In this paper I will make three claims:
1. By contrast to metaphor, which is based on conceptual similarity, metonymic innovation uses the association of contiguity. It is important to point out that contiguity does not rely on a relation beteween intralinguistic semantic features (as defined by European structural semantics), but - without any exception - on extralinguistic mental representation, i.e. on the two concepts involved in the metonymic process. Thus, metonymies rely on world knowledge and connotations (cf. Blank, 1993; forthcoming).
2. During the process of metonymic innovation, the word linked to the donator concept is transferred to the target concept. Target and donator concept are quite often rleated to each other in conceptual clusters that have been described as 'Frames', 'Scenes', 'Scenarios' etc. (cf. Fillmore 1975,1977). More exactly the relevant contiguity is between
3. All contiguous conceptual relations giving rise to metonymies are either co-present or successive (cf. Bonhomme 1987). Co-present relations rely on the synchronsm of their elements, successive relations rely on a spatial, temporal or logical sequence. Co-present relations exist between the ACTORS (people, animals, institutions,) interacting in a frame, their ACTIVITY, INSTRUMENTS, TOOLs, affected OBJECTS, the PLACE where an activity is held, and the TIME at which this activity usually is performed. Co-present are also typically essential or implicated ATTRIBUTES and ASPECTS of persons, objects and activities, distinguishable PARTS of activities (cf. 'part-whole' and 'whole-part' relations) and INDIVIDUAL REPRESENTATIONS of a COLLECTIVE BODY. Finally the FRAME as a whole is always co-present. Successive relations exist between a STATE, ACTIVITY or a PROCESS and their PURPOSE and AIM, their CAUSE or PRECONDITIONS and their RESULT, their PREVIOUS and CONSECUTIVE STATES. Other successive relations exist between PERIODS, different PLACES and, last but not least, related FRAMES. Ideally any metonymy can be reduced to one of these types of conceptual contiguity.
References:
Email: ablank@zedat.fu-berlin.de
Andreas Blank
In our Cognitive English grammar (Dirven and Radden, in preparation ) we distinguish between five basic event schemata: (1) the action schema, (2) the experiencing and possession schemata, (3) the transfer schema (4) the location and motion schemata, and (5) the essive schema. Of thse five basic schemata, only three (1, 4, 5) serve as the conceptual framework in which the process of conversion takes place. Conversion is thereby seen and defined as the metonymical focussing on one participant in the event schema but conceptually involving the whole event.
In the action schema it is the participants Patient (
The second basic event schema which is very productive in creating conversion is the motion schema, especially the variant comprising an Agent, a Patient and a Goal as in
The same question hlds for the third basic event schema, i.e. the essive schema involving the particpant Class member as in
Email:Rene.Dirven@ping.be
René Dirven
Gerhard-Mercator Universität - GHS Duisburg
The talk will be in four parts. First, some basic definitions will be given of metonymy and other phenomena: metaphor, literalness, anomaly, synesis, and indirect speech acts. Second, some examples will be given of interaction between metonymy and these other phenomena, particularly metaphor. Third, a computational model of metonymy and metaphor called the met* method will be outlined, together with some partially implemented extensions to it, and some properties of the model will be explained. Some of the main properties of the model are as follows. metonymies can occur in chains; (chains of) metonymy can co-occur with a single metaphor; a metonymy of itself comprises a preference violation plus a "metonymic inference"; a metaphor concists of a preference violation and a relevant analogy. Some context-sensitivity is built into the model. Although the model looks like a two-stage model, it need not be viewed as such because preference violations do not seem crucial to discriminating metonymy from metaphor in the model and because parts of the model can act in parallet. Fourth and finally, the operation of the model on some examples of metonymy in interaction with some of the other phenomena will be shown, notably metaphor.
Email:fass@cs.sfu.ca
Dann Fass
Conceptual integration (or "blending") is an operation that plays a significant role in many areas of cognition, and which has uniform, systematic properties. A blend is the result of selective projection from inputs liniked by a cross-space maping, and it displays emergent structure. In this paper, I focus on the interesting rold of metonymy in constructing blends that optimally satisfy the principles of integration that Mark Turner and I have proposed. metonymy in the inputs is exploited in order to maximize topological projection, blend integration, unpacking and web connections. In addiction, there is good evidence for a 'metonymy projection constraint', which shortens metonymic distance when metonymically linked elemnts are projected to a blended space.
