Aymara/cog.scie article

jess tauber phonosemantics at earthlink.net
Wed Jul 5 20:28:08 UTC 2006


Actually, for most mammals I'd have to say that the sense of smell trumps vision for at least identificational purposes, though vision may be able to tell you of immediate if relatively undifferentiated threats (shadows, increasing aspects, etc.) or opportunities (prey status) in time and space. Maybe the various senses divvy up the WH/TH- panoply in various ways. Some are more intimate than others, more reliable than others, or provide more information than others. 

Sonar developments from hearing (in bats, whales, even shrews) reflect increased informational analysis, picking up the slack from poor seeing, allowing the possessor to dynamically process shifting scenes, determine locations and trajectories, identify objects by size, density, surface sound reflectivity, etc. In other species smell, combined with lateral motion, lets creatures spatially zero in on odorant sources- bigger sensor palettes allow for more simultaneous analysis of combinations for source identification (including its hormonal or health status). And while primate-style stereo vision is a great adaptation (letting one calculate range), many side-eyed animals do an approximation of it by bobbing their heads this way or that to get effective parallax. While we're at it lets not forget pit-viper infrared/heat sensing.

I'm not sure that in creatures with such elaborations of other basic sensoria one can say definitively that vision is the topmost sense- or are we creating perhaps the species-ist equivalent of 'standard-average-quadruped' or prototype 'animal'? Side note- for many years birds were considered to have reduced or vestigial senses of smell- a couple of researchers actually challenged dogma a couple of years ago and found out they have excellent senses of smell. Sometimes it pays to actually look.

So maybe its better to say that for primates vision is usually the primary sense, rather than for mammals generally. Birds too, generally (but vultures??).

But given differences in intimacy with various senses (far external, surface, and internal) shouldn't we expect that increasing intimacy should associate with evidentiality? To say one knows because one saw or heard, versus being involved in oneself? Perhaps this can be lined up alongside the posture verb> aspect grammaticalization pathway?

In Yahgan -mvni 'stand', -mu:tu: 'sit', -(w)i:a 'lie' involve increasing surface area contact and increasing temporal involvement in activity. Beyond -mvni is -a:gulu: 'jump, fly', with detachment from surface, discontinuation of referenced activity- and perhaps bird's eye view to survey all possibilities without actual commitment to any particular one? -mvni 'stand' gives a better visual vantage than either -mu:tu: 'sit' or -(w)i:a 'lie'.

As surface contact increases for the posturer, so does intimacy, so one would expect greater reliance on touch, taste, smell, etc.  One would hope for greater familiarity with the increased contact and intimacy- so perhaps what 'seeing' does for you isn't so much greater surety of information content absolutely, but more for new or unexpected information, matters arising?

And while I can't say that there is any real etymological evidence for the following, it is somewhat interesting from the above perspective: in Yahgan -mvni 'stand' is formally similar to -min-, the visual evidential, and -mu:tu: (reduced form -muhr) bears resemblance to -mush-, the hearsay evidential (reduced from mvra 'hear'). Less resemblant perhaps is the pair -(w)i:a 'lie' and i:lina 'touch, sense'- though the latter isn't used so far as I know as a tactile evidential, if such a thing exists.  Similarly -a:gulu: 'fly' and alagvn- 'wait and see/watch, but not interfere'? And hvshama 'smell something' versus hamasha 'not see clearly'? Pattern pressure?

It would be very interesting to know whether such pattern parallelisms, however murky themselves, exist in other languages.

Jess Tauber
phonosemantics at earthlink.net



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