Polysemy In The Semantic Field Of Movement In The English Language, Детальна інформація

(22) The suitcase is too heavy for him to lift.

2.3. Metaphorical extension of the lexemes

The verbs creep and escape fall within various subdomains because of their metaphorical extension.

VERB SUBDOMAIN MEANING

Creep To move in a particular way To move quietly and slowly in order to get to a place without being noticed

To move slowly To move (light/shadow/mist) very slowly, so that you hardly notice it (lit.)

Escape To move off/away from a place/thing/person To leave a place after doing sth illegal

To move out of a place To move (gas/liquid) out of an object/a container

Creep typically describes a person’s slow movement towards a place and thus falls primarily within the subdomain To move in a particular way, which refers to movement on land. Yet it also belongs to the subdomain To move slowly through a process of personification (Object/Substance=Human), whereby a concrete entity semantically marked as “light/ shadow/ mist” is seen as a human entity. The meaning components speed —“slowly”— and secrecy —“without/hardly being noticed”— are basic to the definition of both verbs.

On the other hand, escape falls in the subdomains To move off/away from a place/ thing/ person and To move out of a place. This double membership obtains from the metaphorization of liquid as a human entity:

(23) Gas is escaping from this hole.

3. Interfield membership of MOVEMENT verbs

We have so far analysed the intrafield membership of a set of MOVEMENT verbs, i.e. their grouping under several subdomains within the semantic domain of MOVEMENT. We will now focus on the verbs’ interfield membership, i.e. their projection onto other semantic fields.

The relations of a semantic domain with others codify metaphorical processes, thus showing that lexical structure is governed by conceptual structure., or, in Sweetser’s words (1990:25), “much of meaning is grounded in speakers’ understanding of the world”. Indeed, each language is equivalent to a particular conceptual system by means of which we interpret our environment, and this conceptual organization is reflected in the lexicon. This means that metaphor is not only a cognitive but also a linguistic phenomenon. Metaphorical processes are encoded in the lexicon and must thus be integrated in a lexical model.

Therefore, the codification of metaphorical processes in the lexicon not only tells us a great deal about how we understand and construct reality but also reflects the internal organization of the lexicon.

Below we sketch the metaphors codified in the domain of MOVEMENT, which establish connections with the semantic fields of COGNITION, SPEECH, CHANGE, FEELING and ACTION.

MET. PROCESS TYPE METAPHOR METAPHOR LEX. EXPRESSION TARGET DOMAIN

Reification Concretization Idea = Object swing, revolve, stuff

cram, shove COGNITION



Words = Object raise, drop, pass SPEECH



Ideas/Words = Cloth spin, weave SPEECH

Place/Space Activity = Place rush, leave, quit abandon ACTION

Orientational Health = Up fall, sink CHANGE



Pitch = Up rise, raise, sink, lower drop CHANGE



More = Up jump, rise, raise, fall sink, plunge, plummet come down, lower drop, sink CHANGE