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

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3988551
AutoresTuomas Huumo (0000-0002-6589-0732, University of Tartu, autor de correspondencia)
Año2010
Volumen48
Número1
Fecha de publicación2010-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaLinguistics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0024-3949 • E-ISSN: 1613-396X
EditorialWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/ling.2010.002
OpenAlexW1981573681
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas15
Referencias citadas2

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 ⇒ stimulus to a greater extent than non-agentive or intransitive perception verbs. The opposite directionality (stimulus ⇒ 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 ⇒ 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

Cognitive psychology · Linguistics · Locative case · Perception · Sensory system · Stimulus (psychology) · Categorization, perception, and language · Communication · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Multisensory perception and integration · Neuroscience · Psychology