Synaesthetic Adjectives: A Possible Law of Semantic Change

Williams, Joseph M.

doi:10.2307/412571

Cited by 280 publications

(188 citation statements)

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“…tactile;`sharp' or`£at'), perhaps as a way of economizing on computational burden (Lako¡ 1987). In addition, it has been shown (Ullman 1945;Williams 1976) that sensory adjectives undergo systematic shifts from one sensory domain to another (e.g. loud colours or bitter cold).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychophysical investigations into the neural basis of synaesthesia

Ramachandran

Hubbard

2001

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

345

311

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We studied two otherwise normal, synaesthetic subjects who`saw' a speci¢c colour every time they saw a speci¢c number or letter. We conducted four experiments in order to show that this was a genuine perceptual experience rather than merely a memory association. (i) The synaesthetically induced colours could lead to perceptual grouping, even though the inducing numerals or letters did not.(ii) Synaesthetically induced colours were not experienced if the graphemes were presented peripherally. (iii) Roman numerals were ine¡ective: the actual number grapheme was required. (iv) If two graphemes were alternated the induced colours were also seen in alternation. However, colours were no longer experienced if the graphemes were alternated at more than 4 Hz. We propose that grapheme colour synaesthesia arises from`cross-wiring' between the`colour centre' (area V4 or V8) and the`number area', both of which lie in the fusiform gyrus. We also suggest a similar explanation for the representation of metaphors in the brain: hence, the higher incidence of synaesthesia among artists and poets.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychophysical investigations into the neural basis of synaesthesia

Ramachandran

Hubbard

2001

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

345

311

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“…from TOUCH > TASTE > SMELL to SOUND and VISION. His proposal has been recognized and developed in different areas of research by a number of scholars including historical linguists, e.g. Williams (1976), Lehrer (1978), Viberg (1984), Sweetser (1990), Shen (1997), Popova (2003Popova ( , 2005, Plümacher and Holz (2007), Shen & Gadir (2009). On the basis of Ullman's proposed hierarchy and directional principle, Shen (1997) and Shen & Gadir (2009) formulate a Conceptual Preference Principle according to which the preferred direction of mappings in what they refer to as synesthetic metaphorization is from the lower modalities of touch and taste, which require direct contact with the perceiver, to the higher modalities of vision and sound, which do not require direct contact with the perceiver (see Traugott and Dasher 2005: 72 Figure 2.4).…”

Section: The Landscape Of Sensory Perceptions In the Reviewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the same way as property words are used cross-modally, words denoting objects such as 3 Also, some other spatial meanings such as also span across modalities and thus share these characteristics with the ones used for sensory perceptions in descriptions of them, which we also saw in our data. 4 From a historical developmental point of view (Williams 1976), it has been argued that some uses appeared earlier that some other uses and in that respect the latter may be considered extended, but that does not mean that they are different senses. Diachronic shifts do not necessarily involve the development of new meaning.…”

Section: The Landscape Of Sensory Perceptions In the Reviewsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Describing Sensory Experience: The Genre of Wine Reviews

Paradis

Eeg-Olofsson

2013

Metaphor and Symbol

104

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The purpose of the article is to shed light on how experiences of sensory perceptions in the domains of VISION, SMELL, TASTE and TOUCH are recast into text and discourse in the genre of wine reviews.Because of the alleged paucity of sensory vocabularies, in particular in the olfactory domain, it is of particular interest to investigate what resources language has to offer in order to describe those experiences. We show that the main resources are, on the one hand, words evoking properties that are applicable cross-modally and properties of objects that range over more than one domain, and on the other, vivid imagery that compares the characteristics of the wine with people, building, animals and the hustle and bustle of market places and other events. The second goal is to account for the construals of the meanings of the expressions used in the recontextualization into written discourse in the light of their apparent flexibility across the descriptions of the sensory experiences. In contrast to a large body of the literature on sensory meanings in language, we argue that the descriptors of properties such as sharp, soft, lemon and cherry used to describe a wine's qualities across the sensory domains are not polysemous synesthetic metaphors, but monosemous synesthetic metonymizations, more precisely zone activations. With regard to the imagery used, the construals represented cover both similes, metaphorizations and metonymizations proper.

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“…14 These 'metaphors' follow relatively regular paths of development both in individuals' acquisition of language and in the growth of languages. At the phylogenetic level, there is 'transfer' and even apparent directions to the paths of transfer from one sensory domain to another; see Williams (1976). Ontogenetically, however, the child acquires the one independently of the other.…”

Section: Notesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Life and Death of a Metaphor, or the Metaphysics of Metaphor

Stern¹

2007

Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communica

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This paper addresses two issues: (1) what it is for a metaphor to be either alive or dead and (2) what a metaphor must be in order to be either alive or dead. Both issues, in turn, bear on the contemporary debate whether metaphor is a pragmatic or semantic phenomenon and on the dispute between Contextualists and Literalists. In the first part of the paper, I survey examples of what I take to be live metaphors and dead metaphors in order to establish that there is a phenomenon here to be explained. I then propose an explanation of metaphorical vitality (and by implication of metaphorical death) in terms of the dependence of the interpretation of a metaphor on a family or network of expressions specific to its context of utterance. I then argue that only a Literalist account of metaphor -one that posits metaphorical expressions (a la Stern (2000))-and not Contextualist and Gricean approaches can accommodate this explanation. Finally, I discuss some objections to my Literalist account and sketch an explanation of types to counter Platonistic objections to my metaphorical expression types.Metaphors have lives. They are born on the occasion of their first utterance or inscription. Their progenitors are their literal vehicles and the speakers who use them. 1 Some have lives no longer than it takes to utter them, others are stillborn, and many, like the mass of humanity, live undistinguished lives that are soon forgotten. Some, however, The Life and Death of a Metaphor 2 have meaningful lives-they are shared and repeated, they change how others act and think, and they change: juvenile tokens mature into seasoned figures; their interpretations have a history. Some have careersin law, science, literature, and even philosophy. And some are so full of life they never seem to die. No matter how many times they are used, they retain their metaphorical soul. The most alive gain immortal entry into the Library of Living Metaphors, everlastingly responsive to tireless (and sometimes tiresome) interpreters. Others become dated, ossify, stultify. They go into retirement. And, finally, some die natural deaths. Their metaphorical contents pass into the stock of meanings assigned to the very words used metaphorically, rendering them polysemous though literal. The once metaphorical meaning may supplement the meanings already in place, or it may replace the original (literal) meaning of the word, making the once metaphorical meaning by default its only active, working meaning. Among the latter, some are called 'dead' metaphors, though it is really the literal that is dead. It would be better to call this state the literal afterlife of the metaphor, and there are those who regard it as the great success story for a metaphor. For others, like Richard Rorty, you couldn't wish a worse fate on something than a literal afterdeath. 2 All this talk of the life and death of a metaphor is not just metaphorical. Metaphors, like other things that live and die, are beings, in some ways natural, in other ways artifactual, but either way...

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Synaesthetic Adjectives: A Possible Law of Semantic Change

Cited by 280 publications

References 12 publications

Psychophysical investigations into the neural basis of synaesthesia

Psychophysical investigations into the neural basis of synaesthesia

Describing Sensory Experience: The Genre of Wine Reviews

The Life and Death of a Metaphor, or the Metaphysics of Metaphor

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