This dissertation is a comparative study of figurative verb usage in English and Japanese. The purpose of this study is to identify and explain the nature of the part of a verb's semantics which allow it to be used to represent novel domains of reference. It is based on a theory of conceptual metaphor which assumes that a linguistic object is a way of deriving meaning from a literal referent, or source domain. The same linguistic object may also be used in a novel way to refer to a different type of entity, or target domain, and when that happens, only part of the information from the source domain is applied to the target domain. This theory of conceptual metaphor also assumes that the transfer of information between source and target domains is mediated by an image schema. Image schemata represent experience derived from different modes of cognition isomorphically and thus make the process of metaphor possible. One of the main goals of the dissertation is to develop a constrained theory of image schema, and that is done by assuming that image schemata are constituted of the semantic primitives represented by the closed-class, grammatical categories of the language in question. The theory extends analyses of closed class, grammatical items such as prepositions and modal verbs to determine the constituents for English. For example, we claim that the verb 'nail' incorporates the meaning of "through" and "not let" because they are the grammaticalized relations which can be derived from the source domain. Examining actual metaphoric uses of a particular lexical item allows us to determine which of the possible relations from the source domain are included in that item's image schema. This part of the lexical semantics of two classes of verbs in English is examined through usage determined by a search of the Lexis/Nexis database of news. The Japanese data include examples of the same classes of verbs as well as onomatopoeia, which are productively polysemous. Using the numerous examples of mapping between source domains and target domains in Lakoff and Johnson (1980) as a guide, we describe the mapping from the hypothesized schemata to target domains represented by the examples collected in the search. (Dissertation Abstracts)