Is a metonymy always a metonymy? A speculation on taxonomical aspects of propositional metonymy and situational metonymy

• Main Author: Golovko Nikolay
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: EDP Sciences 2019-01-01
• Series: SHS Web of Conferences
• Online Access: https://www.shs-conferences.org/articles/shsconf/pdf/2019/10/shsconf_cildiah2019_00044.pdf

Research efforts in cognitive linguistics are frequently focused on the notion of metaphor, while the notion of metonymy, as well as its taxonomical aspects, is not always thoroughly researched. A study of the most recent research papers in the English language has shown that metonymy is often interpreted in a broad fashion, incorporating several different types of cognitive processes and phenomena, so that a scholar becomes unable to distinguish them from each other and \ or is essentially forced to regard them as manifestations of the same phenomenon. A more taxonomically accurate approach is suggested, involving the use of the term “synecdoche” for affinity-related concept shifts and including a review of two subclasses of metonymy that have not yet received a considerable amount of attention – propositional metonymy and situational metonymy.