A COGNITIVE AND CORPUS DRIVEN APPROACH TO THE POLYSEMY OF "EATING" AND "DRINKING" PERCEPTION VERBS IN PERSIAN

Background and Aim: Research on perception verbs developed to become one of the main trends of cognitive semantics after the publication of Sweetser's (۱۹۹۰) From Etymology To Pragmatics and Ibarretxe-Antuñano's "Polysemy and Metaphor in Perception Verbs: A Cross-Linguistic Study", (PhD diss. ۱۹۹۹). Verbs that linguistically represent the function of our five senses in their primary senses are perception verbs, however these verbs, ie seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, eating and drinking are polysemous in all languages. In this research, we focused on the polysemy of eating and drinking verbs in Persian which are the least studied members of this group. Methods: Verbs of eating and drinking semantic fields were used as keywords to search the ۱۰۰ million words database of PLDB. Consequently, ۲۶۶ sentences containing different meanings of these verbs were found and then sentences related to each verb were grouped and senses were labeled. Labeling was performed manually with comparative and careful attention to the entries of these verbs in reliable dictionaries. Results: The present research aimed at finding all senses of eating and drinking verbs in Persian, based on a thorough search in the Persian Language Data Base, regarding ۲۶۶ sentences containing different verb forms of eating and drinking semantic field. Accordingly, the main objective of the research was to answer the following question: What are the different senses of the verbs "to taste", "to eat", "to swallow", "to drink" and "to sip" in Persian; which senses enjoy a higher frequency and how are the related semantic networks drawn? Conclusion: Finally, ۲ senses for the verb "to taste", ۳۴ senses for the verb "to eat", ۸ senses for the verb "to swallow / to devour", ۱ sense for the verb "to drink" and ۷ senses for the verb "to sip" were found. After classifying these senses, the semantic networks of polysemy for each verb were drawn. The results were compared to the existing findings on other languages. It is worth noticing that verbs of drinking are losing frequency in Persian as these verbs are substituted with verbs of eating. Moreover among the studied verbs, the higher frequency sense for each verb was the primary sense, except for the verb "to taste" whose higher frequency sense was labeled "to feel".

Keywords:

Cognitive Linguistics , cognitive semantics , Perception verb , polysemy , Corpus Driven Approach