Email:faucon@cogsci.ucsd.edu
Gilles Fauconnier
The purpose of this talk is to extrapolate the notion of
To illustrate this, we shall look at different German idiomatic expressions, conventionalized as well as non-conventionalized ones, which refer to the same schematic terget concept: "stupidity". This common target structure can be characterzed schematically as
The analysis reveals recurrent conceptual patterns which transcend the level of individual expressions and which can be described in terms of generalized metonymic projections from different source domains/concepts to the target domain/concept. It appears that generalized metonymies exhibit similar properties as generalized metaphors: they occur at different schematic levels, they may overlap with each other and they are also grounded in general cognitive as well as cultural principles. What distinguishes them the most from metaphoric patterns is the variety of specific relationships that can exist between source and target structures; compare for instance
We will deonstrate these features on two conceputal metonymies that structure the target. They both elaborate the highly schematic metonymy according to which one salient property stands for another, less salient property. Thus, it shows that tupidity, being a highly abstract deviance, is commonly construed as 1)a social or 2) a physical deviance/deficienty.
Concerning "social deviance" as a source structure, we find an elaboration like "deviant (low) status", which in its turn is elaborated by concepts like "deviant (lowly ranked) profession" or "deviant (outgroup) origin". These last two concepts are instantiated in expressions like
As for "physical deviance", we focus on the complex construal of stupidity as a deficiency of the head. It shows that mainly the head in its substructure of a container functions as a source for structuring the stupidity concept. this results in source concepts like "deviance of the head-as-a-container" and "deviant content of the head" with corresponding examples like
Central to the notion of generalized metonymy is not just the identification of different source structures on different levels, but especially the nature of the relationship between source and target structure. It seems that in most of the cases the schematic
Emailkurt.feyaerts@arts.kuleuven.ac.be or dirk.geeraerts@arts.kuleuven.ac.be
Kurt Feyaerts and Dirk Geeraerts
Metonymy, like metaphor and certain other tropes, is not just a figure of speech, but reflects an important part of the way people ordinarily conceptualize of themselves, events, and the everyday world. My talk will explore some of the variety of ways that metonymy constrains speaking and thiking in everyday life and language. I will argue, among other things, that metonymy helps structure various aspects of inference generation in discourse, as well as people's understanding and use of contextual expressins, indirect speech acts, common gestures, and colloquial tautologies. Some guidelines on how best to empirically study metonymy in thought and language will also be provided.
Email:gibbs@cats.ucsc.edu
Raymond W. Gibbs, Jnr.
Although the details still need further study and clarification, we have a reasonable idea of the semantic changes that take place over long stretches of time in so-called modal verbs, more particularly as attested in the central modals of English. See e.g., Tellier (1962), and, with a cross-linguistic perspective, Bybee et al. (1994, chapters 6 and 7).
Those changes can be accounted for as involving (a) metaphorical shifts (Sweetser 1990: chapter 3) or, (b) as processes involving reanalysis or the conventionalization of implicatures (e.g. Traugott 1989). As far as I can see, detailed studies bring to light that the second type of account has greater explanatory value if we want to understand how these modal shifts actually took place.
In this paper I want to make two points.
References
Louise Goossens
This paper is an attempt at briging together two linguistic disciplines which, though they have not been in close contact so far, could benefit from each other: Cognitive Linguistics and Onomastics.
While the notion of semantic motivation has always been a working principle in the field of Onomastics, it has only recently seen a revival wthin Cognitive linguistics. In that latest approach to natural language, metaphor and metonymy, construed as conceptual structures and cognitive processes, are recognized as probably the most important principles that motivate linguistic expressions.
In my paper I will focus on local metonymy, which shows a rich structure of subtypes that can be analyzed profitably from a cognitive linguistic perspective. As a final point, the evidence of this onomastic investigation is brought to bear on the controversial discussion of the role of metonymy currently taking place among cognitive linguistics.
