Transformations on image schemas and cross-linguistic polysemy

More documents

Recommendations

Info

The meaning ‘back’, illustrated in (14c) and Fig. 7, represents another possible development of the face-to-face orientation. (Or, alternatively, a further development of the ‘closure’-meaning.) Fig. 7. The meaning ‘back’. As one entity closes the path of the other, the movement may only continue by making a turn and taking the same trajectory back again. Considering the polysemy of German wieder in the light of the sense development of Sw. igen ‘again’ will provide us with an explanation of the meaning variants ‘back’, ‘return’, exemplified in (13) above. Since German wieder shares the same core meaning as Sw. igen, the meaning variants of wieder are motivated on the same grounds as these variants are motivated in the polysemy of the again-set. In Modern Swedish, the central meaning of igen is the repetitive one, i.e. the meaning is equivalent to the meaning of English again. The last link in the meaning chain relates the meaning ‘back’ to ‘again’ by emphasizing the feature of repetition present in the ‘back’-sense. More specifically, two different movements – a “coming” and a “going” – are reinterpreted into movements of the same kind. Thus, the schema in Fig. 7 is transformed into the schema in Fig. 8 (which is identical with the sequential schema in Fig. 3 above). Fig. 8. The meaning ‘again’. Summarizing, the sense development of Eng. again and Swed. igen originates in an asymmetric face-to-face-meaning and ends in a symmetric repetitive meaning. The conclusion that can be drawn from the data presented in this section is that the ‘face-to-face’-sense has a potential to develop a ‘together with’-sense, an ‘at’-sense, and a repetitive meaning, respectively. The former two possibilities are shown by the historical development of the with-set, except for the German equivalent wieder. German wieder instead follows the same track as the 38
again-set – which speaks in favor of the idea that the potential sense development operates on the abstract image schema, not the more contextual interpretations of the word(s). 4.2. The parallel schema A common path of development of lexemes based on the parallel schema is from the comitative meaning (‘together with’) to the meaning of instrument and manner. For instance, the semantic equivalents Eng. with, Swed. med, Icel. vifl and Spanish con all develop both the meaning of instrument and the meaning of manner. Here the symmetric comitative meaning is turned into an asymmetric one by “degrading” one of the entities to Instrument or Manner, respectively; cf. the examples in (15): (15) a. He threatened her with the scissors. INSTRUMENT b. She was walking with difficulty. MANNER Taking into account the possibilities of generating truly inverse meanings out of the face-to-face-schema we expect the same to be true also for the parallel schema. Just to mention one example, Latin contra ‘against’ (< *com-tro-) is formed on the preposition com, cum ‘with’ (Walde 1965: 251, Onions 1966: 209), thus illustrating the opposite development to Eng. with (‘against’ > ‘together with’). The schema in Fig. 4 is consequently transformed into the schema in Fig. 2. 6 Interestingly enough, the polysemy of Latin contra shows similarities with both the with-set and the again-set; cf. the selection of meaning variants from Oxford Latin Dictionary: (16) The polysemy of contra: a. in front of one, in the eyes, face to face b. so as to face the enemy, on the other side, against one c. towards, up to, a person, so as to meet him, face to face 6 As com, cum governs ablative in Latin there might be an alternative link between the meaning ‘with’ and ‘against’. Assuming that ‘from’ (the meaning of the ablative case) and ‘against’ encode different perspectives of the same directional sense – ‘from’ being source oriented and ‘against’ goal oriented – the ‘against’-sense may arise as a result of transforming the perspective of the direction encoded as ‘from’ into ‘against’. 39
Page 1 and 2: Reprinted from Tre uppsatser om sem
Page 3 and 4: predicates (verb, prepositions, adv
Page 5 and 6: context like The road goes from Mal
Page 7 and 8: polysemy. This is presumably true f
Page 9 and 10: Given a specific image schema, is i
Page 11 and 12: ecame oppositional (Traugott 1985:
Page 13: (13) a. Er fiel und stand sofort wi
Page 17 and 18: the same development as Greek metá
Page 19 and 20: (17) Face-to-face-orientation: OE w
Page 21 and 22: Croft, William, 1993: The role of d

Transformations on image schemas and cross-linguistic polysemy

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?