A study on how "odors"are descibed in Persian written texts

The present paper studies how odors are described in selected data from Persian written texts. For this purpose, instances of the use of the word "odor" and its dependents were extracted from two written corpus (including news and fiction texts, with about nine million words) and were classified and described based on structural and semantic features. Examination of the data shows that odors in Persian are described more with Ezafet constructions than descriptive constructions (82% vs. 18%). Regarding the method of describing odors, it was also found that Persian speakers prefer to describe odors with reference to their origin rather than using adjectives. In addition, it was found that in Ezafet constructions where odor is described with an noun, odor finds metaphorical usage and is used figuratively to mean "effect and sign". Regarding the adjectives used to describe odors, it was found that on the one hand there are limited adjectives to describe odors and on the other hand these adjectives can be semantically divided into three categories: pleasant adjectives, unpleasant adjectives and adjectives that emphasize odor specificity. In addition, the comparison of the two data sets showed that in the data extracted from news texts, the ratio of metaphorical use of smell was higher and in the data extracted from fictional texts, the ratio of describing smell by referring to its origin was higher, this difference can be explained by the nature of the texts being analyzed.