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In:Figurativity and Human Ecology
Edited by Alexandra Bagasheva, Bozhil Hristov and Nelly Tincheva
[Figurative Thought and Language 17] 2022
► pp. 251–273

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Metonymic patterns of count-to-mass and mass-to-count changes and their implications for metonymy research

ORCiD logo with link | University of Silesia
Published online: 10 November 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.17.10dro
Abstract
This chapter formulates a proposal for dealing with two of the notorious problems of countability and uncountability in English: the problem of nouns changing their grammatical properties from count to mass and mass to count, and establishing the regularities of such changes. On the basis of the assumptions of Cognitive Grammar (e.g., Langacker, 2000, 2008), the chapter shows how, through an analysis of 30 count and 30 mass nouns (Drożdż, 2017), one more dimension arises: the metonymic one. This dimension enables a juxtaposition of this kind of research with that of Cognitive Metaphor Theory / Cognitive Metonymy Theory (Radden & Kövecses, 1999; Kövecses 2010, etc.), where comparable, conceptual structures are indicated. This leads to a discussion of certain issues concerning the methodology of metonymy analysis, the types of structures determined within both approaches, and their ultimate properties.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Countability and uncountability
  • 3.Cognitive Grammar
    • 3.1The status of senses of lexical units
    • 3.2Metonymy
    • 3.3Schematicity
    • 3.4Lexicogrammar
  • 4.The procedure
  • 5.The analysis
  • 6.Conclusions and discussion
    • 6.1Countability and uncountability
    • 6.2Schemas of metonymic extension
    • 6.3Metonymic issues from the CG perspective
  • Notes
  • References
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