Cover not available

Article In: Review of Cognitive Linguistics: Online-First Articles

Metonymic foci of event schemata in English denominal verbs with human body parts

ORCiD logo with link | Friedrich Schiller University Jena
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
Abstract
Cognitive Linguistics explains conversion as a metonymic mechanism that enables morphological recategorization in event schemata (Dirven, René. (1999). Conversion as a conceptual metonymy in event schemata. In Panther, K-U. & G. Radden, (Eds.), Metonymy in language and thought (pp. 275–288). John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). The most productive type of conversion in English takes place from noun to verb and is the result of a conceptual transfer within an action, location or essive schema. Denominal verbs with human body parts are often cited as examples of this phenomenon (Clark, Eve V. & Clark, Herbert H. (1979). When nouns surface as verbs. Language, 55 (4), 767–811. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Gibbs, Raymond. (1999). Speaking and thinking with metonymy. In Panther, Klaus-Uwe & Günter Radden (Eds.), Metonymy in language and thought (pp. 61–76). John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Radden, Günter, & Kövecses, Zoltán. (1999). Toward a theory of metonymy. In Panther, Klaus-Uwe & Günter Radden (Eds.), Metonymy in language and thought (pp. 17–59). John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; . (2021). Noun-verb conversion as a metonymic metamorphosis. SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics, 18 (1), 2–34.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), and are assumed to happen mainly within the action schema, frequently guided by the instrumental function associated with that particular body part, which serves as a prototypical carrier of salience, or focus. This corpus-assisted analysis explores the frequency of metonymic foci of body-part denominal verbs, aiming to prove that, while the instrument focus is decisive in noun-verb body-part conversion, there are other semantic factors that play a highly prominent role in directing the focus of metonymic transfer.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Theoretical background
    • 2.1The metonymic theory of conversion
    • 2.2Embodiment in figurative thinking
    • 2.3The body and its parts
    • 2.4Metaphor-metonymy interaction
  • 3.Corpus and methodology
    • 3.1Data collection and selection
    • 3.2Methodology
  • 4.Corpus-assisted quantitative analysis
    • 4.1Frequency of body parts
    • 4.2Frequency of metonymic foci
      • 4.2.1The action schema
      • 4.2.2The location (or motion) schema
      • 4.2.3The essive schema
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Data availability statement
  • Note
  • Author queries
  • References
References (52)
References
Baeskow, Heike. (2006). Reflections on noun-to-verb conversion in English. Zeitschrift für Sprachwissenschaft, 251, 205–237. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2021). Noun-verb conversion as a metonymic metamorphosis. SKASE Journal of Theoretical Linguistics, 18 (1), 2–34.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barcelona, Antonio. (2003). The cognitive theory of metaphor and metonymy: Introduction. In Barcelona, Antonio (Ed.), Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads: A cognitive perspective (pp. 1–28). Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2019). Metonymy. In Dᶏbrowska, Ewa & Dagmar Divjak (Eds.), Cognitive linguistics-foundations of language (pp. 167–194). Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bauer, Laurie. (2018). Conversion as metonymy. Word structure, 11 (2), 175–184. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bergen, Benjamin. (2015). Embodiment, simulation and meaning. In Riemer, Nick (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of semantics (pp. 142–157). Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2019). Embodiment. In Dᶏbrowska, Ewa & Dagmar Divjak (Eds.), Cognitive linguistics-foundations of language (pp. 195–220). Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Eve V. & Clark, Herbert H. (1979). When nouns surface as verbs. Language, 55 (4), 767–811. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cuccio, Valentina, Ambrosecchia, Marianna, Ferri, Francesca, Carapezza, Marco, Lo Piparo, Franco, Fogassi, Leonardo & Gallese, Vittorio. (2014). How the context matters. Literal and figurative meaning in the embodied language paradigm. [URL]. (27 March, 2025).
Cuccio, Valentina. (2015). Embodied simulation and metaphors. On the role of the body in the interpretation of bodily-based metaphors. Epistemologia, 38 (1), 99–113. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
D’Andrade, Roy. (1987). A folk model of the mind. In Holland, Dorothy & Naomi Quinn (Eds.), Cultural models in language and thought (pp. 112–150). Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Davies, Mark. (2004). British national corpus. [URL]. (17 April, 2025).
Dirven, René. (1999). Conversion as a conceptual metonymy in event schemata. In Panther, K-U. & G. Radden, (Eds.), Metonymy in language and thought (pp. 275–288). John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Enfield, N. J. (2006). Elicitation guide of parts of the body. Language Sciences, 28 (2–3), 148–157. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eurekaselect. [URL]. (18 April, 2025).
