Metaphorical development of the verbs of olfactory perception in the Slavic languages (on the basis of lexicographical and corpuscular sources)

The paper examines the key verb of the odour sphere ( nuhat’ - to sniff ) reflecting the olfactory mode of perception and its derivatives in the Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Polish, Bulgarian) as regards their participation in the metaphor formation processes. Comparative analysis of the vocabulary of related languages allows presenting similarities and differences in their lexico-semantic development reflecting the mechanisms of cognition of reality. The most regular is the transfer of names from the sphere of perception into the sphere of mental processes ( sniff > ’learn’ ). This metaphorical model extends to the perceptual verbal lexicon in general. However, the verbs of the olfactory perception and the pre-instinctual derivatives were included in this process later according to the dictionaries` data. In addition, it is possible to observe the transfer of names to the sphere of interpersonal relations, the properties and qualities of a person, assessments of approaching events, etc. Also, we can identify some of the following features: 1) the metaphorical system formed by the derivatives of the verb to sniff and its analogues, has intersections and divergences in related languages; 2) the semantic proximity of the metaphorical meanings of verbs in different languages allows synonymic substitutions in the translation process; 3) the semantic structure is not uniformly preserved in different languages; 4) in all languages, the verbs of olfactory perception and their derivatives are more productive in the development of metaphorical semantics than the verbs of odour production ( to smell - ‘pahnut’ ).

Keywords

Authors

References