Metaphor, Metonymy and the Extension of the Meanings of Polysemous Words

As an important and pervasive semantic phenomenon across languages, polysemy has attracted much attention of linguists. In the structuralist approach, the research of the relationship of different senses of a polysemous word is confined to the internal structure of language without considering its underlying cognitive mechanism. Thus it fails to reveal the essence of the phenomenon, and cannot give a satisfactory explanation. Cognitive linguistics provides a more convincing and systematic analysis of polysemy. This paper studied meaning extension by means of cognitive linguistic theories and presented the patterns of lexical meaning evolution. It is found that in the process of category enlargement, new members are derived or split from already existing members mainly through metonymy and metaphor, which are two powerful cognitive tools for extension of word meanings. Cognition is a driving force of polysemy, which is the result of the collaboration of metaphor and metonymy. That is, the derivative meanings of a polysemous word are extended from the source meaning through metonymy and metaphor within a category.

A corpus-based synchronic comparison and diachronic interpretation of lexicalized emotion metaphors in English and Chinese

This study is a corpus-based contrastive study of the cross-language diachronic changes and synchronic variations of lexicalized emotion metaphors (LEMS) in English and Chinese within the framework of cognitive linguistics. Since it is based on a series of basic assumptions of the Lakoffian Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), it is also expected to prove or improve them by making this cross-cultural comparative study of LEMS in English and Chinese. Therefore this study aims at not only the diachronic changes and synchronic variations of LEMS but also the cultural factors underlying them. By applying CMT in the analysis of the corresponding data of LEMS in English and Chinese, and the method of comparative etymology to explore the cultural influences on the variations over the metaphor themes of LEMS in the two languages, this study has achieved the following findings: (1) Both embodied and non-embodied metaphors are possibly universal in different languages; (2) The cross-language variations of emotion metaphors are often characterized by the cultural variations of the prototypical source concept at the basic category level in different cultures; (3) The commonality and specificity of a metaphor theme in different languages are closely related to the levels of generality of the metaphor theme; (4) Although to a great extent our thinking and ideology are determined by our bodies and the metaphors that they give rise to, or vice versa, the em-minded cultural notions are the important ingredient producing the cross-language variations over the themes of emotion metaphors. It can thus be inferred that metaphor themes are cultural and ideological constructs to some extent;(5) Both the embodied physiological experiences and the em-minded cultural notions play an important role in the conceptualization of emotions; (6) The embodied conceptualization of emotion is sometimes subject to the em-minded cultural notions; (7) There exist three different types of metonyms underlying the conceptualization of emotions in English and Chinese; Based on these important findings, it proposes a three types of metonymy model which functions better in generalizing the different metonymies underlying the conceptualization of emotions in English and Chinese. In addition, this study opens the way for applying the semiotics and cognitive metaphor theory to the studies of metaphors in the etymological structures of LEMS in English and Chinese which might be of great importance for the future development of CMT

Linguistic and conceptual structures in the Beaver (Athapascan) mental lexicon. A study of body part terms and emotion expressions.

Diese Arbeit befasst sich mit den Strukturen im mentalen Lexikon des Beaver (Athabaskisch). Dabei werden zwei Ziele verfolgt: zum einen sollen Körperteilbezeichnungen und deren Verwendung v.a. zum Ausdruck von Emotionen untersucht werden. Zum anderen wird hier der aktuelle theoretische Überbau diskutiert und kritisiert. So wird die Konzeptuelle Metapher Theorie (v.a. Lakoff) sowie konzeptuelle Netzwerke nach Langacker angewandt und dort modifiziert, wo die Daten alternative Analyseansätze fordern. Hierbei werden, wenn möglich, metalinguistische Aussagen der Sprecher als relevante Daten hinzugezogen, um einen tieferen Einblick in die Konzepte zu erhalten, da diese direkt kaum zugänglich sind. Grundlagen für die Beschreibung der sprachlichen und konzeptuellen Formen sind "embodiment" und Konventionalisierung in Zusammenhang mit soziokulturellen und somit sprach-individuellen Aspekten. Als "Ergebnisse" dieser Prozesse entstehen polyseme Lexeme, die über diverse Strategien Bedeutungsextensionen erfahren haben. Diese werden hier in semantischen und konzeptuellen Netzwerken dargestellt, um die Verbindungen und konzeptuellen Distanzen zwischen den Lesarten nachzuvollziehen. Diverse Körperteilbezeichnungen werden hier detailiert dargestellt und in ihren vielfältigen Verwendungen analysiert. Ebenso werden die Emotionsausdrücke, welche Körperteilbezeichnungen beinhalten, in ihren Bedeutungen und Verwendungen beschrieben und mit Hilfe der Sprecheraussagen analysiert. Dabei wird deutlich, dass konzeptuelle Strukturen nicht immer in vollem Ausmaß für die Sprecher zugänglich sind, gewisse Verbindungen von Bedeutungen jedoch aufgrund ihrer lexikalischen Teile von den Sprechern nachvollzogen werden können. Dabei wird deutlich, dass die Konzeptuelle Metapher Theorie nicht für alle sprachlichen Formen als Erklärungsansatz herangezogen werden kann, da nicht jeder figurative Konstruktion auf eine konzeptuelle Metapher zurückzuführen ist bzw. da die in nicht prototypischer Bedeutung verwendeten Konzepte nicht immer auf zwei unabhängigen Domänen beruhen. Diese Arbeit leistet auf der einen Seite einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Beschreibung und zum Verständnis Athabaskischer Sprachen. Auf der anderen Seite wird die Diskussion innerhalb der kognitiven Linguistik, genauer im Bereich der Konzeptuellen Metapher und figurativen Sprache, mit neuen Daten gespeist und kritisch weiter angeregt

