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Article published In:
Living Metaphors and Metonymies
Edited by Mario Brdar and Rita Brdar-Szabó
[Review of Cognitive Linguistics 20:1] 2022
► pp. 156–171

Metonymic hitting

| Hamburg University

The chapter is concerned with the metonymic use of hit in expressions such as hit the road. The metonymic nature underlying these expressions has already been noticed by Ruhl (1989) and Hirtle (2013). The present study focuses on the mapping of the literal use of hit as the metonymic source to its target. The metonymic source is characterized by the use of hit as an Achievement verb in sentences such as The ball hit the window. The metonymic target in hit the road comprises two events, motion to a goal and a subsequent action. The relevant part of meaning resides in the unexpressed action. The action is inferred from the close relationship between a type of thing and potential actions afforded by the thing. In Let’s hit the road, the type noun road affords metonymic “routes” to three motivated kinds of actions: ‘travelling’, ‘beginning a journey’ and ‘leaving’.

Keywords: Achievement verb, affordance theory, complex event, force dynamics, metonymic route
Article outline
  • 1.Background
  • 2.Use of hit in simple sentences describing simple events
  • 3.The Achievement verb hit in force-dynamic scenarios
  • 4. Hit in complex events describing actions
    • 4.1The hit the Ntype-construction
    • 4.2Multiple senses of hit-expressions
    • 4.3Actions afforded by types of things
    • 4.4Metonymic routes leading to the senses of hit the road
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 May 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.00105.rad
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