engleski

Metonymic Links for ‘ Master Metaphor’

The realm of idiomaticity is one of the most complex issues all categories and generations of linguists have been trying to tackle for years. In our paper we shall attempt to exemplify how in the metaphors EVENTS ARE THINGS and ACTIVITIES ARE TRANSFERS which are operative in the number of the verbo-nominal constructions of the type 'light' verbs have, make, take, give + deverbal noun a process of metonymic elaboration may lead to a higher level of abstractedness or the so called 'master metaphor' ABSTRACT CONCEPTS ARE PHYSICAL ENTITIES (Kövecses 2000: 61). Although many scholars have dealt with this type of constructions, very few agreed on their scope and denomination. They have been termed collocations, idioms, phrasal constructions etc. with many of the authors stressing as their basic trait their extreme degree of arbitrariness in the choice of the combining elements. We shall attempt to show that there is a plausible cognitive and conceptual motivation in the form of the metonymically motivated metaphors.

metonymy; master metaphor; ontological metaphor; primary metaphor; metonymic chaining; periphrastic constructions; verbo-nominal constructions; 'light' verbs; nominalisation; metonymic elaboration

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