engleski

Intensification and metonymy in some XYZ constructions: from the Bible to Einstein

The present article studies some figurative instances of the XYZ construction, specifically those exhibiting items Bible, oasis, flagship and minefield as the element Y. Although they leave the impression of being metaphor-like, the analysis of their context of use shows that they do not exhibit the sort of behaviour expected of prototypical metaphors. Even though all the four items are found in a wide range of situations associated with conceptual domains that are very distinct and distant from the domains that these elements come from, they do not exhibit the sort of polysemy that might be expected of widely used metaphorical vehicles. The data show that these lexical items follow a similar path of semantic development in the course of which they gradually lose specific elements of their meanings and develop a figurative meaning that is quite general and is in all cases coupled with intensification. It is claimed in the article that their development was guided by metonymic shifts. I also show that they share many traits with another member of this construction family, viz. the XYZ construction with proper nouns as Y, which is based on metonymic paragon models. In both cases the end result is a complex intensifier, i.e. an expression that compresses into a single lexeme both the intensification and the property being intensified.

intensification, intensifier, metonymy, paragon, metaphor, XYZ construction, proper noun, polysemy

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