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Lexical categories and conceptualization of olfaction in Amis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2014

AMY PEI-JUNG LEE
AMY PEI-JUNG LEE*
Affiliation:
National Dong Hwa University
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Abstract

As one of the Austronesian languages spoken in Taiwan, Amis exhibits abundant lexical items for describing odors. This paper investigates the lexical representations of olfaction across the Amis dialects, showing that Amis possesses more than a dozen abstract odor terms, and uses the proclitic hala=/hali=/ha= plus reduplication of a noun as the source-oriented construction for manifesting olfactory perception. This study also incorporates controlled elicitation by using the booklet of ‘The Smell Identification Test™’ to elicit spontaneous descriptions for the perceived odors. The methodology provides further information to shed light on the categories of verbal responses for odors and the degree of perceptual consistency based on culturally dependent experiences.

Keywords

olfactionlexical categoryconceptualizationAmisAustronesian language
Type
Research Article
Information
Language and Cognition , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 321 - 350
Copyright
Copyright © UK Cognitive Linguistics Association 2014 

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