1 / 32

How m etonymy and grammar interact : Effects and constraints in the

How m etonymy and grammar interact : Effects and constraints in the cross-linguistic perspective Mario Brdar Josip Juraj Strossmayer Universit y Osijek Rita Brdar-Szab ó ELTE Budapest. 1. Introduction

forbes
Download Presentation

How m etonymy and grammar interact : Effects and constraints in the

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES How metonymy and grammarinteract: Effects and constraintsinthe cross-linguisticperspective Mario Brdar JosipJurajStrossmayerUniversity Osijek Rita Brdar-Szabó ELTE Budapest

  2. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • 1. Introduction • there are two opposed views on the role of metonymy in grammar in contemporary linguistics • on the one hand, there is the view that metonymic shifts primarily affect the lexical meaning • in other words, what gets shifted is the meaning of individual words, most commonly of nouns • consequently, one may expect that metonymy plays hardly any significant role outside the lexicon, and is thus largely irrelevant to grammar • it has actually often been explicitly noted that, unlike metaphor, metonymy has hardly any impact on grammar(cf. Nunberg 1979, 1995, Copestake & Briscoe 1995) Nunberg, Geoffrey. 1979. The non-uniqueness of semantic solutions: Polysemy. Linguistics and Philosphy 3(2): 143-184. Nunberg, Geoffrey. 1995). Transfers of meaning. Journal of Semantics 12(2): 109-132. Copestake, Ann & Ted Briscoe. 1995. Semi-productive polysemy and sense extension. Journal of Semantics 12(1): 15-67.

  3. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • the point of view that, metaphor and metonymy play very different roles in the organization of the grammatical component, although they are both recognized in cognitive linguistics as basic processes, is tacitly held even by many linguists working within the cognitive framework • metaphorical shifts are extensively assumed to have taken place in almost all areas of grammar, making it possible to account for scores of phenomena in an intuitively appealing way, but the role of metonymy is still underestimated

  4. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • there is, however, a rapidly growing body of literature that convincingly shows that metonymic processes are crucially involved in shaping a number of central areas of grammar • cf. Waltereit 1999, Panther and Thornburg 1999, 2000,, as well as works by Ruiz de Mendoza and his collaborators (Ruiz de Mendoza 1999, Ruiz de Mendoza and Peña Cervel 2002, Ruiz de Mendoza and Pérez Hernández 2001), Barcelona (2004), as well as Dirven and Radden (2007) Waltereit, R. (1998). Metonymie und Grammatik. Kontiguitätsphänomene in der französischen Satzsemantik. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.. Panther, Klaus-Uwe & Linda Thornburg. 1999. The potentiality for actuality metonymy in English and Hungarian. In K.-U. Panther & G. Radden, eds., Metonymy in Language and Thought, 333-357. Amsterdam - Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Panther, Klaus-Uwe & Linda Thornburg. 2000. The EFFECT FOR CAUSE metonymy in English grammar. In A. Barcelona, ed., Metaphor and Metonymy at the Crossroads. A Cognitive Perspective, 215-231. Berlin - New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Panther, Klaus-Uwe & Linda Thornburg. 1999. The potentiality for actuality metonymy in English and Hungarian. In K.-U. Panther & G. Radden, eds., Metonymy in Language and Thought [Human Cognitive Processing 4], 333-357. Amsterdam - Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Panther, Klaus-Uwe & Linda Thornburg. 2000. The EFFECT FOR CAUSE metonymy in English grammar. In A. Barcelona, ed., Metaphor and Metonymy at the Crossroads. A Cognitive Perspective , 215-231. Berlin - New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco José. 1999. Introducción a la teoría cognitiva de la metonimia. [Serie Granada Lingvistica]. Granada: Método Editiones. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco José & Sandra Peña Cervel. 2002. Cognitive operations and projection processes. Jezikoslovlje 3(1-2): 131-158. Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, Francisco José & Lorena Pérez Hernández. 2001. Metonymymy and the grammar: motivation, constraints and interaction. Language and Communication 21: 321-357. Barcelona, A. (2004). Metonymy behind grammar: The motivation of the seemingly "irregular" grammatical behavior of English paragon names. In G. Radden & K.-U. Panther (Eds.), Studies in Linguistic Motivation (pp. 321-355.). Berlin - New York: Mouton de Gruyter. Radden, G, R. Dirven. 2007. Cognitive English Grammar. Amsterdam: John Benjamins

  5. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • we note of course Langacker’s claim (2009: 46) that: • Grammar, in other words, is basically metonymic, in the sense that the informationexplicitly provided by conventional means does not itself establish the precise connectionsapprehended by the speaker and hearer in using an expression. • it is obvious that we must be aware that when talking about the nature of grammar,what Langacker has in mind is the wide sense of metonymy as a property characterizing grammarin general.(metonymic processing of language, Gibbs 1999) Langacker, R. W. (2009). Metonymicgrammar. In K.-U. Panther, L. L. Thornburg & A. Barcelona (Eds.), MetonymyandMetaphorinGrammar (pp. 45-71). Amsterdam - Philadelphia: JohnBenjamins.

  6. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • nevertheless, if we take metonymy in its more narrow sense (the view that is prevalent in the contemporary cognitive linguistic research),a whole series of metynmic effects in grammar may be discovered • It appears that the impact of metonymy on grammar is most conspicuous against the background of functional effects that metonymic mappings produce in the grammatical system

  7. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • in other words, metonymy makes it possible to express certain grammatical distinctions without any explicit marking on the lexical items functioning as the metonymic vehicle, but the grammatical, i.e. morphosyntactic, effects of this may be observable in a wider context, e.g. in the presence or absence of the indefinite article and/or plural marker: • (1)We raise our own pork, beef and lambbut haven't tried chickenyet. • (2)It’s not often our ears will prick up at the sound ofa new beer being launched. • (3)Crack open an Achel and I will make my decision then on the Saaz or more Styrian goldings.

  8. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • this simplified way of looking at things might imply that the relationship between metonymy and grammar is one-way traffic, grammar being infinitely plastic and therefore easily formed by metonymic processes • we aim to demonstrate in this presentation that things are more complex than that and that their interaction practically always involves some two-way traffic • we demonstrate that: i. whether a certain type of metonymy is available in a given area in a given language is dependent on the ecological conditions present in the system (as envisaged in a usage-based model) ii. metonymyandcertaingrammaticaldevicesmayalsobein a sortofcomplementarydistribution

  9. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • inotherwords, grammarmayconstraintheapplicationof a metonymy (whichmightbeotherwiseconsidered to benear-universal), sothatthemetonymyinquestion is underused or evendownrightunavailablein a givenlanguage • wedemonstratethis by applying a cross-linguistic perspective in studying grammatical effects of metonymy in justtwomicro case studies • 2.1. metonymy-basedcollectivereadings and anti-associativeplurals, • 2.2. complexmetonymies • needless, tosay, thesemicrocasestudiescan be easilyextendedto show thattheobserveddistributionsarenot random butfairlysystematic, and thattheythereforeproveour main point

  10. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • 2.1. Metonymy-basedcollectivereadings and anti-associativeplurals • sometypes of metonymies, particularlythoseoftheactivezone and facetizationtypeare so common that they are virtually inconspicuous, and this also explains why they are also frequently so inconspicuous in a cross-linguistic situation • inthefollowingexamplethenounboat is metonymicallyunderstoodasreferrringtoitscrew, more specifically, weget a collectivereading: • (4)But after forty days without a fish the boy’s parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which is the worst form of unlucky, and the boy had gone at their orders in another boatwhich caught three good fish the first week.

  11. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • thiscollectivereadingbasedonmetonymy is foundinlanguageafterlanguage (cf. German (5) and Hungarian (6)): • (5) … was die schlimmste Form vonPechhabenist, • which DEF worst form of bad luck is • undder Junge warauf ihrGeheiß in einem andern • and DEF boy was on their orderinanother • Bootmitgefahren, das in der ersten Wochedrei • boatridden which in DEF first weekthree • gute Fische gefangen hatte. • good fishcaught had • … úgyhogy a fiú parancsukra ettől fogva • sothat DEF boy order-POSS-3PL-on from-then-om • egymásikhajóvalmenthalászni, és fogtak • oneotherboat-withwentfishing and caught-3PL • is mindjárt az elsőhéten három nagyhalat. • tooimmediately DEF firstweek-onhreebigfish-ACC

  12. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • note that this collective reading based on metonymy obtains without any formal change visible on the non-personal noun, i.e. the noun is in the singular • however, although this type of shift might be wide-spread it does not work in all languages • there is at least one language in which a singular non-personal noun cannot get such an interpretation, rather a comparable effect is found with the non-personal noun marked as a plural

  13. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • discussingspecialuses of pluralformsofnouns, Corbett (2000: 241), notes an unusualformin West GreenlandicorKalaallisut (a member of Eskimo-Aleutfamily): • (7) umiarsuit • ship.PL • ‘a ship plus its crew’or ‘ship’ • similarly: • (8) siikilit (lit. bicycles) • ‘bicycle plus rider’ or ‘bicycles’ • itappearsthatthisambiguityappliestoallmeans of transportin West Greenlandic and otherEskimolanguages Corbett, G. 2000. Number. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversityPress

  14. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • in order to distinguish this phenomenon from the more wide-spread associative plural, which typically involves human referents as both the focal member and the associates, and may have a dedicated nominal affix used specifically for associative plurals (as a matter of fact, available in West Greenlandic:-kkut ‘and family/companions’ (as in palasi-kkut‘the priest and his family’), Corbett terms forms like (7-8) anti-associative plural