Settings and participants: analogous semantic extensions in conceptually remote domains

Settings and participants: analogous semantic extensions in conceptually remote domainsThis article concerns a phenomenon, claimed to be semantic in nature, which can be observed in expressions from conceptually distant categories. The phenomenon in question consists in the modification of lexical categories in which the form of the words is retained, but their meanings undergo essential, yet analogous, shifts. The two domains selected for the purpose of this study are so-called meteorological expressions (e.g., it’s raining, snow fell etc.) and the names of political states (France, Mexico, Vietnam etc.). These domains are mutually independent and constitute unrelated areas of knowledge. What is intriguing, however, is the similarity of the semantic shifts, also known as conversion or zero-derivation, which occur in these categories. The term “semantic extension” has been chosen as a convenient shorthand for the phenomenon in question. The article argues that due to altered profiles imposed on essentially the same base, the semantic extension under investigation results in shifts between the profiles of a “setting”, a “participant” and a “process”. In a comparative perspective between the two domains in question, zero-derived settings and participants alternate on a regular basis. The analysis applied here adopts tools exploited in cognitive grammar (e.g., profile, base). If semantic extensions towards settings and participants can be confirmed in such distant domains, further research can be undertaken in other domains. If related semantic effects are found in more domains, the semantic categories of a setting and a participant should be included in descriptive grammars. Scenerie i uczestnicy: analogiczne rozszerzenia semantyczne w pojęciowo odległych domenachArtykuł dotyczy zjawiska o charakterze semantycznym, pojawiającego się w wyrażeniach z pojęciowo odległych kategorii. Omawiane efekty stanowią modyfikacje kategorii leksykalnych, w których forma pozostaje zachowana, ale ich znaczenia ulegają istotnym, ale też analogicznym zmianom. Dwie domeny wybrane do celów tego badania to tak zwane wyrażenia meteorologiczne (np. pada deszcz, spadł śnieg itp.) oraz nazwy państw (Francja, Meksyk, Wietnam itd.). Domeny te są od siebie niezależne i stanowią niepowiązane ze sobą obszary wiedzy. Intrygujące jest jednak podobieństwo semantycznych zmian, zwanych również konwersją lub derywacją zerową, widoczne w tych wyrażeniach. Termin ‘rozszerzenie semantyczne’ będzie używany jako dogodny skrót dla omawianego zjawiska. Artykuł dowodzi, że ze względu na zmienne profile nakładane na zasadniczo tę samą bazę, badane rozszerzenie semantyczne powoduje przesunięcia między profilami ‘scenerii’, ‘uczestnika’ i ‘procesu’. W perspektywie porównawczej między dwiema domenami, scenerie i uczestnicy regularnie się zmieniają. Zastosowana analiza używa narzędzi wykorzystywanych w gramatyce kognitywnej (np. profil, baza). Jeśli semantyczne rozszerzenia w kierunku scenerii i uczestników zostaną potwierdzone w tak odległych domenach, można podjąć dalsze badania w innych domenach. Jeśli powiązane efekty semantyczne występują w większej liczbie domen, kategorie semantyczne scenerii i uczestnika powinny zostać uwzględnione w gramatykach opisowych

A Study on Object-oriented Adverbials in Mandarin from a Cognitive Perspective

The ubiquity and elusive nature of object-oriented adverbials in Mandarin has been a heated topic of discussions in the Chinese linguistic community. Scholars analyzed the syntactic manifestations and semantic constraints of this phenomenon and placed Semantic Orientation Theory at the core of the researches. It is claimed that object-oriented adverbials originate from and can be converted back to be the attribute of the object. From a cognitive perspective, this paper argues that different sentence patterns are different cognitive gestalts and have different pragmatic and discourse functions. It is concluded that (1) there is no conversional relations between the adverbials and attributes even though they are both semantically related to the object; (2) object-oriented adverbial sentences and attributive sentences represent different kinds of cognitive construal, the former being dynamic and sequential while the latter being stative and holistic; (3) grammatical metonymy is the fundamental cognitive mechanism for the seemly mismatch of form and meaning language and the cognitive basis of the Semantic Orientation Theory founded by Chinese scholars