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Perception Metaphors
Edited by Laura J. Speed, Carolyn O'Meara, Lila San Roque and Asifa Majid
[Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research 19] 2019
► pp. 231–252

Chapter 12
Polysemy of the Estonian perception verb nägema ‘to see’

This paper focuses on the polysemy of the Estonian perception verb nägema ‘to see’. The aim of the paper is to analyse polysemy using two different methods; and to show how and why the results of the two methods differ. The methods used are a sorting task and a behavioural profile analysis. Hierarchical cluster analysis is used to show which senses of nägema are more similar to each other based on each method, and why. The results show that the main differences stem from the fact that important elements of meaning for the language user are not necessarily objectively annotatable in the corpus. It is argued, however, that both experimental as well as corpus-based methods are valuable tools for polysemy research.
Keywords: Estonian, perception verbs, polysemy, sorting task, behavioural profile
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Sorting task
    • 2.1Method and participants
    • 2.2Results of the sorting task
      • 2.2.1nägema as a physical activity
      • 2.2.2nägema as meeting someone
      • 2.2.3nägema as understanding and nägema as having a presentiment
      • 2.2.4nägema as experiencing
  • 3.Behavioural profile analysis
    • 3.1Overview of the methods and material
    • 3.2Results of the BP analysis
      • 3.2.1Senses preferring a bounded entity as their object
      • 3.2.2Senses preferring an un-bounded entity as their object
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1Comparison of the results
    • 4.2Comparison of the methods
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • Corpus
  • References
Published online: 21 February 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/celcr.19.12pro
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