Creative Compounding in English

The Semantics of Metaphorical and Metonymical Noun-Noun Combinations

Réka Benczes | Eötvös Loránd University

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027223739 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027293183 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00

Metaphorical and metonymical compounds – novel and lexicalised ones alike – are remarkably abundant in language. Yet how can we be sure that when using an expression such as land fishing in order to speak about metal detecting, the referent will be immediately understood even if the hearer had not been previously familiar with the compound? Accordingly, this book sets out to explore whether the semantics of metaphorical and metonymical noun–noun combinations can be systematically analysed within a theoretical framework, where systematicity pertains to regularities in both the cognitive processes and the products of these processes, that is, the compounds themselves. Backed up by recent psycholinguistic evidence, the book convincingly demonstrates that such compounds are not semantically opaque as it has been formerly claimed: they can in fact be analysed and accounted for within a cognitive linguistic framework, by the combined application of metaphor, metonymy, blending, profile determinacy and schema theory; and represent the creative and associative word formation processes that we regularly apply in everyday language.

[Human Cognitive Processing, 19] 2006. xvi, 206 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/hcp.19

Table of Contents

Acknowlegements | pp. xi–xii

List of figures | pp. xiii–xiv

List of tables | p. xv

Notation | p. xv

Abbreviations | p. xvi

Introduction and some basic concepts | pp. 1–12

Descriptivists, transformationalists and alternative theories | pp. 15–39

Cognitive linguistics: Principles and methodology | pp. 41–68

Compositionality and transparency | pp. 69–85

Metaphor-based compounds | pp. 89–105

Metaphor-based semantic relation betweenthe constituents of the compound | pp. 107–140

Metonymy-based compounds | pp. 141–162

Metaphor- and metonymy-based compounds | pp. 163–181

A brief overview and the wider perspective | pp. 183–190

Appendix | pp. 191–195

General Index | pp. 203–205

Metaphor and metonymy index | p. 206

“This book is a major contribution to cognitive morphology, a field that has hitherto received relatively little attention within cognitive linguistics. Using tools such as metaphor, metonymy and conceptual blending, Réka Benczes elucidates the conceptual motivation of a wide range of ‘creative’ nominal compounds traditionally regarded as semantically opaque.”

Klaus-Uwe Panther & Linda L. Thornburg, Hamburg University

“The book under review is an original contribution to the debate concerning the interpretation of NN compounds in general. It can be seen as an extension to the domain of compounding of analyses developed for other phenomena in the framework of Cognitive Grammar.”

Bernard Fradin, in Word Structure 2008

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