Galera Masegosa, Alicia. (2010). A cognitive approach to simile-based idiomatic expressions. Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación, 431, 3–48.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, Raymond. (1999). Speaking and thinking with metonymy. In Panther, Klaus-Uwe & Günter Radden (Eds.), Metonymy in language and thought (pp. 61–76). John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2005). Embodiment and cognitive science. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, Raymond, & Matlock, Teenie. (2008). Metaphor as embodied simulation: Psycholinguistic evidence. In Gibbs, Raymond (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of metaphor and thought (pp. 161–176). Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibbs, Raymond. (2019). Metaphor. In Dᶏbrowska, Ewa & Dagmar Divjak (Eds.), Cognitive linguistics-foundations of language (pp. 195–220). Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goossens, Louis. (1990). Metaphthonymy: The interaction of metaphor and metonymy in expressions for linguistic action. Cognitive Linguistics, 1 (3), 323–340. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd. (1997). Cognitive foundations of grammar. Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hilpert, Martin. (2007). Chained metonymies in lexicon and grammar: A crosslinguistic perspective on body-part terms. In Radden, Günter, Klaus-Michael Köpcke, Thomas Berg & Peter Siemund (Eds.), Aspects of meaning construction (pp. 77–98). John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, Mark. (1987). The body in the mind: The bodily basis of meaning, imagination, and reason. University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kastovsky, Dieter. (1980). Zero in morphology: a means of making up for phonological losses? In Fisiak, Jacek (Ed.), Historical morphology (pp. 213–250). Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kilgarriff, Adam, & Rychlý, Pavel. (2003). Sketch engine. Lexical Computing Ltd.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Koch, Peter. (2001). Metonymy: Unity in diversity. Journal of historical pragmatics, 2 (2), 201–244. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kövecses, Zoltán & Radden, Günter. (1998). Metonymy: Developing a cognitive linguistic view. Cognitive Linguistics, 9 (11), 37–77. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kövecses, Zoltán. (2003). Metaphor and emotion: Language, culture, and body in human feeling. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, George, & Johnson, Mark. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lieber, Rochelle. (2023). Ghost aspect and double plurality: On the aspectual semantics of eventive conversion and -ing nominalizations in English. In Kotowski, Sven & Ingo Plag (Eds.), The semantics of derivational morphology (pp. 15–35). Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mititelu, Verginica B., Iordăchioaia, Gianina, Leseva, Svetlozara, & Stoyanova, Ivelia B. (2023). The meaning of zero nouns and zero verbs. In Kotowski, Sven & Ingo Plag (Eds.), The semantics of derivational morphology (pp. 63–102). Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mittelberg, Irene, & Waugh, Linda. (2009). Metonymy first, metaphor second: A cognitive-semiotic approach to multimodal figures of thought in co-speech gesture. In Forceville, Charles J. & Eduardo Urios-Aparisi (Eds.), Multimodal metaphor (pp. 329–358). Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moore, Samuel. (1927). Loss of final -n in inflectional syllables in Middle English. Language, 31, 232–259. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1928). Earliest morphological changes in Middle English. Language, 41, 238–266. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
National Ocean Service. [URL]. (6 April, 2025).
Niemeier, Susanne. (2003). Straight from the heart: Metonymic and metaphorical explorations. In Barcelona, Antonio (Ed.), Metaphor and metonymy at the crossroads: A cognitive perspective (pp. 195–213). Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (2008). To be in control: Kind-hearted and cool-headed. The head-heart dichotomy in English. In Sharifian, Farzad, René Dirven, Ning Yu & Susanne Niemeier (Eds.), Culture, body, and language: Conceptualizations of internal body organs across cultures and languages (pp. 349–372). Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oxford English dictionary. [URL]. (6 April, 2025).
Panther, Klaus-Uwe, & Radden, Günter. (Eds.). (1999). Metonymy in language and thought. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Panther, Klaus-Uwe, & Thornburg, Linda. (Eds.). (2003). Metonymy and pragmatic inferencing. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Radden, Günter, & Kövecses, Zoltán. (1999). Toward a theory of metonymy. In Panther, Klaus-Uwe & Günter Radden (Eds.), Metonymy in language and thought (pp. 17–59). John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruiz de Mendoza, Francisco J., & Díez, Olga. (2002). Patterns of conceptual interaction. In Dirven, René & Ralf Pörings (Eds.), Metaphor and metonymy in comparison and contrast (pp. 489–532). Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruiz de Mendoza, Francisco J., & Otal, José L. (2002). Metonymy, grammar, and communication. Comares.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruiz de Mendoza, Francisco J. & Díez, Olga. (2003). High-level action metonymies in English and Spanish. Jezikoslovlje, 4 (1), 121–138.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruiz de Mendoza, Francisco J., & Galera, Alicia. (2014). Cognitive modeling. A linguistic perspective. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruiz de Mendoza, Francisco J. (2021). Ten lectures on cognitive modeling. Between grammar and grammar-based inferencing. Brill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schmid, Hans-Jörg. (2016). English morphology and word-formation: An introduction. Erich Schmidt Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schönefeld, Doris. (2005). Zero-derivation — functional change — metonymy. In Bauer, Laurie & Salvador Valera (Eds.), Approaches to conversion / zero-derivation (pp. 131–160). Waxmann Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tien, L. K. & Quy, N. H. (2021). An investigation into morphological and semantic features of conversion words denoting human body parts in English and Vietnamese business news. Journal of Science and Technology, 19 (6.1), 63–67.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wierzbicka, Anna. (2007). Bodies and their parts: An NSM approach to semantic typology. Language Sciences, 291, 14–65. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Witkowski, Stanley R. & Brown, Cecil H. (1985). Climate, clothing, and body-part nomenclature. Ethnology, 24 (3), 197–214. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue