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Article published In:
Cognitive Linguistic Studies
Vol. 6:2 (2019) ► pp.247–270

Cognitive principles underlying predicational metonymy

Metonymic preference of aspect of predicates in Japanese intermediary causative constructions

| Ritsumeikan University

Metonymy of a predicate, in which the source event implies the target event, is called predicational metonymy. This paper focused on a Japanese productive predicational metonymy, action for causation, and described its linguistic preference in terms of aspectual construal based on a corpus-driven quantitative investigation. The results revealed that an event that is bounded and durative is preferred as the metonymic vehicle in action for causation metonymy. The two cognitive principles, bounded over unbounded and durative over punctual, were proposed to explain the linguistic preference. It was suggested that the two principles can be subsumed under the fundamental cognitive principle of good Gestalt over poor Gestalt, and that this general principle governs metonymic preference of both predicates and nominal phrases.

Keywords: predicational metonymy, linguistic preference, aspect, cognitive principle
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methodology
    • 2.1Phenomenon
    • 2.2Identification
    • 2.3Data
    • 2.4Framework of analysis
  • 3.Results
  • 4.Discussion
    • 4.1The principle of boundedness
    • 4.2The principle of duration
    • 4.3The Gestalt principle
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 4 February 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cogls.00040.kom
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