rarum 97: verbs of cognition (especially ‘to think, know, remember’ – more precisely, non-communicative cognition, as opposed to cognition based on communication, such as ‘to understand’) polysemous or heterosemous with, and historically deriving from, verbs of hearing rather than of seeing
Where found
widespread among Australian lgs [an infrequentale? – No: Kaurna and Arrernte have ‘see’ > ‘know, think’]; Hausa (Chadic, Afroasiatic) (?); Ommura (“Papuan”) (?); Suya (Ge, Ge-Pano-Carib) (?)
Domain
semantics
Subdomain
polysemy
Keywords
verbs of cognition and perception
Type
rarum
Universals violated
not yet in UA
Source
Sweetser, Eve (1990). From Etymology to Pragmatics: Metaphorical and Cultural Aspects of Semantic Structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Evans, Nicholas & David Wilkins (2000). In the mind’s ear: The semantic extensions of perception verbs in Australian languages. Language 76: 546-592.