  15. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • so what is going on here? • it seems at first sight that a metonymy is operative in Eskimo languages here, and that it is marked/triggered/facilitated by a grammatical marker • in other words, grammar can be said to make a metonymy possible

  16. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • however, thereareseveralpuzzling, oratleastinteresting, elementsinthis story thatdonotquitesquarewitheachother • 1. metonymicvehiclesaretypicallyformallyidenticalregardless of whethertheyareusedliterallyormetonymically, here thenoun is neverthelesspluralized • 2. it is oddthatthemetonymicreadingiscoupledwith anti-associativeplural, notwiththedefaultassociativeplural (expressedby a dedicatedaffix) • 3. wedonotgetthepluralvariant of themetonymic/anti-associativereading (somethinglike ‘theboats and theircrews’) • 4. thephenomeonseemsto be tied to a lexicallydefinedset of nouns (i.e. means of transport)

  17. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • taking a closerlookatthislexicalsetwerealizehowthephenomenonarose • CorbettnotesthatFortescue suggests the origin for this use is to be found with the word forsledge, butneither of themelaboratesonthis • followingFortescueʼs lead, wecheckedin his1980 grammar: • (9) qamutit ataatsi-t • sledge one-PL. • ‘one sledge' • Fortescue’s comment onthis is (1980: 247): • Observe toothe possibility of the plural form of ataasiq 'one' with nominalstems indicating single objects that are grammaticallyplural (mostly names of vehicles) • apparently, qamutitcan be followedbyataatsittoget a singleobjectmeaning

  18. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • in effect, this noun behaves like a whole series of English nouns that are morphologically invariable in that they always appear in the plural, such as pliers, tongs, trousers, pincers, scissors, etc. • these can also be singularized by expressions such as a pair of • most of these consist of two, more or less identical, parts that are joined and used together • the most salient parts of sledge, of course, are two runners • other nouns denoting means of transport in West Greenlandic exhibit both singulars and plurals (regardless of whether they have two salient parts or not), but qamutit apparently appears only in this form, and must be followed by a singularizing expression in case of reference to a singular vehicle

  19. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • we assume that a metonymic shift occurred here, extending the reference of the noun so as to include its rider/passengers in addition to the vehicle itself, as has happened in many other cases in other languages with nouns in the singular (cf. They shot two planes ‘machines and the pilots’, or They destroyed five enemy tanks ‘destroyed the machines and killed their espective crews) • the suit was followed by other nouns which could have both singular and plural forms, i.e. we witness an analogical development in West Greenlandic • if our analysis is correct, the role of grammar in the rise of metonymy, and the interplay of the two is slightly different from what we have assumed above

  20. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • it may be pure coincidence or not that qamutit is both (anti-associative) plural and that it exhibits a meaning which is apparently the result of a metonymic extension • we are inclined to think that it is nevertheless very important, and that it had a crucial role in further developments • 1. once the plural affix on this noun was associated with the metonymic anti-associative meaning, it pre-empted or blocked a comparable development in other singular nouns in the set or outside the set (in contradistinction to English, German, Hungarian, etc.) • 2. it blocked the development of plural "anti-associative” meanings (possible in English, German and Hungarian (cf. boats – crews of boats)

  21. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • in sum, we have seen that the presence of a grammatical feature, or its marker, may facilitate the application of a conceptual metonymy to one member of a wider inflectional paradigm,but block its application to the other member • this caused analogical changes (singular→ plural) making the nouns in question suitable as metonymic vehicles

  22. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • there appears to be a cross-linguistic evidence that collective and plural forms of nouns, either variable or invariable ones, tend to undergo semantic enrichment or shifts that are based on conceptual metonymiesproducingeffectssimilar to anti-associativeplurals, joiningtwoontologicaldisparate but contiguousconcepts • let us demonstrate this briefly on some examples • asdemonstratedinBrdar (2009) and Brdar & Szabó (2014) a group of trees (cove, grove or woods) denoted by the collective suffix serves as a natural source concept that is metonymically expanded (part for whole) into a unit consisting of the tree group and the plot of land underneath it • the metonymic goal is a complex concept including the plot of land and trees • such a metonymic shift is amply supported by synchronic and diachronic data from a wide variety of languages

  23. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • a comparable phenomenon in English is described in Brdar (2009: 75): the noun wood as well as names of most trees can be used metonymically in the plural • the metonymic mapping of the type part-for-whole takes place again between a plant, or more properly speaking a number of instances of a plant, as the metonymic source and an area covered by these plants: • (10) a.The switch back in theoaks below Highlands Ridge has apparently burned. • b.Annoying gnats were still present in part of the trail, especially nearDorr Canyon in theoaks. • c.The historic log Pioneer Cabins are nestled in thepines. • e.“Alice respected the dignity and spirituality of being in the redwoods andfelt this grove should be preserved.”

  24. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • 4.3. Somecomplex metonymies • it has been noted that multiple conceptual shifts are possible, breaking up “complex conceptual mappings into simple, well-motivated mappings with a strong experiential basis” (Hilpert 2007: 80) • these are cases of metonymic operations stacked onto each other, producing double or even triple metonymies (Ruiz de Mendoza and Mairal 2007) • such metonymic chains were referred to as multi-level metonymies (cf. Barcelona 2007), or as metonymic tiers in Brdar and Brdar-Szabó (2007) • such complex metonymies may be in actual fact much more common than is usually supposed: • (11) The first violin has the flu.

  25. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • a sentence like (12) is a clear example of the expression in question referring to the musician (note the feminine personal pronoun as anaphor): • (12) ... and then a moment later I realized that the first violinwas playing it with an intensity that had her practically flying out of her chair. • the expression “the first violin” could also be used to refer to the section of the orchestra • the same expression could in (13), be construed as referring to something more abstract, viz. the function or the role of the instrument in the orchestra: • (13) Of course, I adore playing the first violin again, particularly live, but I…

  26. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • similarly, black belt in (14) below qualifies as a double-tiered metonymy here because we first have an object which in karate or judo stands metonymically for a certain level of expertise and skill in these martial arts • on top of this first tier, we have an object standing for its possessor, i.e. the belt stands for the person having it, thus linking the skill with the person • (14) A lot of people used to think I wasa black beltjust because I was a professional athlete…

  27. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • such complex metonymies may also sometimes be reduced in a cross-linguistic perspective to a single metonymy • Cf. the following Croatian equivalent of the English example above: • (15) Puno ljudi je mislilo da imamcrni pojas • many peopleAUXthought that have black belt • the second metonymic tier, where the object stands for the possessor, is missing in the Croatian counterpart, the expression in question cannot normally be used in the predicative position following the subject and the copula verb • rather, the same idea is expressed by means of the verb of possession followed by a simple metonymy, literally ‘that I have a black belt’

  28. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • note that a suffixation with the relational suffix –s is found as the counterpart of black belt in Hungarian (it is mostly used attributively, i.e. it is followed by a nominal head identifying the target concept): • (16) Ki is az aFekete Öves? • who reallythat theblack belt-SUFF • in other words, the person as the metonymic target is made as good as impossible, and complex metonymies are effectively pre-empted by the implementation of this word formation strategy • Hungarian, as a matter of fact, happens to systematically avoid metonymic bahuvrihi compounds, relying on the same mechanism • the same strategy is employed in the case of ‘first violin’ • in (17), it is clear that the metonymic target is the function or role:

  29. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES (17)Ez utánazelső hegedű veszi át a dallamot,… after thatthe firstviolin takes over the melody however, there is a divison of labour in Hungarian between this expression and the noun derived by means of the suffix -s, and is therefore not used metonymically: (18) Takács 1989 ótaaFinn Rádió Takács 1989 since theFinnish Radio Szimfonikus Zenekarában első hegedűs. Symphonic orchestra-in first violin   (19) Öt perc múlva azelső hegedűs ismét five minutes later the firstviolin-SUFF again leteszi a hangszert,… puts-down the instrument

  30. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • 4. Summing it up all • it seems that here we have uncovered cases of interaction between metonymy as a basic cognitive process and the structural properties of a language • they are interesting because this is not the usual sort of interaction whereby a cognitive process shapes the surface grammar of a language • It is just the opposite of this: here the surface grammar seems to constrain the use of metonymy

  31. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES • whether a given language employs metonymic processes or not in order to achieve specific communicative goals may have to do with how other areas of the language in question are structured, i.e. with the shape of its current grammar (Mithun, 1991: 160) • in other words, it is in part shaped and constrained by the givens of the system at a given point in time, e.g. by analogical tendencies • this is also in line with Lakoff’s (1987: 537f) characterization of motivation in terms of, among other things, global ecological location within a grammatical system • we think that cognitive linguistics should also take clue from functional linguistics in this respect and consider the role of the existing linguistic system if it does not want to doom itself to the status of a partial model Mithun, Marianne (1991). “The role of motivation in the emergence of grammatical categories: the grammaticization of subjects.” Traugott, Elizabeth Closs, Bernd Heine, eds. (1991). Approaches to Grammaticalization. Volume 2: Focus on Types of Grammatical Markers. (Typological Studies in Language 19.2). Amsterdam – Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 161-184.

  32. JOSIP JURAJ STROSSMAYER UNIVERSITY, OSIJEK • FACULTY OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

More Related