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Article published In: Linguistics in the Netherlands 2017
Edited by Sander Lestrade and Bert Le Bruyn
[Linguistics in the Netherlands 34] 2017
► pp. 111–126

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Proeven as an acquired taste

Semantic change among Dutch gustatory verbs

 | University of Oxford
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 23 November 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/avt.34.08poo
Abstract
This paper demonstrates the diachronic development of the Dutch gustatory verbs proeven and smaken and the semantic encroachment of the former on the meanings covered by the latter, and explains the current use of proeven in constructions in which smaken is expected (i.e. De soep proeft lekker ‘the soup tastes good’). This spread of the use of proeven (and the consequential increasingly limited use of smaken) can be explained by metaphorization and is analyzed as the result of lexical paradigm levelling.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Perception verbs
  • 3.The synchronic usage of proeven and smaken
  • 4.The diachronic development of proeven and smaken
    • 4.1Development of proeven
    • 4.2Development of smaken
  • 5.Analysis
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (17)
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Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Johnson, Tamara Marie & Simone Eveline Pfenninger
2025. How Synonymic Taste Words Alter Perceived Taste in American Consumers. Languages 10:6 ► pp. 132 ff. DOI logo
Poortvliet, Marjolein
2021. Early Alternatives to Dutch Descriptive Perception Verb Constructions: A Comparison of Two Bible Translations1. Transactions of the Philological Society 119:2 ► pp. 258 ff. DOI logo

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