Olaf Jäkel
When we try to seize the mechanism of metonymy, it appears to be useful to integrate five different traditional and non-traditional paradigms of "cognitive" research (in the broadest sense):
Due to these contiguity relations, a given lexeme denoting one element of the frame may happen to denote metonymically another element of the same frame:
Contiguities within frames enable us to explain not only metonymies, but also particular types of word formation. Consider the FRUIT - TREE frame. In Italian, we find the following metonymy:
Email: pkoch@zedat.fu-berlin.de
Freie Universität Berlin
We assume that metonymy is essentially a conceptual phenomenon and that it can best be accounted for within a framework of idealized cognitive models. ICMs provide the range of possible conceptual relationships of "contiguity" which may lead to metonymy. Metonymy is understood to be a conceptual mapping within the same ICM by which one conceptual entity, the target, is evoked by another conceptual entity, the vehicle. Metonymic mappings may either build upon the relationship between an ICM as a whole and its part(s) or the relationship between parts of an ICM. All types of metonymy may thus be said to involve either a whole/part or a part/part relationship. Whole/part relationships are found in the following ICMs: whole and part ICM, constitution ICM, containment ICM, category and member(s) ICM, category and property(ies) ICM and complex event ICM. Relationships between parts typically characterize the following ICMs: action ICM, causation ICM, perception ICM, possession ICM, control ICM, correlation ICM and the linguistic sign ICM.
In principle, either of the two conceptual entities related may stand for the other, i.e., unlike metaphor, metonymy is basically a reversible process. There are, however, cognitive principles which govern the selection of a preferred vehicle. These natural principles relate to the following four areas: clarity, gestalt perception, human concern and experience, and salience. The more cognitive principles apply in a given case the more motivated is the metonymy. Highly motivated, or "default", metonymies tend to escape our awareness. For social, stylistic or communicative purposes, the cognitive principles may be overridden. Such "nondefault" metonymies are typically found in expressions of politeness, euphemism, taboo, jargon, slang or poetry.
Email: kovecses@osiris.elte.hu
Email: radden@rrz.uni-hamburg.de
Valuation is defined as assigning a value to a bearer. Values may be assigned to concepts, classes of entities (categories) and individual specimens of categories. Metonymy is involved in valuation in at least two ways:
University of Warsaw
The study of metonymy has a very long tradition. In the 4th century BC Democritus offered four arguments (with four specially coined names) in favour of arbitrariness as against the naturalness of signs: (a) 'homonymy' or 'polysemy,' i.e., the same sequence of phonemes may be associated with two or more unrelated meanings; (b) 'polyonymy' or 'isorrophy,' i.e., the existence of synonyms; (c) 'metonymy,' i.e., the fact that words and meanings change; (d) 'nonymy,' i.e. the non-existence of single words for simple or familiar ideas.
In our talk we would like to compare the mechanisms and types of metonymies involved in what we call 'compelled metonymical overextensions' on the one hand and 'creative metonymical shrinking' on the other, and finish off with some remarks about the understanding of conventional metonymies by children.
Email: bn@psychology.nottingham.ac.uk
Brigitte Nerlich
Zazie Todd
Metonymic referentiality in narrative fiction is often associated with the development of an interface between reader and writer. The effects achieved by referring to more than one concept or experience enable the reader to activate cognitive strategies, which facilitate access to a hitherto unknown world. When a metonymic term or conceptualisation is recontextualised in different episodes of a narrative, the reader is able to select new interpretations consonant with the writer's intentions, as the metonymic domain expands or contracts.
Email: Anne.Pankhurst@ed.ac.uk
University of Edinburgh,
In accordance with recent approaches to semantics, we assume that lexical meaning is fruitfully described in terms of scenarios consisting of parts which can bear metonymic relations to each other and the whole of the scenario. One of the most pervasive conceptual metonymies in English is the Potentiality-for-Actuality metonymy. This metonymy is evident in such hedged performatives as
The scenario has allowed us to determine the distribution of some metonymic relations holding in various semantic and pragmatic domains in English as well as to ground them in more general metonymic principles (cf. Thornburg & Panther forthcoming). A natural extension of this approach is to make cross-linguistic comparisons. Particularly intriguing is a comparison with Hungarian, a non-Indo-European language, which reveals interesting cross-linguistic contrasts. In this talk, we focus on the operation of the Potentiality-for-Actuality metonymy in the following conceptual domains: (1) sense perceptions, (2) mental states and processes, (3) hedged performatives, (4) indirect speech acts (directives, commissives, and imprecations), (5) (extralinguistic) actions, (6) character dispositions, and (7) acquired skills. We will show that the Potentiality-for-Actuality metonymy is more restricted in Hungarian than in English and that this fact is not only linguistically and conceptually interesting but has pedagogical implications as well.
Email: fs3a557@rrz.uni-hamburg.de
Email: lthornburg@osiris.elte.hu
Saying that metonymy has not received attention would be an exaggeration. Lakoff and Johnson (1980), who put metaphor on the map in a big way, also devote a chapter to metonymy. They characterize metonymy in contrast to metaphor, as "primarily referential", but impute to it similar purposes of enhancing understanding, a similar systematicity, and a similar cognitive status. As Taylor (1989:122) stated, "metonymy has received relatively little discussion (at least, in comparison with metaphor)". In his brief account he seems to be using a much broader notion of metonymy, which he illustrates with examples like
Email: jverscha@pophost.innet.be
Katholieke Vlaamse Hogeschool
Nunberg (1995) shows that predicate transfer (metonymy) is tied up with all levels of grammar which have an interface to semantics. He explains predicate transfer via a mapping from properties into properties, triggered by a salient transfer function. Various metonymical relations like "owner - things owned" or "producer - product" can be captured in this way.
Nunbergian explanations do not, however, easily generalize to metonymies involving representations (maps, statues, models etc.). In these cases, Nunbergs salient transfer function needs to be identified with a representation relation, the properties of which are ill understood. The metonymies discussed in this talk can be taken as pairs, consisting of an NL-expression, and a representation relation defined on things represented and a representing object. The empirical properties of representation relations are discussed with respect to a large corpus of data (videos, transcripts, audiotapes, eye-tracker-studies) based on the construction of a toy-airplane. It is shown that we have different options for building up a theory of metonymy involving representation relations, since we can model the relation involved in different ways. These ways are linked up with (A) the specification of the things represented and (B) the kind of relation used.
*) I am indebted to talks of Chr. Habel's on representation given on various occasions and to many discussions with Josef Meyer-Fujara.
Bibliography:
Email: rieser@LILI.Uni-Bielefeld.DE
Bielefeld University
Despite the current interest in metonymy, the essential nature of the term is not determined yet. There are two reasons for this, both of which are related to the question of how to systematically distinguish synecdoche from metonymy. One reason is concerned with the traditional view that synecdoche is a specific type, i.e., the part-for-whole (and, less frequently, the whole-for-part) variety, of metonymy. The problem here is that little notice has been taken of the ambiguity of the terms of
Osaka City University,
Color terms have been a major area of interest in Cognitive Linguistics from the very beginning. Color is also the subject of this paper, but examined from a different perspective. I will look at the way color terms, especially the word
Geeraerts, Dirk, Stefan Grondelaers, Peter Bakema (1994)
Email: VERSPOOR@let.rug.nl
English Department
The paper is going to discuss the notion that many forms of language use in which something is said to imply its opposite can be regarded as manifestations of a general conceptual metonymic relation. It will discuss the conceptions of domain and of conceptual contiguity with regard to opposition, and it will suggest descriptions of linguistic phenomena on the semantic and the pragmatic plane which result from this view.
Email: fs6a023@rrz.uni-hamburg.de
Universität Hamburg
Metonymies are restricted not only by conceptual factors but also by grammatical ones. This paper examines the "suitability" of different grammatical relations (subject, direct object, etc) for metonymy. It will be argued that the direct object fits best the metonymic transfer. Evidence for this claim will be presented from French, but it holds also for many other European languages.
Email: walterei@zedat.fu-berlin.de
FU Berlin
According to Halliday (1985), we have a case of metonymy when "a word is used for something related to that which it usually refers to; for example",
Keep your eye on the ball [gaze]
There is a difference between the first two examples above, on the one hand, and the last one, on the other, in that the former are literally not true, whereas the latter is. This difference is important since it implies that
Granted this definition, I will make the following two suggestions:
Email: warrenb@engelska.su.se
Department of English
Abstracts
Co-presence and Succession: a cognitive typology of metonymy
Andreas Blank, FU Berlin
a) concepts in frames (L praeco > 'messenger' > OSp pregon, OPt pregao 'message');
b) concepts and the superordinate frame (ME travail 'pain' > NE travel 'journey')
c) related frames (OF disner 'to have breakfast' > NF diner 'to have lunch' > 'to have dinner').
Blank, A (1993) "Polysemie und semantische Relationen im Lexikon." In: Börner, W., Vogel, K. (eds)
Blank, A. (forthcoming) "Il senso di una semantica dei prototipi e dei frames: osservazioni decostruttive e ricostruttive." In: Lo Piparo, F. (ed): Linguaggio e cognizione. Rom: Bulzoni.
Bonhomme, M (1987)
Fillmore, C (1975) "An alternative to checklist theories of meanings". In:
Fillmore, C (1977) "Scenes and frames semantics". In: Zampolli, A (ed)
Freie Universität Berlin
FB Neuere Fremdsprachliche Philologien WE2
Habelscwerdter Allee 45
D-14195 Berlin
Germany
Conversion as a Conceptual Metonymy of Basic Event Schemata
René Dirven, Mechelen, Belgium
Beekstraat 39, B-2800 Mechelem
Belgium
D-47048 Duisburg
Germany
Interactions Between Metonymy and Other Phenomena
Dann Fass, Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, British Columbia
V5A 1S6, Canada
The Role of Metonymy in Conceptual Integration
Gilles Fauconnier, UCSD
University of California, San Diego
Cognitive Science Center
LaJolla, California 92093
USA
Generalized Metonymy: The conceptualization of stupidity in German idiomatic expressions
Kurt Feyaerts and Dirk Geeraerts, University of Leuven
KU Leuven
Dept. Linguistiek
Blijde-Inkomststraat 21
B-3000 Leuven
Speaking and Thinking with Metonymy
Raymond W. Gibbs, Jnr., UCSC
Department of Psychology
University of California, Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz
U.S.A.
Metonymic Bridges in Modal Shifts
Louis Goossens, Universitaire Instelling Antwerpen
(1) First, that account (b) boils down to the acceptance of metonymic bridges underlying the changes, and that if we go for a metaphorical interpretation we have in fact a "metaphtonymy", more precisely a metaphor for metonymy (cf. Goosens, 1990).
(2) Second, I will concentrate on th shift of the English modal
Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins and William Pagliuca (1994)
Goosens, Louis (1990) "Metaphtonomy: The interaction of metaphor and metonymy in expresions for linguistic action"
Sweetser, Eve (1990)
Tellier, André (1962) Les verbes perfecto-présentes et les Auxiliaries de mode en anglais ancien (VIIIe s. - XVIe s.). Paris:Klincksieck.
Traugott, Elisabeth Cross (1989) "On the rise of epistemic meaning: an example of subjectification".
UIA, Dept. Germaanse
Universiteitsplein 1
B-2610 Wilrijk
Belgium
Fax: 0032-3-8202762
Metonymy as a Cognitive Principle in Onomastics
Olaf Jäkel, Hamburg
Drawing on the Hamburg telephone directory of 1993/94 as corpus material, I investigate metonymic strategies and their explanatory power to account for the etymological meaning of German surnames. As a result I suggest a taxonomy of motivated names in which metonymical strategies range alongside the well known genealogical and professional naming principles. Utensil metonymy, property metonymy, and local metonymy appear as subtypes of metonymical principles.
Universität Hamburg
Seminar für Englische Sprache und Kultur
Von-Melle-Park 6
D-20146 Hamburg
Germany
Frame and Contiguity:
On the Cognitive Basis of Metonymy and Certain Types of Word Formation
Peter Koch, FU Berlin
- the associationist paradigm, based on similarity/contrast and contiguity (from Aristotle onwards);
- gestalt theory (Wertheimer, Köhler et al.);
- recent frame theory (Fillmore, Minsky et al.);
- recent prototype theory (Rosch et al.);
- the pragmatic strengthening theory (König, Traugott).
In my view, metonymies are based on frames, that constitute conceptual gestalts. The links between elements of a given frame are what we call contiguity relations. Consider for instance the marriage frame. Marriage (i.e. the relation between married persons) is/was considered the prerequisite for motherhood; its beginning is normally marked by a wedding ceremony. We all know that the concomitance of these three elements is by no means compulsory, but in certain cultures, it is/was regarded as prototypical.
(1) Lat. matrimonium (initially) 'motherhood' > 'marriage'
(2) Fr. mariage 'marriage' > 'wedding'
According to the pragmatic strengthening theory, processes of this kind have been described as conventionalization of conversational implicatures. Now, the gestalt principle underlying such processes is a figure-ground effect:
(ad 1) motherhood = figure > ground; marriage = ground > figure
(ad 2) marriage = figure > ground; wedding = ground > figure
(3) It. limone 'lemon' > 'lemon tree'
In Spanish and English, on the other hand, we have word formations like:
(4) Span. limón 'lemon' > limonero 'lemon tree'
(5) Engl. lemon > lemon tree
Obviously, the derivation (4) as well as the composition (5) denote a conceptual shift along the contiguity axis that is also relevant for (3). In other words: metonymies, certain derivations, and certain compositions differ on the lexical level, but have a common cognitive base.
