An Alternative Account of the Interpretation of Referential Metonymy and Metaphor

Most modern linguists agree that metaphor and metonymy are two distinct constructions arising from two distinct cognitive operations, although they are alike in that they both involve an explicit source expression (that which is mentioned) which suggests an implicit target (intended item of communication). The most common description of the fundamental difference between metaphor and metonymy is that the association which takes us from source to target is analogy and similarity between otherwise dissimilar phenomena in the case of metaphor and concomitance in the case of metonymy. The prevalent account in cognitive linguistics parallels this explanation, i.e. in the case of metaphor, there is mapping across knowledge structures (i.e. domains or ICMs); in the case of metonymy there is mapping within the same domain or domain matrix (Lakoff and Turner 1989, Croft 1993 and Kovecses and Radden 1998). The aims of the present contribution are, first, to demonstrate that it is difficult to see how this traditional theory and the cognitivist version of it account for important syntactic, semantic and functional differences between metaphoric and metonymic expressions and, secondly, to suggest an alternative to this theory which would better account for these differences. This alternative presupposes a distinction between propositional and referential metonymy. This distinction will therefore be introduced first. Next will follow a list of differences between metaphor and metonymy which need to be accounted for. In the fourth section, finally, the alternative approach addressing these differences will be presented.