In:The Linguistics of Olfaction: Typological and Diachronic Approaches to Synchronic Diversity
Edited by Łukasz Jędrzejowski and Przemysław Staniewski
[Typological Studies in Language 131] 2021
► pp. 369–402
Smelling over time
The lexicon of olfaction from Latin to Italian
Published online: 26 April 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.131.13str
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.131.13str
Sensory anthropologists have described societies that, compared to Western ones, attribute to the sense of smell a more prominent
cultural role, and linguists are bringing evidence that a higher sociocultural status of smell tends to be reflected in language by a
richer and more elaborated olfactory lexicon. Given that the relative prominence of one sense within the sensorium has been shown to vary
not only across societies, but also over time, such variation may be expected to have linguistic reflections. This study explores whether
and how the olfactory lexicon has changed from Latin to Italian. Is the alleged increased “deodorization” of contemporary Western
societies associated with changes in the lexicon? The data show that, contrary to expectations, the overall size of the olfactory lexicon
did not undergo appreciable changes. However, it progressively became more oriented toward the negative pole of evaluation (i.e., the
expression of unpleasant smells). Implications and possible explanations are discussed in the light of the linguistic and
sensory-historical literature.
Keywords: olfactory lexicon, Latin, Italian, diachrony
Article outline
- 1.Introduction: Olfaction in culture and language
- 2.The lexicon of olfaction: Properties and organization
- 3.Latin
- 3.1Verbs
- 3.2Nouns
- 3.3Adjectives
- 4.Old Italian
- 4.1Verbs
- 4.2Nouns
- 4.3Adjectives
- 5.Contemporary Italian
- 5.1Verbs
- 5.2Nouns
- 5.3Adjectives
- 6.Discussion and conclusions
- 6.1The overall size of the olfactory lexicon did not change
- 6.2There has been a shift toward the negative pole of evaluation
Acknowledgments Abbreviations Notes Primary sources (corpora and dictionaries) References
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