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The Linguistics of Olfaction: Typological and Diachronic Approaches to Synchronic Diversity
Edited by Łukasz Jędrzejowski and Przemysław Staniewski
[Typological Studies in Language 131] 2021
► pp. 35–72

Why is smell special?

A case study of a European language: Swedish

| Uppsala University

Recent typological studies have described a number of languages with a rich inventory of abstract odor terms, which stand in stark contrast to Swedish and other European languages that are considered to have poor systems of such terms. However, there have been few thorough descriptions of the odor terms of any European language. This chapter presents a detailed corpus-based description of the noun lukt ‘smell’ and the verbs lukta ‘to smell’, stinka ‘to stink’, dofta ‘to smell good’ and osa ‘to smell of burnt fat’. In addition to the description of the lexico-grammatical structure, there is a detailed discussion of the way odor is talked about in Swedish based on word sketches. Unlike colors, which are treated as objective properties of physical objects, odors are often talked about as sensations that evoke affective reactions in humans. Odors are also often talked about as characteristic features of whole situations. The chapter ends with a discussion of what it is that makes smell special with respect to the other senses.

Keywords: lexical semantics, lexical typology, perception verbs, olfaction, Swedish
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Verbs of perception
    • 1.2Phenomenon-based sensory words
  • 2.The neurophysiology and psychology of smell
  • 3.Olfaction and language: State of the art
  • 4.The semantic field of smell in Swedish
    • 4.1The basic structure
    • 4.2Conceptualization of smell as a moving entity
    • 4.3Towards a formalized model
  • 5.Quantitative overview
  • 6.Metaphorical and other extended uses
  • 7.Talking about odors in Swedish
    • 7.1What odors are talked about
    • 7.2What situations are commented on by using an odor verb?
    • 7.3The noun lukt ‘odor’
  • 8.Why then is smell special?
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • Electronic sources
  • References
Published online: 26 April 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tsl.131.02vib
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