Helsinki: University of Helsinki M.A. thesis. DOI: 10138/337473.Google Scholar
Ramiro, Christian, Srinivasan, Mahesh, Malt, Barbara C.; and Xu, Yang. 2018. Algorithms in the historical emergence of word senses. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 115(10). 2323–28. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1714730115.10.1073/pnas.1714730115CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Regier, Terry, Carstensen, Alexandra; and Kemp, Charles. 2016. Languages support efficient communication about the environment: Words for snow revisited. PLOS ONE 11(4):e0151138. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0151138.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Regier, Terry, Kay, Paul; and Khetarpal, Naveen. 2007. Color naming reflects optimal partitions of color space. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(4). 1436–41. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0610341104.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Regier, Terry, Khetarpal, Naveen; and Majid, Asifa. 2013. Inferring semantic maps. Linguistic Typology 17(1). 89–105. DOI: 10.1515/lity-2013-0003.10.1515/lity-2013-0003CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reilly, Jamie, Flurie, Maurice; and Peelle, Jonathan E.. 2020. The English lexicon mirrors functional brain activation for a sensory hierarchy dominated by vision and audition: Point-counterpoint. Journal of Neurolinguistics 55:100895. DOI: 10.1016/j.jneuroling.2020.100895.10.1016/j.jneuroling.2020.100895CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Riemer, Nick. 2010. Introducing semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511808883.10.1017/CBO9780511808883CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roberson, Debi, Davies, Ian; and Davidoff, Jules. 2000. Color categories are not universal: Replications and new evidence from a stone-age culture. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 129(3). 369–98. DOI: 10.1037/0096-3445.129.3.369.Google Scholar
Rzymski, Christoph, Tresoldi, Tiago, Greenhill, Simon J., Wu, Mei-Shin, Schweikhard, Nathanael E., Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria, Gast, Volker, Bodt, Timotheus A.; et al. 2020. The Database of Cross-Linguistic Colexifications, reproducible analysis of cross-linguistic polysemies. Scientific Data 7(1):13. DOI: 10.1038/s41597-019-0341-x.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
San Roque, Lila, Kendrick, Kobin H., Norcliffe, Elisabeth, Brown, Penelope, Defina, Rebecca, Dingemanse, Mark, Dirksmeyer, Tyko, Enfield, N. J.; et al. 2015. Vision verbs dominate in conversation across cultures, but the ranking of nonvisual verbs varies. Cognitive Linguistics 26(1). 31–60. DOI: 10.1515/cog-2014-0089.10.1515/cog-2014-0089CrossRefGoogle Scholar
San Roque, Lila, Kendrick, Kobin H., Norcliffe, Elisabeth; and Majid, Asifa. 2018. Universal meaning extensions of perception verbs are grounded in interaction. Cognitive Linguistics 29(3). 371–406. DOI: 10.1515/cog-2017-0034.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Saxton, Dean, Saxton, Lucille, Enos, Susie; and Cherry, R. L.. 1983. Dictionary: Tohono O'odham/Pima to English, English to Tohono O'odham/Pima. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar
Schapper, Antoinette. 2019. The ethno-linguistic relationship between smelling and kissing: A Southeast Asian case study. Oceanic Linguistics 58(1). 92–109. DOI: 10.1353/ol.2019.0004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schürmann, Martin, Caetano, Gina, Jousmäki, Veikko; and Hari, Riitta. 2004. Hands help hearing: Facilitatory audiotactile interaction at low sound-intensity levels. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 115(2). 830–32. DOI: 10.1121/1.1639909.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shepherd, Gordon M. 2011. Neurogastronomy: How the brain creates flavor and why it matters. New York: Columbia University Press.10.7312/shep15910CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Small, Dana M., and Prescott, John. 2005. Odor/taste integration and the perception of flavor. Experimental Brain Research 166(3–4). 345–57. DOI: 10.1007/s00221-005-2376-9.10.1007/s00221-005-2376-9CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Smith, Kenny. 2020. How culture and biology interact to shape language and the language faculty. Topics in Cognitive Science 12(2). 690–712. DOI: 10.1111/tops.12377.10.1111/tops.12377CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Song, Jae Jung. 2007. What or where can we do better? Some personal reflections on (the tenth anniversary of) Linguistic Typology. Linguistic Typology 11(1). 5–22. DOI: 10.1515/LINGTY.2007.002.10.1515/LINGTY.2007.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Speed, Laura J., and Majid, Asifa. 2017. Dutch modality exclusivity norms: Simulating perceptual modality in space. Behavior Research Methods 49(6). 2204–18. DOI: 10.3758/s13428-017-0852-3.10.3758/s13428-017-0852-3CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Spence, Charles, Parise, Cesare; and Chen, Yi-Chuan. 2012. The Colavita visual dominance effect. The neural bases of multisensory processes, ed. by Murray, Micah M. and Wallace, Mark T., 529–56. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press/Taylor & Francis. Online: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92851/.Google Scholar
