Olfactory, gustatory and tactile perception in Beja (North-Cushitic)

International audience This chapter studies the perception words associated with the so-called "lower senses" (olfaction, gustatory and tactile perceptions) in Beja, a Cushitic language spoken mainly in Sudan, from three different perspectives. The first one concerns the organization of the related lexicon from the point of view of word categories, and their semantic aspects along a positive / negative and more intense / less intense continuum. Numerically, it shows a prevalence of the verb category over nouns and adjectives, and a more varied lexicon for smell, than for taste and touch. The second one provides a study of the syntactic constructions of perception words. It shows a prevalence of source-oriented constructions except in the tactile domain. The third one deals with the metaphorical extensions of the perception words for each sensory modality. The last section discusses the Beja findings in a broader comparative and typological perspective.