Productivity and Schematicity in Metaphors

The theory of metaphor proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980a, 1980b) and Lakoff (1993) involves a mapping of conceptual structure from one semantic domain to another. We investigate properties of these conceptual domain mappings by comparing them to morphological derivational relations. Schematicity and productivity are properties that Bybee (1985) and Langacker (1987) propose for characterizing morphological derivational relations, which we apply to our analysis of metaphor. Metaphors are argued to vary in their degree of semantic schematicity: Domain relations function as generalizations over specific metaphorical expressions. We also demonstrate three points on a continuum of productivity: Conventional metaphors are highly productive, metaphorically motivated transparent idioms are semiproductive, and opaque idioms are unproductive. Each point is compared with an example of morphological productivity having a corresponding conceptual organization. The results demonstrate that semantic productivity can be characterized in the same way as morphological productivity, suggesting that form and meaning are organized by the same principles.

[1]  R. Gibbs,et al.  Conceptual knowledge in the interpretation of idioms. , 1990, Journal of experimental psychology. General.

[2]  R. Gibbs.  Categorization and metaphor understanding. , 1992, Psychological review.

[3]  D. Gentner.  Structure‐Mapping: A Theoretical Framework for Analogy* , 1983 .

[4]  E. Winner,et al.  New names for old things: the emergence of metaphoric language , 1979, Journal of Child Language.

[5]  R. Gibbs,et al.  Linguistic factors in children's understanding of idioms , 1987, Journal of Child Language.

[6]  B. Indurkhya,et al.  Metaphor and Cognition: An Interactionist Approach , 1993, CL.

[7]  Gibbs,et al.  Figurative thought and figurative language. , 1994 .

[8]  M. Turner,et al.  Death Is the Mother of Beauty , 1987 .

[9]  Mark Turner,et al.  Reading Minds: The Study of English in the Age of Cognitive Science , 1997 .

[10]  Raymond W. Gibbs,et al.  Idioms and mental imagery: The metaphorical motivation for idiomatic meaning , 1990, Cognition.

[11]  What is the Invariance Hypothesis? , 1990 .

[12]  S. Glucksberg,et al.  Understanding Metaphorical Comparisons: Beyond Similarity. , 1990 .

[13]  G. Lakoff,et al.  Metaphors We Live By , 1980 .

[14]  G. Lakoff,et al.  More than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor , 1991 .

[15]  Eleanor Rosch,et al.  Principles of Categorization , 1978 .

[16]  G. Lakoff.  The Invariance Hypothesis: is abstract reason based on image-schemas? , 1990 .

[17]  Gibbs,et al.  Metaphor and Thought: Process and products in making sense of tropes , 1993 .

[18]  G. Nunberg.  The pragmatics of reference , 1978 .

[19]  Leonard Talmy,et al.  Force Dynamics in Language and Cognition , 1987, Cogn. Sci..

[20]  B. Indurkhya.  Metaphor and Cognition: An Interactionist Approach , 1992 .

[21]  W. Bruce Croft,et al.  The role of domains in the interpretation of metaphors and metonymies , 1993 .

[22]  Leonard Talmy,et al.  The relation of grammar to cognition , 1986 .

[23]  Brygida Rudzka-Ostyn,et al.  Topics in cognitive linguistics , 1988 .

[24]  John M. Lawler.  Lexical Semantics in the Commercial Transaction Frame:Value, Worth, Cost, andPrice , 1989 .

[25]  S. Glucksberg,et al.  Metaphor and Thought: How metaphors work , 1993 .

[26]  Joan L. Bybee,et al.  Rules and schemas in the development and use of the English past tense , 1982 .

[27]  Mark L. Johnson.  The body in the mind: the bodily basis of meaning , 1987 .

[28]  S. Glucksberg,et al.  Metaphor understanding and accessing conceptual schema : reply to Gibbs (1992) , 1992 .

[29]  Cristina Cacciari,et al.  The place of idioms in a literal and metaphorical world. , 1993 .

[30]  Gilles Fauconnier,et al.  Conceptual Integration and Formal Expression , 1995 .

[31]  Arthur C. Graesser,et al.  Aspects of idiom interpretation: Comment on Nayak and Gibbs , 1991 .

[32]  Carol Lynn Moder,et al.  Morphological Classes as Natural Categories , 1983 .

[33]  M. Turner,et al.  Death Is the Mother of Beauty: Mind, Metaphor, Criticism , 1987 .

[34]  S. Glucksberg,et al.  Conceptual metaphors are not automatically accessed during idiom comprehension , 1993, Memory & cognition.

[35]  Michael J. Reddy.  Metaphor and Thought: The conduit metaphor: A case of frame conflict in our language about language , 1993 .

[36]  G. Lakoff.  The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor , 1993 .

[37]  John Price-Wilkin,et al.  Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed.) , 1991 .

[38]  G. Lakoff,et al.  Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind , 1988 .

[39]  Á. Makkai.  Idiom structure in English , 1972 .

[40]  Mark Johnson,et al.  The Metaphorical Structure of the Human Conceptual System , 1980, Cogn. Sci..

[41]  S. Vosniadou.  Context and the Development of Metaphor Comprehension , 1989 .

[42]  E. Rosch,et al.  Cognition and Categorization , 1980 .

[43]  Mary McGee Wood.  A definition of idiom , 1986 .

[44]  R. Gibbs,et al.  Psycholinguistic studies on the conceptual basis of idiomaticity , 1990 .

[45]  M. H. Kelly,et al.  Metaphor comprehension and knowledge of semantic domains. , 1987 .

[46]  D. Gary Miller,et al.  1. Theoretical Prerequisites , 1994 .

[47]  M. Turner.  The literary mind. , 1997 .

[48]  Frank C. Keil,et al.  Conceptual Domains and the Acquisition of Metaphor , 1986 .

[49]  Gregory B. Simpson,et al.  Understanding word and sentence , 1991 .

[50]  Cristina Cacciari,et al.  Idioms: Processing, Structure, and Interpretation , 1993 .

[51]  S. Siltanen.  Effects of Explicitness on Children's Metaphor Comprehension , 1990 .

[52]  John J. Ohala,et al.  On the Structure of Phonetic Categories , 1984 .

[53]  D. Gentner.  Metaphor as Structure Mapping: The Relational Shift. , 1988 .

[54]  G. Lakoff.  Women, fire, and dangerous things : what categories reveal about the mind , 1989 .

[55]  Cristina Cacciari,et al.  Understanding idiomatic expressions. The contribution of word meanings , 1991 .

[56]  David Allbritton,et al.  METAPHOR-BASED SCHEMAS AND TEXT REPRESENTATIONS : MAKING CONNECTIONS THROUGH CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS , 1995 .

[57]  T. Clausner.  Cognitive structures in metaphor comprehension , 1993 .

[58]  D. G. MacKay,et al.  Metaphor and Thought , 1980 .

[59]  B. Pearson.  The comprehension of metaphor by preschool children , 1990, Journal of Child Language.

[60]  Raymond W. Gibbs,et al.  Why idioms mean what they do , 1991 .