Red-hot faces and burnt hearts

People from different languages draw from the knowledge they have from the domain of heat (source domain) and apply it to the domain of anger (target domain) through metaphor. This was also found to be the case with Amharic and Changana. Our study investigates how anger is metaphorically conceptualized in these two languages. Many similarities were found even though variations do exist cross-linguistically. It is suggested that the similarities between these languages in conceptualizing anger lie in the fact that human beings share the same bodily experience: (physiology) embodiment, even though variations may arise due to the differences in cultural embodiment (race, values and geographical localization, etc). The study seeks to demonstrate how these two dimensions contribute to the overall conceptual structure of anger is heat metaphor in these two (unrelated) African languages.

Metaphoric chains

The molecular structure of a complex metaphor comprises two or more atomic metaphorical parts, known as primary metaphors. In the same way, several molecular structures of metaphors may combine and form a mixture, known as mixed metaphors. In this study, different types of metaphoric integrations are reviewed and illustrated in figures to facilitate understanding the phenomena. Above all, we introduce double-ground metaphoric chain, a new form of metaphoric integration that has not been identified in the previous literature. Also, a distinction is made between single-ground and double-ground metaphoric chains. In the former, which has already been introduced, two basic metaphors are chained with the same form and have the same ground, while the latter includes two chained metaphors, one main metaphor plus a supportive one, with different grounds. In this analysis, we benefited from Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) to analyse double-ground metaphoric chains. This study suggests that each metaphoric integration leads to a multifaceted conceptualization, in which each facet is related to one of the constituent micro-metaphors.

Roles of verb and construction cues

This study investigates how speakers of English and Korean, two typologically distinct languages, derive information from a verb and a construction to achieve sentence comprehension. In a sentence-sorting task, we manipulated verb semantics (real versus nonce) in each language. The results showed that participants from both languages were less inclined to sort sentences by a verb cue when the lexical-semantic information about a verb was obscured (i.e., nonce verb). In addition, the Korean-speaking participants were less likely affected by the verb semantics conditions than the English-speaking participants. These findings suggest the role of an argument structure construction in sentence comprehension as a co-contributor of sentence meaning, supporting the constructionist approach. The findings also imply language-specific mechanisms of sentence comprehension, contingent upon the varied impact of a verb on sentence meaning in English and Korean.

Semantic network of the German preposition hinter

The present study sets out to construct a semantic network for the German preposition hinter (‘behind’) based on the theoretical framework of “principled polysemy”. The analysis regarding the cognitive and pragmatic aspects motivating the meaning extensions of hinter attempts to highlight the importance of varying construal patterns and vantage points as well as the role of real-world knowledge. By means of corpus data, I intend to present six senses of the preposition hinter, hinting at the polysemous nature of prepositions more generally. Furthermore, the theory of conceptual metaphor is applied to account for metaphorical extensions of hinter to more abstract domains of embodied experience.

Grammatical metonymy and construal operations

This article analyses the semantic features of two constructions characterised by the specific use of morphosyntactic indicators of the category of number. The constructions are based on unusual, unobvious ways of using singular and plural forms of NP. The singular (in the first construction) and plural (in the second) forms of NP give to the constructions a metonymic character. The constructions are described as two types of metonymy, representing two different ways of construal.

Potentials for grammaticalization

This paper discusses the grammaticalization of motion verbs in Mandarin. A class of motion verbs in Mandarin that regularly appears at either V1 or V2 position in the V1+V2 construction is only grammaticalized at the V2 position, where the verb becomes a directional complement. We provide a cognitive semantic account and propose a new hypothesis that we call the syntactic position and event type sensitivity hypothesis in grammaticalization. We analyze corpus data across five historical stages for 11 simplex directional complements. The analysis draws on Talmy’s macro-event theory and Lehmann’s grammaticalization parameters. It is concluded that motion verbs at the V1 position are most likely to have agentive subjects, which foregrounds the idea of motion in V1, while V2 focuses on the Agent’s purpose. Motion verbs at V2 are relatively more likely to have non-agentive subjects, which foregrounds the Path element in V2 and complements the action of V1, rather than the purpose of the Agent. What triggers the grammaticalization of the V2 is the foregrounding of the Path element in V2, which complements the action of V1, and its non-agentive subject.

Cultural conceptualisations of loong (龙) in Chinese idioms

This study investigates the abundant metaphorical meanings of the term loong (‘dragon’) in Chinese idioms and the cognitive and cultural factors that influence those meanings from the perspective of Cultural Linguistics. To this end, we present a systematic categorisation of the idiomatic expressions involving the term loong in Mandarin Chinese based on three conceptual metaphors: a human being is a loong, a concrete entity is a loong, and an abstract object is a loong. We then elaborate on the cultural conceptualisations of loong from three perspectives: cultural schemas, cultural categories, and cultural metaphors. The results of the study show how the metaphorical conceptualisations of loong are profoundly influenced by Chinese culture. The resulting study is intended to add to the pool of studies which lend support to the view that a fine-grained study of the metaphors of a particular culture and their linguistic realisation can shed light on how culture influences human cognition. Finally, the study calls for a clearer integration of cultural approaches into conceptual metaphor theory and it explores some possibilities in this regard.

Language evolution from a cognitive-grammar perspective

This paper considers language evolution from a cognitive-grammar (CG) perspective taking Classical Arabic Case Marking (CACM) as a case in point and a departure point. It is argued that the accusative case is diachronically the baseline case mark, designating the Objective Scene (OS) and demarcating an object of perception in the initial stage of maximal subjectivity in which the ground (G) is totally implicit. Such maximum is then attenuated through a process of objectification such that g entities are gradually put onstage to fulfill the functions of identification and predication. The nominative case, then, figures to mark such emerging entities in their baseline, immediate status. This conception of G with its functions is later extended to mark entities external to G, which gives rise to the full, nominative-marked, baseline existential core (C∃) comprising the existential predicate (P∃) and the existential subject (S∃). The truncation (T) of a verb’s nominative case is argued to fulfill the semantic function of situating a process out of existential reality yielding the existential predicate minus (P-∃), which represents a basic elaboration on baseline C∃. Processes being extensions from perception, the accusative case attenuates to mark entities (D) that demarcate processes, implementing the semantic function of processual modification. Finally, a genitive-marked entity (RP) is proposed to implement the semantic function of referential modification, anchoring and referencing the conceptions of all those facets of reality.

Translating narrative style

Within the context of the Thinking-for-translating framework, this paper analyses the translation of boundary-crossing events including Manner from English into German (both satellite-framed languages) and Catalan and Spanish (both verb-framed languages) to investigate whether student translators transfer these specific types of motion event or otherwise omit (or modulate) some information. Three groups of student translators (having respectively German, Catalan and Spanish as their mother tongues) were asked to translate a series of excerpts from English narrative texts into their respective first languages. The resulting data suggest that the way student translators deal with the translation of these events is influenced by their mother tongues and the nature of the event itself (axis, suddenness, type of Figure, type of Path, type of Manner). It is also noted that German students’ translations are much more similar to the published versions than the Catalan and Spanish ones, and that Catalan and Spanish-speaking students tend to omit boundary-crossing.