Suvremena lingvistika, Vol. 63 No. 1, 2007.
Izvorni znanstveni članak
Topic-continuity, metonymy and locative adverbials: A cognitive-functional account
Mario Brdar
Sažetak
The goal of the present paper is to show how functional and cognitive linguistic approaches
can complement each other in providing external motivation for linguistic facts. Specifically,
I claim that cognitive linguistics, if it does not want to doom itself to the status of a partial
model, should in this search for motivation take clue from functional linguistics and go beyond
its traditional pet topics, human embodiment and socio–cultural environment, and also
consider the role of the existing linguistic system. I examine the interplay of metonymic
processes and topicalization as a case in point. Much recent research indicates that referential
metonymies are relatively unconstrained. However, a corpus–based study on the exploitation
of metonymically–used names of capitals in the language of media shows that this
type of metonymy is ubiquitous in English and German, but not in Hungarian and Croatian.
A detailed analysis reveals that the contrasts can in part be attributed to the fact that
English and German metonymically–used locative NPs that function as subjects often find
their counterparts in Croatian and Hungarian in locative adverbials (realized as prepositional
phrases and noun phrases with locative adpositions, respectively). It is claimed that
these locatives, which are also shown to be full–blown referential metonymies, are optimal
structural solutions in such pro–drop languages with a rich system of impersonal constructions
as far as the complex task of maintaining nominal metonymic topic–continuity while
switching between multiple metonymic targets.
Ključne riječi
metonymy; metaphor; topicalisation; locative adverbial; functionalism; cognitive linguistics
Hrčak ID:
19457
URI
Datum izdavanja:
5.2.2007.
Posjeta: 2.416 *