Publications

Publication details [#2356]

Basilio, Margarida. 2006. Metaphor and metonymy in word formation. Papers on Language and Literature 22 : 67–80. 14 pp.

Abstract

Basilio's article investigates the relevance of analogy, metonymy and metaphor in word formation patterns and their products. Initially, the semantic side of proportional analogy in morphological restructuring is analyzed. The work then concentrates on the role of metonymy in the formation of instrumental and agent nouns. The last part of the work is dedicated to the role of metaphor in compounding. The concept of metaphor assumed involves the following claims: (a) there exists a distinction between literal and metaphorical meaning, even if it is not easy to distinguish them in all cases; (b) metaphorical compounds are both linguistic and conceptual phenomena; (c) metaphorical compounds are related to word meanings, as opposed to speaker's meanings; and (d) metaphors have both rhetorical and cognitive functions in the lexicon. Considering the metonymic process as mentally accessing one conceptual entity (the target) by means of another entity (the vehicle), as in the always quoted examples of places standing for agents, and so on, metonymy turns out to be a fundamental instrument for the efficiency of the lexicon as a symbol storage system. This mechanism, together with the notion of metonymic models (Lakoff 1987, Chapter 5) constitutes a relevant word-formation strategy. The main point of the paper is to show how metaphor is fundamental to the constitution of the lexicon and, consequently, how the relative disregard to word formation processes is unfortunate for the discussion of metaphor in language. (M. Zanotto, M. Asperti Nardi and S. Coelho Vereza)