表示「用鼻子聞」義的詞屬於人類語言的基本詞。本文討論漢語「聞」義詞在現代方言中的分布和歷史上的演變，並嘗試對兩者的關係作出解釋。現代方言中的「聞」義詞有聞、嗅1-a、嗅1-b、嗅 2-a、嗅2-b、鼻、噴、聽、嗍、□tʰ-陰上（有音無字）等，主流演變是：｛嗅2許救切→嗅1香仲切→聞→聽兼指「聽」｝。歷史上的主流演變是｛嗅→聞｝，其間「聞」的詞義從昀 初兼表「聽到聲音」和「聞到氣味」專化為只表「聞到氣味」，然後又轉化為表示「嗅」。「聞」大約在東晉產生「嗅」義，到元代的北方口語裡大致已經完成對「嗅」的替換。「聞」取代「嗅」的起因可能是避諱。

Words that encode the notion “to smell with (one’s) nose” are cross-linguistically basic words. This paper gives a comprehensive description of this category of words in Chinese, with respect to both synchronic distribution in modern dialects and diachronic evolution in history, and explan ations of their synchronic-diachronic correlation. So far as synchronic distribution is concerned, words meaning “to smell” attested in Modern Chinese dialects are as follows: “聞” (wen2), “嗅” (xiu4)1-a, “嗅” (xiu4)1-b, “嗅” (xiu4)2-a, “嗅” (xiu4)2-b, “鼻” (bi2), “噴” (pen1), “聽” (ting1), “嗍” (suo1), and □tʰ-陰上（有音無字）(yinshang tone). Diachronic pattern of their evolution can be reconstructed as follows: {“嗅” (xiu4)2許救切 (xu-jiu qie)→ “嗅” (xiu4)1香仲切 (xiang-zhong qie)→“聞” (wen2)→“聽” (ting1) 兼指 “聽” (also means “to listern”)}. The dominant lexical replacement during this diachronic evolution is {“嗅” (xiu4)→“聞” (wen2)}, where the denotation of “聞” (wen2) underwent a process of specialization, i.e. it originally denoted both “to hear” and “to smell (with a result meaning)”, but then exclusively referred to the latter one, and afterwards “to smell (without a result meaning)” which was earlier expressed by “嗅” (xiu4). “聞” (wen2) started meaning “to smell (without a result meaning) ” around East Jin period (4th century AD), and replaced “嗅” (xiu4) as a dominant word in northern dialects of Yuan dynasty (13th century AD), which is probably motivated by taboo to some extent.