Srinivasan, Mahesh, and Rabagliati, Hugh. 2015. How concepts and conventions structure the lexicon: Cross-linguistic evidence from polysemy. Lingua 157. 124–52. DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2014.12.004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stebbins, Tonya N., and Tayul, Julius. 2012. Mali (Baining) dictionary: Mali-Baining Amēthamon Angētha Thēvaik. (Asia-Pacific Linguistics open access monographs 001.) Canberra: Australian National University. Online: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/9273.Google Scholar
Stokes, Dustin; and Biggs, Stephen. 2014. The dominance of the visual. Perception and its modalities, ed. by Stokes, Dustin, Matthen, Mohan, and Biggs, Stephen, 350–78. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199832798.003.0015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strik Lievers, Francesca, and Winter, Bodo. 2018. Sensory language across lexical categories. Lingua 204. 45–61. DOI: 10.1016/j.lingua.2017.11.002.10.1016/j.lingua.2017.11.002CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suzuki, Yuika, Gyoba, Jiro; and Sakamoto, Shuichi. 2008. Selective effects of auditory stimuli on tactile roughness perception. Brain Research 1242. 87–94. DOI: 10.1016/j.brainres.2008.06.104.10.1016/j.brainres.2008.06.104CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sweetser, Eve. 1990. From etymology to pragmatics: Metaphorical and cultural aspects of semantic structure. (Cambridge studies in linguistics 54.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511620904.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tchantourian, Revaz, and Vamling, Karina. 2005. Basic verb frequency in Megrelian. Lund Working Papers in Linguistics 51. 199–207. Online: https://journals.lub.lu.se/LWPL/article/view/2348.Google Scholar
ten Raa, Eric. 2012. A dictionary of Sandawe: The lexicon and culture of a Khoesan people of Tanzania. ed. by Ehret, Christopher and Ehret, Patricia. (Research in Khoisan studies/Quellen zur Khoisan-Forschung 27.) Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Google Scholar
Traill, Anthony. 2018. A trilingual !Xóõ dictionary: !Xóõ-English-Setswana. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Google Scholar
Traugott, Elizabeth Closs, and Dasher, Richard B.. 2002. Regularity in semantic change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511486500.Google Scholar
Treis, Yvonne. 2010. Perception verbs and taste adjectives in Kambaata and beyond. Perception of the invisible: Religion, historical semantics and the role of perceptive verbs, ed. by Storch, Anne, 313–46. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Google Scholar
Twomey, Colin R., Roberts, Gareth, Brainard, David H.; and Plotkin, Joshua B.. 2021. What we talk about when we talk about colors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118(39):e2109237118. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2109237118.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Urban, Matthias. 2012. Analyzability and semantic associations in referring expressions: A study in comparative lexicology. Leiden: Leiden University dissertation. Online: https://hdl.handle.net/1887/19940.Google Scholar
Urban, Matthias. 2021. Red, black, and white hearts: ‘Heart’, ‘liver’, and ‘lungs’ in typological and areal perspective. Linguistic Typology 26(2). 349–74. DOI: 10.1515/lingty-2021-2081.Google Scholar
Vanhove, Martine. 2008a. Semantic associations between sensory modalities, prehension and mental perceptions. In Vanhove 2008b, 341–70.Google Scholar
Vanhove, Martine (ed.) 2008b. From polysemy to semantic change: Towards a typology of lexical semantic associations. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.10.1075/slcs.106CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vasishth, Shravan, Nicenboim, Bruno, Beckman, Mary E., Li, Fangfang; and Kong, Eun Jong. 2018. Bayesian data analysis in the phonetic sciences: A tutorial introduction. Journal of Phonetics 71. 147–61. DOI: 10.1016/j.wocn.2018.07.008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vergallito, Alessandra, Petilli, Marco Alessandro; and Marelli, Marco. 2020. Perceptual modality norms for 1,121 Italian words: A comparison with concreteness and imageability scores and an analysis of their impact in word processing tasks. Behavior Research Methods 52(4). 1599–1616. DOI: 10.3758/s13428-019-01337-8.10.3758/s13428-019-01337-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Viberg, Åke. 1984. The verbs of perception: A typological study. Explanations for language universals, ed. by Butterworth, Brian, Comrie, Bernard, and Dahl, Östen, 123–62. DOI: 10.1515/9783110868555.123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Viberg, Åke. 1993. Crosslinguistic perspectives on lexical organization and lexical progression. Progression & regression in language: Sociocultural, neuropsychological, & linguistic perspectives, ed. by Hyltenstam, Kenneth and Viberg, Åke, 340–85. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511627781.015.Google Scholar
Viberg, Åke. 2001. Verbs of perception. Language typology and language universals: An international handbook, vol. 2, ed. by Haspelmath, Martin, König, Ekkehard, Oesterreicher, Wulf, and Raible, Wolfgang, 1294–1309. Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783110194265-030.Google Scholar
