Thinking and Speaking About Time

The last two decades have seen a series of publications focused on time. So, why another book? It now appears that a kairos moment has arrived to reconsider from a more holistic point of view the manifold ways in which we think about time and talk about it. The book is divided into four major parts: Fundamental issues; Conceptualization of temporality across languages and cultures; Metaphor, metonymy, and time conceptualization; and Time and grammar. Following the two chapters that prefigure the main topics of the volume, we move from chapters dealing with the cultural embeddedness of our conceptualizations of time to those discussing the instrumental role of figurativity in the conceptualization of time, finishing with a series of chapters focusing on a range of phenomena revolving around the grammatical reflexes of temporality.