FB Neuere Fremdsprachliche Philologien WE 2
Habelschwerdter Allee 45
D-14195 Berlin
Towards a Theory of Metonymy
Zoltán Kövecses, ELTE and Günter Radden, Hamburg
Department of American Studies
Eötvös Loránd University
H-1146 Budapest
Ajtosi Dürer sor 19-21
Universität Hamburg
Seminar für Englische Sprache und Kultur
Von-Melle-Park 6
D-20146 Hamburg
Valuation and Metonymy
Thomas P. Krzeszowski, Warsaw
1. In everyday usage the words "valuation" or "evaluation" are used in an extended sense whereby values can be assigned to concrete material objects. People say such things as
2. Linguistic expressions of valuations (usually adjectives) are based on the totum pro parte metonymies, whereby what is valued is always some aspect of an evaluated entity rather than the whole entity designated by a given expression. For example, different aspects of the concept designated by the word "Peter" are valuated in such sentences as
Institute of Applied Linguistics
ul. Browarna 8/10
00-311 Warszawa, Poland
fax (048-22) 26-13-91
'Mummy, I like being a sandwich':
Metonymy in Language Acquisition
Brigtte Nerlich and Zazie Todd, Nottingham
Leaving out about 2500 years of rhetorical studies, we now jump to Gaston Esnault, who, coming back to Democritus, wrote in 1925 that what distinguishes metonymy from metaphor (based on transfer) and synecdoche (based on annexation), is the fact that metonymy is based on a change in denomination. He then provides a classification of 38 types of metonymy, which, in another talk one could compare to those proposed by Stern, Lakoff & Johnson, Norrick, Fass and Kövecses & Radden. What is more important in the context of this talk is Esnault's second characterisation of metonymy. Unlike classical rhetoricians, Esnault stresses that "la métonymie n'est pas un changement de nom imposé à une chose, c'est une relation objective vue en raccourcie". This definition of metonymy as a conceptual and verbal shortcut through an objective relation, is central for our understanding of how children use metonymy. Before coming to our study of the use of metonymical expressions by children, let us make two important distinctions: (1) between metonymies based on necessity (which are accounted for in the already existing literature on overextension, for example) and the creative use of metonymy; (2) between metonymy-understanding and metonymy-production.
or
zt1@le.ac.uk
http://www.le.ac.uk/psychology/metaphor/
Department of Psychology,
University of Nottingham,
Nottingham NG7 2RD,
UK
Department of Psychology
University of Leicester
UK
Recontextualisation of metonymy:
the case of Pilate's earring in Morrison's Song of Solomon.
Anne Pankhurst, University of Edinburgh
Morrison's novel Song of Solomon (1977) narrates the life of a poor black woman in the USA in the middle of this century. Scene, plot and characters are opaque to readers unfamiliar with the social and ethnic background. Morrison uses various means to ensure credibility, among them recurring references to an earring worn by the central character. Metonymy thus becomes a powerful means of assisting the interpretation of literary discourse.
Department of Applied Linguistics,
14 Buccleuch Place,
Edinburgh EH8 9LN UK
The Potentiality-for-Actuality Metonymy
in English and Hungarian
Klaus-Uwe Panther, Hamburg, and Linda Thornburg, ELTE
Universität Hamburg
Seminar für Englische Sprache und Kultur
Von-Melle-Park 6
D-20146 Hamburg
Eötvös Loránd University
Department of American Studies
Ajtósi Dürer sor 19-21
H-1146 Budapest
Putting Metonymy in its Place
Paul Pauwels, K.V.H.Antwerp
The present investigation is also corpus-based, using a corpus of utterances containing the four related verbs
St. Andriesstraat 2
B-2000 Antwerpen
Belgium
Representation, Metonymies and their Exploitation
in Multi-agent Tasks *)
Hannes Rieser, Bielefeld University
Concerning (A) there are various choice points for the set of objects presented. Depending upon ones favourite methodology they can be (a) stereotypes, (b) prototypes, (c) Fregean senses, (d) Wittgensteinian states of affairs, (e) situation types or simply (f) objects. Option (f) is more closely investigated.
