In this chapter we continue our treatment of the semantics of the lexical field of AJI. The remaining systems, AJI II and AJI III, are analysed in 6.1 and 6.2, and the overall field is reviewed in 6.3. Finally, extended meanings of descriptive taste terms in Japanese are surveyed in 6.4.

The lexical system AJI II

AJI II contains two terms, AKUPPOI ‘harsh’ and AKU GA ARU ‘have a harshness’.

Extralingual meaning

Focal exemplars given by the informant for both terms are GOB00 ‘burdock’, NASU ‘aubergine’ andSATOIMO ‘taro’. The dictionaries surveyed in 5.4.1 all define AKU as a component of plants/vegetables, though without reference to specific examples. One dictionary (Kindaichi et al., 1989: 11) defines AKU as shokubutsu nifukumareru, egui seibun ‘the harsh (EGUI) component found in plants’; as we have seen in 5.2, EGUI and associated terms are part of the taste vocabularies of some speakers but are not used by the informant, and this area is clearly characterized by considerable variation (cf. Chapter 5, note 8). Other dictionaries refer to astringency (SHIBUMI) in plants: although the present terms and SHIBUI belong to separate systems for the informant, this suggests some extralingual similarity as (unpleasant) tongue sensations.

Intralingual meaning

The sequences *akuppoi kedo aku ga nai ‘is harsh but doesn't have a harshness’ and *aku ga am kedo akuppoku nai ‘has a harshness but isn't harsh’ are both adjudged as contradictory by the informant, indicating that the expressions are (cognitively) synonymous: the colloquial status of the suffix in AKUPPOI has been noted in 5.2, and some stylistic differentiation in terms of formality is likely.