In:Figurative Thought and Language in Action
Edited by Mario Brdar and Rita Brdar-Szabó
[Figurative Thought and Language 16] 2022
► pp. 37–58
A Cognitive Grammar approach to ‘metonymy’
Published online: 28 July 2022
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.16.02bro
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.16.02bro
Abstract
This chapter builds on Broccias’s (2017) critique of recent cognitive linguistic approaches to metonymy, which tend to neglect form and the substitutive relation built into the traditional x for y formula. By bringing back to the fore the tropical characterization of metonymy (Matzner 2016), which instead relies heavily on form and abrasiveness, this chapter develops a Cognitive Grammar approach to metonymy which rests on the reference point ability and conceptual integration. It shows how this approach can handle a variety of cases, from ‘straightforward’ metonymies to ‘metonymic association’. Crucially, it is argued that the multifaceted examples taken into consideration do not necessarily cohere into a ‘Platonic’ category.
Article outline
- 1.The cognitive approach to metonymy
- 2.The tropical approach to metonymy
- 2.1Index metonymy
- 2.2Amplification metonymy
- 2.3Metonymic association
- 2.4Interim summary
- 3.A Cognitive Grammar approach to metonymy
- 3.1The reference-point ability
- 3.2‘Straightforward’ metonymy in CG
- 3.3Active zones and part-whole relations
- 3.4Facets
- 4.Less ‘straightforward’ examples of metonymy in CG
- 4.1Amplification metonymy
- 4.2Noun-to-verb conversion
- 4.3Metonymic association
- 4.4Sound metonymies?
- 5.Conclusions
Notes References
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Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Brdar, Mario & Rita Brdar-Szabó
2025. Metonymy typologies revisited. In What makes a Figure [Figurative Thought and Language, 19], ► pp. 160 ff.
Brdar-Szabó, Rita & Mario Brdar
2022. Metonymy in multimodal discourse, or. In Figurativity and Human Ecology [Figurative Thought and Language, 17], ► pp. 209 ff.
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