四個台灣南島語的重疊與氣味

Reduplication and Odor in Four Formosan Languages

本論文為構詞及語意介面的研究，探討四個台灣南島語，即噶瑪蘭語、太魯閣賽德克語、排灣語及邵語的嗅覺詞彙及其對氣味的表達方法。本研究發現這些語言除了透過少數的嗅覺詞彙來表達氣味之外，重疊則是最常用的方法。這些語言均使用類似的前綴並結合不同的重疊形式來表達該語意：噶瑪蘭語為su-，太魯閣賽德克語為s«-，排灣語為sa-，邵語為tu-。本論文並針對兩點進行討論：第一，各語言所選擇的重疊形式；第二，相關詞彙與重疊結構的選擇限制。本論文認為重疊之所以為表達氣味的常用方法，乃是由於重疊所表達的典型語意為複數及時態的概念。一種氣味的發生時常是持續性的，並且感受者在心理上常會形成多數性的認知。過去心理學對氣味感知及辨識的相關實驗研究中，均顯示受試者描述氣味感知的語言能力很貧乏。因此，本論文探討上述語言對氣味描述的相似性及差異性，並從這樣的比較中得到語意上的啟示。

This paper is a morpho-semantic study of olfactory terms and linguistic expressions for describing odor in four Formosan languages, including Kavalan, Truku Seediq, Paiwan, and Thao, based on the author’s firsthand data. It shows that apart from very limited olfactory terms, reduplication is the most common means for manifesting the meaning of ‘(having) a smell / an odor of X’ in these languages. The formation usually involves a prefix which is found similar in these languages, in Kavalan as su-, Truku Seediq as sə-, Paiwan as sa-, and Thao as tu-. Two parameters are taken into consideration: first, the selective restriction on the relevant lexical items for the reduplicative construction, and secondly, the reduplicative patterns in each language. It is proposed that the reason why odor is manifested by reduplication is due to its association with both iterative aspects and plurality. Having a smell is a continuing process, and it is mentally perceptible so that there should be enough entities in order to produce a persistent smell. Inspired by experimental studies in psychology on odor recognition and identification, which suggest a poverty of linguistic representation for odor perception, this paper discusses similarities and differences regarding how each language indicates such a meaning, as well as the semantic implications drawn from the comparison.