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In:New Vistas in Research on Metaphor and Metonymy: Their contexts and interaction across discourse types and modalities
Edited by Robert Kiełtyka, Mario Brdar, Marcin Kudła and Goran Milić
[Human Cognitive Processing 82] 2027
► pp. 18–43

Chapter 1
Metonymy and triggers in the Córdoba Metonymy Database

 | Universidad de Córdoba
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
This chapter analyses data in our metonymy database. Metonymic triggers are the contextual factors that prompt the operation of a conceptual metonymy. They can be co-textual, like the immediate lexicogrammatical co-text (ict), or not co-textual, like frames. The results of the analysis show that the ict triggers active (act) metonymies that in turn prompt readings qualified by frames, as in the example To think that the same petticoats should come between two of my boys!, where the ict does not prompt strongly enough the reading of petticoats as “petticoat wearers” and an “act” metonymy triggers the frame in turn prompting that reading. Direct prompting by the ict of the intended reading (the motivating metonymy then remaining “dormant”) is also frequent. Both situations occur with constructions (lexical or syntactic). The comprehension of indirect speech acts and implicatures is normally guided by act metonymies whose main triggers are not co-textual but strictly cognitive.
Article outline
  • 1.Preliminaries
    • 1.1Aims
    • 1.2The University of Córdoba Metonymy Database (UCMD)
    • 1.3Basic notions
      • 1.3.1Metonymy and triggers
      • 1.3.2Active (act) vs. inactive or “dormant” (dm?) metonymy
      • 1.3.3Triggering Power (TP)
  • 2.Methodology
  • 3.Results: Patterns in terms of the triggering power of the immediate lexicogrammatical co-text (ict) and the resulting active (act) or dormant (dm?) operation of metonymy
    • 3.1Patterns in lexical meaning data
      • 3.1.1Triggering power patterns in lexical meaning data
    • 3.2Patterns in syntactic construction data
      • 3.2.1Triggering power patterns in syntactic constructional meaning data
    • 3.3Patterns in indirect speech act data
      • 3.3.1Triggering power patterns in indirect speech acts data
    • 3.4Patterns in implicature data
      • 3.4.1Triggering power patterns in implicature data
  • 4.Discussion and conclusions
    • 4.1A possible generalization
    • 4.2A comment on “dormant” metonymies
    • 4.3Further research
  • Author queries
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (20)
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