How to Point with Language: English Source-Based Language to Describe Taste Qualities

Western languages notoriously lack specific, abstract vocabulary to describe sensory perception. Despite the paucity of specific lexical items, descriptions of sensory characteristics of food abound in English. One of the most common strategies is source-based language (e.g., creamy), which allows speakers to evaluate and communicate a current sensory experience with respect to a prototypical source of the sensation. The aim of this paper is to review the different morphosyntactic patterns used to convey source-based information to describe flavour, and to provide a taxonomy of the constructions involved. The three types of source-based language discussed are organised along a cline from more analytical (i.e., X tastes like Y), to more synthetic (i.e., adjectival suffixes), with a medial stage in which the source of the sensation is morphologically free, but syntactically embedded in constructions following the pattern N1 of N2 (e.g., a splash of chilli). Previous literature has accounted for this phenomenon either as motivated by conceptual metonymy, or as a case of “pointing structures”. I argue that the two different theoretical accounts need not be in stark opposition, rather they both contribute to our understanding of the figurative usage of concrete items in language. Data were retrieved online from a collection of gin Tasting Notes, created by expert tasters to evaluate the flavour profile of the liquor.