유형론적 관점에서 본 중국어 지각 동사 ‘聞’의 공어휘화 양상과 기제

Abstract

This paper examines the colexification of the Chinese perception verb ‘聞(WEN)’ from both diachronic and synchronic perspectives. It provides a typological explanation for this phenomenon and explores its underlying motivations and mechanisms. The colexification between auditory sense and olfactory sense follows a consistent directionality from HEAR to SMELL, which is not a random occurrence in Chinese but rather a cross-linguistically universal phenomenon. A diachronic analysis reveals that ‘聞(WEN)’, originally denoting auditory perception, underwent an initial lexical shift within the sensory modality domain from ‘auditory-experience’ to ‘olfactory-experience’. Subsequently, through further semantic expansion, it came to express ‘olfactory-activity’, ultimately establishing itself as a primary verb for olfactory perception. A synchronic survey of Chinese dialects shows that ‘聞(WEN)’ functions as a olfactory perception verb in most regions, and similar sensory modal shift can be observed in other auditory perception verbs that have extended to olfactory meanings. This study argues that the colexification between auditory and olfactory verbs occurs within the conceptual framework of HEAR(auditory experience) and SMELL(olfactory experience). Furthermore, it proposes that the emergence of olfactory meanings from auditory verbs is driven by a metaphorical mechanism based on perceptual similarity, and explains this process within the framework of Conceptual Blending Theory.