Decisions concerning (B) will, of course, depend upon those taken with respect to (A). We can view representation relations (a) as homomorphic mappings (following Palmer (1978)) or (b) as sequences of morphisms, (c) as suitably defined empirical relations preserving information to some extent, (d) as constraints involving depicted situations and situations depicting or (e) as objects having both, an analogical as well as a Fregean structure.
(A) and (B) yield branch points for theories of different explanatory power. Arguments for choices concerning (B) are presented. Stress is laid upon the grain of depictional information and the effects of depicting objects upon objects depicted. It is shown, that mappings go in both directions, from objects represented to representing object and vice versa.
In the data, metonymies are used for naming parts, planning and testing, fixing of agents' perspectives and agents' coordination. A prototypical case is shown, where a representation relation determines an intrinsic front-back- order thereby providing an agent's perspective per default.
Barwise (1989), Barwise & Etchemendy (1995), Barwise & Seligman (1992, ms), Biederman (1987, 1993), Blutner (1995), Doelling (1995), Finke (1989), Habel (1996), Habel, Pribbenow & Simmons (1995), Heydrich & Rieser (1995), Indurkhya (1992), Johnson-Laird & Miller (1979), Kosslyn (1994), D. Lewis (1969), Nunberg (1979, 1995), Palmer (1978), Pylyshyn (1975), Rieser (1996), Sloman (1971, 1975, 1995), Way (1991), Wittgenstein (1921).
& SFB 360, "Situierte Kuenstliche Kommunikatoren"
On Distinguishing Synecdoche from Metonymy
Ken-ichi Seto, Osaka City University (Japan)
Faculty of Literature,
3-3-138 Sugimotocho,
Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka
Japan 558
FAX (81)6605 2357
Colorful Metonomies
Marjolijn Verspoor,University of Groningen
Lakoff, George (1987)
Taylor, John R. (1989)
Various etymological and idiomatic dictionaries
Postbus 716
9700AS Groningen
fax: + 31-50-3635821
Opposition as a Metonymic Principle
Christian Voßhagen, Hamburg
Two perceptual-cognitive factors, salience and two-valued orientation, will be suggested which seem to underlie such metonymic processes on the lexical and pragmatic level and in rhetorical figures.
Seminar für Englische Sprache und Kultur
Von-Melle-Park 6
D-20146 Hamburg
Metonymic Relations as a Window to Grammatical Structure:
Evidence from French Verb Semantics
Richard Waltereit, Free University of Berlin
Metonymies with respect to grammatical relations occur on two levels of description which should be distinguished carefully: First, the level of semantically contiguous thematic roles of one (polysemic) verb, e.g.
Concerning the role level, it will be shown that metonymy-based polysemies of the kind in question occur nearly always on the direct object if there is one, otherwise on the subject. The primacy of the direct object can therefore clearly be demonstrated. On the insertional level, any participant can of course be affected by a metonymic shift, but also on this level the direct object has several "privileges". In particular, certain types of construction allow contiguity-based reference for the direct object but less naturally or not at all for other grammatical relations. Among these are reflexive cliticization (
In my conclusion I will try to support the inductive generalizations concerning the direct object by a deductive explanation.
Institut fuer Romanische Philologie
Habelschwerdter Allee 45
D-14195 Berlin
No More Ham Sandwiches, Please
Beatrice Warren, Stockholm University
He's always chasing skirts [girls]
It won't happen while I still breathe [live]
The above illustrates the lack of consensus among linguists as to what metonymy is. Since the claims I wish to make in my presentation presuppose a particular definition, I will start by stating this definition, which is:
Metonymy represents a non-literal use of a word or phrase made possible since there is some obvious link between the referent of the mentioned word (or phrase) and the intended referent, which is a referent clearly appropriate in the context at hand.
(i) Metonymic links are not quite as ad hoc as the much quoted example
(ii) The basic difference between metonymy and metaphor is that the interpretation of metonyms involves retrieving a relation, whereas the interpretation of a metaphor involves retrieving at least one feature shared by the conventional and intended referents. This means that even a resemblance relation can be metonymic. Consider:
From this basic difference follows other important differences between
metonymy and metaphor.
Stockholm University
Zazie Todd zt1@le.ac.uk
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