Original scientific paper
Metonymy as a motivating factor in the system of adjective complementation in English
Mario Brdar
; Pedagoški fakultet, Osijek
Abstract
The present paper is concerned with demonstrating how various types of metonymic mappings
can help motivate (i) the morphosyntactic form and (ii) the semantic content of complements
of certain sets of English predicative adjectives, thus eliminating a number of apparent
idiosyncracies in the complementation system of English adjectives. Two case studies,
one on a marginal possessive construction and the other on predications exhibiting
MANNER-FOR-ACTIVITY metonymy, are adduced to illustrate some morphosyntactic aspects,
while a case study on the predicatively used adjective compatible, provides evidence
for the latter aspect of motivation.
Keywords
metonymy; adjective forms; English; semantics of nominal phrases
Hrčak ID:
22623
URI
Publication date:
30.11.2000.
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