Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures Online

This feature is about the identity or differentiation of the words expressing the meanings ‘to hear’ and ‘to smell’, the latter used transitively. There are four values:

Differentiation: We speak of differentiation if one word denotes ‘to hear’ and another word denotes ‘to smell’. Note that this value also covers cases of (accidental) phonological overlap, as illustrated by Pidgin Hindustani suno ‘to hear’ vs. suŋo ‘to smell’, because they constitute separate words even though they are partially identical.

Identity: There is identity if a single word is used to express ‘to hear’ or ‘to smell’ and no word exists that denotes only ‘to hear’ or only ‘to smell’.

Overlap: This refers to cases where there are two different (possibly related) words, but one of them denotes ‘to hear’ and ‘to smell’, and the other one denotes only ‘to hear’ or only ‘to smell’.

Identity and differentiation: This constellation is a combination of the first two values: There are at least three (possibly related) words; one denotes only ‘to hear’, one denotes only ‘to smell’ (differentiation), and the third denotes ‘to hear’ or ‘to smell’ (identity).