Deconstruction of Perception Verbs: Structure and Value

Abstract

Perception verbs are the linguistic realization of human perceptual behavior. Based on the physiological stress response mechanism, this study deconstructs each English perception verb into a two-tuple which contains lexical core and lexical tentacle. The lexical core characterizes language features of perception verb and the lexical tentacle carries language information of perception verb. In this way, the process of perception verb cognition is activated by lexical core, along with lexical tentacle spreading. Language information like polysemy and collocation is described by lexical tentacle, more specifically, is described by word chains inside the lexical tentacle. The word chains record the linguistic information of perception verbs. And the numbers of word chains measure the lexical value of perception verbs. According to the lexical value, the perception verbs are ordered as see>feel>hear>smell > taste.