Wnuk, Ewelina, Laophairoj, Rujiwan and Majid, Asifa orcid.org/0000-0003-0132-216X (2020) Smell terms are not rara:A semantic investigation of odor vocabulary in Thai. Linguistics. ISSN 0024-3949
Abstract
Large lexica of basic smell terms are considered to be restricted to a handful of small languages of non-industrialized societies. Accordingly, they are thought to belong to the sphere of rara within lexical typology (Plank 2001. Das grammatische Raritätenkabinett. Konstanz: University of Konstanz. https://typo.uni-konstanz.de/rara/intro/index.php (accessed 3 October 2017)). However, smell lexica might in fact be more common than previously suggested. In this article, we discuss the case of Thai- A language with a population of tens of millions of speakers-which defies this assumption. We show Thai has a sizeable lexicon of terms for olfactory qualities, and investigate their semantics using a multi-method approach. In particular, we demonstrate a novel use of exemplar listing where-in addition to giving insights into the terms' extensions-exemplar data is used to reveal the structure of the lexicon. Additionally, we use corpus data to provide complementary information on meaning and usage, thereby showing the advantage of multi-method approaches. Overall, the findings suggest smell lexica are not rara, and their distribution in the world's languages goes beyond the stereotypical cases of languages spoken by small-scale societies.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details |
Keywords: | exemplar listing,linguistic rarum,semantics,smell term,Thai |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Psychology (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 24 Mar 2020 14:10 |
Last Modified: | 17 Mar 2025 00:08 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2020-0009 |
Status: | Published online |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1515/ling-2020-0009 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:158698 |
Download
Description: [1613396X - Linguistics] Smell terms are not rara_ A semantic investigation of odor vocabulary in Thai