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Article published In: Studies in Language
Vol. 47:3 (2023) ► pp.599–642

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The linguistics of odour in Semaq Beri and Semelai, two Austroasiatic languages of the Malay Peninsula

ORCiD logo with link | Lund University
ORCiD logo with link | University of Oxford
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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

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

This article was made Open Access under a CC BY 4.0 license through payment of an APC by or on behalf of the authors.

Published online: 28 November 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.22004.kru
Abstract
There is a long history presuming smell is not expressible in language, but numerous studies in recent years challenge this presupposition. Large smell lexica have been reported around the world thereby showing high lexical codability in this domain. Psycholinguistic studies likewise find smell can be described with relatively high agreement, demonstrating high efficient codability. Often the two go hand-in-hand: languages with high lexical codability also display high efficient codability. This study compares two Austroasiatic (Aslian) languages – Semaq Beri and Semelai – previously shown to diverge in their efficient codability for smell: Semaq Beri showed relatively high efficient codability, whereas Semelai did not. Despite this, we demonstrate that both languages have high lexical codability, i.e., large lexica of basic smell terms. This seems to be a feature of the Aslian language family, suggesting a long-standing preoccupation with odours. More generally, the dissociation between lexical and efficient codability suggests a more nuanced approach towards linguistic expressibility is necessary.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Preliminaries to sensory perception in Semaq Beri and Semelai
    • 2.1Verbs of perception
      • 2.1.1Perception verbs in Semaq Beri
      • 2.1.2Perception verbs in Semelai
      • 2.1.3Summary
  • 3.Odour quality terms
    • 3.1Formal characteristics of odour quality terms
      • 3.1.1Semaq Beri odour quality terms
      • 3.1.2Semelai odour quality terms
  • 4.The semantics of odour quality terms
  • 5.Usage
  • 6.Discussion
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • Appendices
    • Appendix A.Semaq Beri odour terms with their corresponding exemplars
    • Appendix B.Semelai odour terms with their corresponding exemplars
  • References
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