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Date: 2015-10-07; view: 381.

A schematic metonymy is a mapping, within the same overall functional cognitive domain, of a cognitive (sub)domain, called the source, onto another cognitive (sub)domain, called the target, so that the latter is mentally activated.

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- There are a very large number of grammatical processes and phenomena whose form and / or whose meaning are motivated or constrained by metonymy. In my view, the metonymic basis of grammar is even more obvious than its metaphorical basis.

- Ruiz de Mendoza and Pérez Hernández (2001) have surveyed the wide-ranging interaction between metonymy and grammar: Some of the areas where they claim metonymy has a motivating role are predicates, noun-verb conversion, various other types of conversion and re-categorization, nominalization, valency extension and reduction, the functioning of certain “predications” (in Simon Dik's sense), modality, and anaphora.

2. A few examples

- A few examples drawn from research by these authors and by other people on some of these areas will give an idea of the pervasiveness of metonymy as a motivating force in grammatical form and meaning:

A. Active zones

The ubiquity of “active zone” metonymies (see e.g. Langacker 1991: 189.201), a type of whole for part metonymies required for the interpretation of clauses with certain relational predicate (e.g. verbs like begin, or sequences like be likely). The interpretation is that one or more of the elements of the clause is interpreted metonymically as a reference-point to its active zone, which may be one of its physical or abstract parts, another experientially associated entity, or a relationship in which it is involved. Take example (6)

(6) Zelda began a novel (i,e. “Zelda began writing / reading / typing etc. a novel)

The verb begin implies some kind of activity, so NP a novel stands metonymically for the relationship “write / read a novel”, that is, an activity in which the metonymized direct object is involved. This activity is the active zone of that NP

This example and the other numerous examples of active zones pointed out by Langacker in his writings show that even sentences which at first sight seem cognitively simple may imply one or more metonymic mappings. The ubiquity of metonymy in grammatical structure is thus undeniable.

B. Proper name – common noun conversion

- The frequent (transient or permanent) conversion of English proper names into common nouns (as shown by their ability to take number morpheme, determiners, e.g. articles, and restrictive modifiers) is normally licensed by an underlying metonymy (Barcelona, 2004).

- An example is the grammatical re-classification of the name Picasso as a common noun (John has five authentic Picassos), which is possible on the basis of the metonymy author for work.

C. Noun-verb conversion

Dirven (1999: 275-287) shows that noun-verb conversion in English depends on three major sets of metonymies: patient, instrument or manner for action; goal for motion; and agent for action. Some of Dirven's examples:

(7) He was angling. (instrument for action)

The plane was forced to land in Cairo. (goal for motion)

Mary nursed the sick soldiers. (agent for action)

(Dirven uses a different label, class membership for the whole “essive schema”, for the metonymy licensing the conversion of the noun nurse into the verb nurse, but I find it less convincing than agent for action).

D. Dynamic use of stative predicates

- The generic metonymy effect for cause is responsible, according to Panther and Thornburg (2000), for the use of some state predicates in dynamic constructions. In (7)

(8) He asked her to be his wife

which is paraphrased by Panther and Thornburg as “He asked her to act in such a way so as to become his wife”, the relationship “be someone's wife” is a state which is normally caused by a previous action or series of actions; that is, it is a “resultant state”, and as such it constitutes an excellent metonymic reference point for its implicit causal action. This metonymic connection licenses its use in a dynamic grammatical context like He asked her to ...

E. Anaphor

A brief example of metonymy-induced anaphor. Langacker (1999: 261-196) claims that the only real factors constraining the application of anaphora are conceptual rather than syntactic in nature. Drawing in part on work by Van Hoek (see Van Hoek 1997), he pays special attention to instances in which the real antecedent is a metonymic target in the “dominion” of a referent point currently active in discourse. For instance, in

(9) He speaks excellent French even though he's never lived there

the antecedent of there is the metonymic target of the source mentioned by means of French, namely France, as the country is evoked by the language spoken in it; this evocation constitutes a part for whole metonymy.

Ruiz de Mendoza (2000) also discusses perceptively the role of metonymy in the identification of antecedents in instances of conjoined predicates, like In Goldfinger Sean Connery (= James Bond) saves the world from a nuclear disaster, but he (= James Bond) had real trouble achieving it. The metonymy at work here is actor for role.

References

Dirven, René (1999). “Conversion as a conceptual metonymy of event schemata”. In: Klaus-Uwe Panther, and Günter Radden, Metonymy in cognition and language. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 275-287.

Barcelona, Antonio (2003) “Metonymy in cognitive linguistics. An analysis and a few modest proposals”. In: Hubert Cuyckens, Klaus-Uwe Panther y Thomas Berg (eds.) (in press), Motivation in Language: Studies In Honor of Günter Radden. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Barcelona, Antonio (2004). “Metonymy behind grammar: The motivation of some “irregular” grammatical patterns of English names.” In: G. Radden y K.-U. Panther (eds.) Studies in Linguistic Motivation. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 357-374

Langacker, Ronald W. 1991. Concept, image and symbol. The cognitive basis of grammar. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Langacker, Ronald W. 1993. “Reference-point constructions”, Cognitive Linguistics 4, 1-38.

Langacker, Ronald W. 1999. Grammar and conceptualization. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Panther, Klaus-Uwe y Linda Thornburg (2000). “The Effect for Cause Metonymy in English Grammar”. In: Antonio Barcelona (ed..), Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads. A cognitive perspective. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 214-231.

Radden, Günter. 1996. “Motion metaphorized: The case of ‘coming ‘ and ‘going'. In E. Casad (ed.) , Cognitive linguistics in the redwoods: The expansion of a new paradigm in linguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 423-458.

Ruiz de Mendoza, Francisco José (2000) . “The role of mappings and domains in understanding metonymy”. In: Antonio Barcelona (ed..), Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads. A cognitive perspective. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 109-132.

Ruiz de Mendoza, Francisco José and Lorena Pérez Hernández (2001). “Metonymy and the grammar: motivation, constraints and interaction”. Language and Communication 21.4: 321-357.