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Part of
Figurativity and Human Ecology
Edited by Alexandra Bagasheva, Bozhil Hristov and Nelly Tincheva
[Figurative Thought and Language 17] 2022
► pp. 107–122

On syntactic categories and metaphors

| Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”

This paper aims at studying some syntactic categories in Spanish, namely, atypical subjects and emphatic constructions, in the context of relevant developments in the conceptualization of grammaticalization. The analysis is carried out on the basis of multifaceted and holistic approaches with regard to the dynamic interplay between formal, semantic and pragmatic aspects of Spanish utterances. Attention is drawn to some diachronic and cross-linguistic aspects of the addressed problems. Metaphor and metonymy are regarded as basic ways of grammaticalization.

Keywords: syntactic categories, pragmatics, grammaticalization, subjectification, metaphor, metonymy
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Linguistic evolution and syntactic categories
    • 2.1Major trends in linguistic evolution
    • 2.2Pragmatics and cognitive linguistics
    • 2.3Syntactic categories, metaphors and metonymies
  • 3.On some syntactic categories in Spanish
    • 3.1Atypical, “bad” subjects in Spanish
      • 3.1.1The subjects of affective and unaccusative predicates
      • 3.1.2Some parallels with ergative languages and ‘become-languages’
      • 3.1.3Grammaticalization and ontological metaphors
      • 3.1.4“Dativo redundante”
  • 4.The emphatic (cleft) construction (la estructura ecuacional)
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 10 November 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.17.05pop
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