Perception verb complements in Akatek, a Mayan language

3. TYPES OF MEANING EXTENSION 27
In sum, the revised version of the lexicalization hierarchy for passive
PVs as shown in Table 2 considers the exceptions presented above.
First of all, no basic passive PV might beavailable in a language (;).
Second, in case only one PV is lexicalized, there is either a PV for
vision or for general sense perception, i.e. perceive. Third, the
order of touch, smell, and taste cannot be decided at this point.
Table 2. Revised lexicalization hierarchy for passive
perception verbs (after Viberg (1983))
Touch
; > Perceive/ Vision > Hearing > Smell
Taste
In the next section, two kinds of meaning extension of passive PVs
are discussed. The rst meaning extension is along the sense modality
hierarchy. More speci cally, PVs higher in the hierarchy can cover
meanings of PVs lower in the hierarchy but not vice versa. The second
meaning extension of passive PVs is an extension to non-perception
domains like cognition.
3. Types of meaning extension
Two types of meaning extension are described. First, the `last' PV
lexicalized along the hierarchy often covers some or all of the meanings
`below' it (section 3.1). Second, passive PVs can extend their meaning
from the domain of perception to the domain of cognition. In this case,
the tendency to acquire cognitive extensions roughly follows the sense
modality hierarchy aswell (section 3.2). In section 3.3, etymological
evidence for both types of meaning extension is provided.
3.1. Extension along the hierarchy. The sense modality hierarchy
established by Viberg (1983, 1984) re ects a hierarchical tendency
of PVs to cover meanings lower on the hierarchy. Cross-linguistically,
the lowest, i.e. the rightmost, PV lexicalized in a particular language
along the hierarchy tends to cover all or a part of the unlexicalized
meanings to its right with the exception that certain modalities
may be skipped. In other words, if a language lexicalizes passive PVs
for the senses of vision and hearing, the PV for hearing is likely
to be extended in meaning to the senses of touch, smell and taste.
This meaning extension along the sense modality hierarchy can either
be achieved via polysemy, or via serial verb constructions or compound