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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]
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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

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

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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.

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