Abstract
This paper is a corpus-based study of the evidential realisations of object-oriented perception verbs in English and Spanish written and oral media discourse. The main aim of the study is to analyse and compare the different uses and complementation patterns taken by the English words look and sound and their Spanish counterparts se ve and suena. The procedure followed involves a contrastive analysis methodology: (i) description of data, (ii) juxtaposition and (iii) contrast. The data has been taken from oral and written media discourse corpora in English and Spanish. The study has revealed interesting similarities and differences in the uses and complementation patterns adopted by object-oriented perception verbs in both written and oral English and Spanish, thus making a contribution to a debate in which Spanish has been obviated to date.
Highlights
See and hear occupy a leading position in the perception verb hierarchy and they enjoy a great prominence in terms of their frequency of use and in their ability to express polysemous meanings (Viberg 1983, 1984, 2001; Sweetser 1990; Schröder 1995; Harm 2000; Whitt 2010, 2011)
The study has revealed interesting similarities and differences in the uses and complementation patterns adopted by object-oriented perception verbs in both written and oral English and Spanish, making a contribution to a debate in which Spanish has been obviated to date
In the last two decades, Sweetser (1990) and Harm (2000) have pointed out that even if the root meaning of perception verbs is physical in nature shades of non-physical internal perception are often present as well,2 which supports the evidential uses of perception verbs
Summary
See and hear occupy a leading position in the perception verb hierarchy and they enjoy a great prominence in terms of their frequency of use and in their ability to express polysemous meanings (Viberg 1983, 1984, 2001; Sweetser 1990; Schröder 1995; Harm 2000; Whitt 2010, 2011). Ibarretxe-Antunano (2002) provides extensive detailed information on the etymological origin of these verbs. These studies fail to investigate the reasons why the meanings of perception verbs evolved as they did. In the last two decades, Sweetser (1990) and Harm (2000) have pointed out that even if the root meaning of perception verbs is physical in nature shades of non-physical internal perception are often present as well, which supports the evidential uses of perception verbs
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