賽夏語感官動詞的語意初探

A Preliminary Semantic Study of Perception Verbs in Saisiyat

本文延續Viberg (1984)、Sweetser (1990)和Evans & Wilkins (2000)的研究，探討賽夏語感官動詞的詞彙化與語意。研究發現，在三種事件類型中，評價動詞和動作動詞存在構詞形式上的衍生關係，經驗動詞則是合成詞。範疇內的語意延伸僅在miS-/’iS-‘（聞起來）有~味’與動詞「吃」搭配時體現。感官範疇之外的跨域延伸，視覺與聽覺動詞較豐富，一致呈現動作類到社會互動、經驗類到認知、評價類到情態的延伸。觸覺與嗅覺的多義現象相對受限。觸覺透過換喻以動作的開端，即「摸」，來表達「握；拿」；前綴taSi-形成的taSilotor‘延續;傳承’，反映以文化傳承中的關鍵動作代表傳承的換喻延伸。「品嚐」與「嘗試」由同一詞彙項編碼，而其評價動詞又由動詞「吃」構成，挑戰了賽夏語味覺感官模式的基礎性。

Following Viberg (1984), Sweetser (1990), and Evans & Wilkins (2000), this paper investigates the lexicalization and semantics of perception verbs in Saisiyat. It is found that among the three event types (evaluative events, action events, and experience events), evaluative and action events share morphological derivational relations while experience verbs are composite words. Intra-field semantic extension is observed only when the verb‘to have the smell of’, miS-/’iS-, is collocated with the verb‘to eat’. Sight and hearing verbs show rich inter-field semantic extension. The extended domains are determined by their event types: action verbs are extended to social interaction, experience to cognition, and evaluation to modality. Touch, smell, and taste verbs show restricted semantic extension. The evaluative‘smell’verb is extended to mean‘smelly’. Through metonymy, the tactile domain uses the inception of an action (‘to touch’) to express‘to hold’or‘to take’. Furthermore, the prefix taSi-‘to touch’forms the word taSilotor‘to continue; to inherit’, reflecting a metonymic extension where a key action associated with cultural inheritance comes to represent the concept of inheritance itself. The fact that‘to try the taste’and‘to try’are coded by the same lexical item while the evaluation verb is formed by the verb‘to eat’challenges the basicness of the gustatory perception model in Saisiyat.