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Figurative Meaning Construction in Thought and Language
Edited by Annalisa Baicchi
[Figurative Thought and Language 9] 2020
► pp. 107–128

Falling to one’s death in multiple landscapes

From blending to typology

| Università di Genova (Italy)
This paper discusses whether He fell to his death is a possible counterexample to Goldberg’s (1995) Unique Path Constraint, which bans simultaneous motion in multiple landscapes in caused motion/resultative constructions. On the face of it, He fell to his death involves the blending of motion in a physical landscape (as hinted at by fell) and motion in a metaphorical landscape (dying is conceptualised as telic motion). A possible solution to this apparent violation is the claim that He fell to his death is not an instance of the resultative construction and/or that to his death is metonymic for the place where one is presumed to have died. This paper argues that neither option is feasible: the example at hand instantiates the resultative construction and metonymy is not relevant. Instead, our ability for blending intimately connected facets of a complex event and the satellite-framed nature of English are held to be decisive factors for the licensing of the example under discussion.
Keywords: resultative, metonymy, Unique Path Constraint, blending, verb-framed language, satellite-framed language
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Multiple landscapes
  • 3. To one’s death is not a result phrase, or is it?
    • 3.1Defining result(ative) phrases
    • 3.2The role of simultaneity
  • 4. To one’s death as a metonymy
    • 4.1Access to the target
    • 4.2Metaphoric motion
    • 4.3Revealing the target
    • 4.4Verb variation
    • 4.5Other prepositional phrases
    • 4.6Interim conclusion
  • 5.Ecological motivation
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 12 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ftl.9.05bro
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