Publications

Publication details [#10602]

Taub, Sarah F. 1996. How productive are metaphors? A close look at the participation of a few verbs in the STATES ARE LOCATIONS metaphor (and others). In Goldberg, Adele E. Conceptual Structure, Discourse and Language. Stanford: CSLI Publications. pp. 449–462. 14 pp.
Publication type
Article in book  
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
Stanford: CSLI Publications

Abstract

Thought we feel we have good evidence for a general conceptual metaphor STATES ARE LOCATIONS, which includes as a submapping CHANGE IS MOTION, we find that individual verbs of motion have unique and idiosyncratic patterns of participation in that metaphor. That is, one might expect that all verbs that describe a change of location would be equally able to describe metaphorically a change of state, but this is not the case. This paper has three purposes: first, to present a number of additions to STATES ARE LOCATIONS that explain many of the verbs' usage patterns; second, to explore a set of idiosyncrasies that metaphor theory in its current form does not address; and third, to suggest some ways metaphor theory might expand to handle these idiosyncrasies. (Sarah Taub)