When "hearing" means "understanding": The case of the verb kikoyu in pre-modern Japanese

New stydy draws on a rigorous analysis of the Corpus of Historical Japanese to trace the semantic evolution of the verb kikoyu from ^{the 8th century}to ^{the 20th}century. This verb, which initially referred to unintentional hearing, came to mean, over the centuries, first approximate understanding, then general understanding, and finally a form of conviction.

In many languages, verbs related to sensory perception sometimes take on the meaning of understanding. In English, we say "I see" to express that we have understood something. What happens when it is not sight but hearing that becomes the vehicle for understanding? This is the case in pre-modern Japanese, where the verb kikoyu, equivalent to our verb "to hear", has been enriched over the centuries to also mean "to understand" or even a strong form of conviction.

"This semantic shift is not random," explains Daiki Yoshitake, a doctoral student in linguistics at the University of Liège (Belgium). "It is based on cognitive mechanisms identified by diachronic cognitive linguistics, an emerging field of research that aims to understand how human mental and cognitive mechanisms influence the evolution of languages over time." When confronted with an auditory stimulus, humans deduce an overall context, a process called cognitive simulation (cf. Langacker 2008: 535-536). It is this deduction that allows the meaning of 'understanding' to develop gradually.

Through this case, the study highlights a universal linguistic phenomenon: sensory perception can give rise to abstract concepts. Whereas French and English rely on sight to express understanding, pre-modern  Japaneserelied on hearing. A cultural choice? Not only that. It also reflects the way our brains transform our sensory experiences into more complex mental representations.

The evolution of the Kikuyu verb follows a well-known linguistic process: synecdoche*. Initially limited to an "approximate understanding" related to what is heard, the meaning of the word becomes generalised to all forms of understanding, then crystallises into a certainty or conviction. In cognitive terms, this trajectory goes through three stages: simulation, super-schematisation (generalisation) and concretisation. Thus, it is not only the word that changes: it is also the reflection of a mental process.

A breakthrough for diachronic cognitive linguistics

"This study goes further than existing observations, such as those of American linguist Eve Sweetser, who noted in 1990 that 'to perceive is to understand'," the researcher continues. Until now, little research had examined how this understanding gradually emerges in language over time." Daiki Yoshitake's work sheds light on a hitherto little-documented aspect by showing that verbs of perception do not spontaneously convey deep understanding. This understanding arises gradually from a dynamic cognitive process. By analysing a specific case through a historical corpus, the study demonstrates that diachronic cognitive linguistics can accurately model the paths taken by words.

This study of the verb kikoyu shows that a single word can tell a story spanning several centuries, revealing the hidden mechanisms of our way of thinking. By following the thread from hearing to understanding, this research sheds light not only on a facet of pre-modern Japanese , but also on the universal cognitive principles that shape language.

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*A synecdoche is a figure of speech (or linguistic mechanism) that consists of referring to something by taking a part for the whole, the whole for a part, or an associated element for the whole.