Viberg, Åke. 2008. Swedish verbs of perception from a typological and contrastive perspective. Languages and cultures in contrast and comparison, ed. by González, María de los Ángeles Gómez, Mackenzie, J. Lachlan, and González Álvarez, Elsa M., 123–72. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Viberg, Åke. 2015. Sensation, perception and cognition: Swedish in a typological-contrastive perspective. Functions of Language 22(1). 96–131. DOI: 10.1075/fol.22.1.05vib.10.1075/fol.22.1.05vibCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Viberg, Åke. 2019. Phenomenon-based perception verbs in Swedish from a typological and contrastive perspective. Syntaxe et sémantique 20(1). 17–48. Online: https://www.cairn.info/revue-syntaxe-et-semantique-2019-1-page-17.htm.Google Scholar
von Houwald, Götz Dieter. 1980. Diccionario español-sumu, sumu-español. Managua: Ministerio de Educación.Google Scholar
Wälchli, Bernhard. 2016. Non-specific, specific and obscured perception verbs in Baltic languages. Baltic Linguistics 7. 53–135. DOI: 10.32798/bl.384.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wickham, Hadley, Averick, Mara, Bryan, Jennifer, Chang, Winston, McGowan, Lucy D'Agostino, François, Romain, Grolemund, Garrett, Hayes, Alex; et al. 2019. Welcome to the tidyverse. Journal of Open Source Software 4(43):1686. DOI: 10.21105/joss.01686.10.21105/joss.01686CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wierzbicka, Anna. 2010. Experience, evidence, and sense: The hidden cultural legacy of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195368000.001.0001.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195368000.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilkins, David P. 1996. Natural tendencies of semantic change and the search for cognates. The comparative method reviewed: Regularity and irregularity in language change, ed. by Durie, Mark and Ross, Malcolm, 264–304. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780195066074.003.0010.10.1093/oso/9780195066074.003.0010CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winter, Bodo. 2019. Sensory linguistics: Language, perception and metaphor. (Converging evidence in language and communication research.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI: 10.1075/celcr.20.10.1075/celcr.20.10.1075/celcr.20CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winter, Bodo, Perlman, Marcus; and Majid, Asifa. 2018. Vision dominates in perceptual language: English sensory vocabulary is optimized for usage. Cognition 179. 213–20. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2018.05.008.10.1016/j.cognition.2018.05.008CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Winter, Bodo, Perlman, Marcus, Perry, Lynn K.; and Lupyan, Gary. 2017. Which words are most iconic? Iconicity in English sensory words. Interaction Studies 18(3). 443–64. DOI: 10.1075/is.18.3.07win.Google Scholar
Xu, Yang, Duong, Khang, Malt, Barbara C., Jiang, Serena; and Srinivasan, Mahesh. 2020. Conceptual relations predict colexification across languages. Cognition 201: 104280. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104280.10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104280CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Xu, Yang, Liu, Emmy; and Regier, Terry. 2020. Numeral systems across languages support efficient communication: From approximate numerosity to recursion. Open Mind 4. 57–70. DOI: 10.1162/opmi_a_00034.10.1162/opmi_a_00034CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yang, Zhao, René, Algesheimer; and Tessone, Claudio J.. 2016. A comparative analysis of community detection algorithms on artificial networks. Scientific Reports 6(1):30750. DOI: 10.1038/srep30750.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Youn, Hyejin, Sutton, Logan, Smith, Eric, Moore, Cristopher, Wilkins, Jon F., Maddieson, Ian, Croft, William; and Bhattacharya, Tanmoy. 2016. On the universal structure of human lexical semantics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 113(7). 1766–71. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1520752113.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Zaslavsky, Noga, Kemp, Charles, Tishby, Naftali; and Regier, Terry. 2019a. Color naming reflects both perceptual structure and communicative need. Topics in Cognitive Science 11(1). 207–19. DOI: 10.1111/tops.12395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaslavsky, Noga, Kemp, Charles, Tishby, Naftali; and Regier, Terry. 2019b. Communicative need in colour naming. Cognitive Neuropsychology 37(5–6). 312–24. DOI: 10.1080/02643294.2019.1604502.Google Scholar
Zeshan, Ulrike, and Palfreyman, Nick. 2019. Sensory perception metaphors in sign languages. Perception metaphors, ed. by O'Meara, Carolyn, Roque, Lila San, Majid, Asifa, and Speed, Laura J., 275–301. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zipf, George Kingsley. 1949. Human behavior and the principle of least effort. Cambridge, MA: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Zwarts, Joost. 2010. Semantic map geometry: Two approaches. Linguistic Discovery 8(1). 377–95. DOI: 10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.357.10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.357CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Norcliffe and Majid supplementary material

Norcliffe and Majid supplementary material
Download Norcliffe and Majid supplementary material(File)
File 4.8 MB