Creative Compounding in English: The Semantics of Metaphorical and Metonymical Noun-noun Combinations

Benczes, Reka

ISBN 10: 9027223734 / ISBN 13: 9789027223739

Published by John Benjamins Pub Co, 2006

About this Item

205 pages. 9.50x6.50x0.75 inches. In Stock.

Seller Inventory # __9027223734

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Creative Compounding in English: The Semantics of Metaphorical and Metonymical Noun-noun Combinations
• Publisher: John Benjamins Pub Co
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 9027223734
• ISBN 13: 9789027223739
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Brand New
• Weight: 0.5 kilograms

About this title

Synopsis

Metaphorical and metonymical compounds – novel and lexicalised ones alike – are remarkably abundant in language. Yet how can we be sure that when using an expression such as land fishing in order to speak about metal detecting, the referent will be immediately understood even if the hearer had not been previously familiar with the compound? Accordingly, this book sets out to explore whether the semantics of metaphorical and metonymical noun–noun combinations can be systematically analysed within a theoretical framework, where systematicity pertains to regularities in both the cognitive processes and the products of these processes, that is, the compounds themselves. Backed up by recent psycholinguistic evidence, the book convincingly demonstrates that such compounds are not semantically opaque as it has been formerly claimed: they can in fact be analysed and accounted for within a cognitive linguistic framework, by the combined application of metaphor, metonymy, blending, profile determinacy and schema theory; and represent the creative and associative word formation processes that we regularly apply in everyday language.