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Traditional accounts of figurative language consider like-simile and metaphor to be largely equivalent. However,more recent research shows that metaphor expresses a closer association between the two terms of comparison than likesimile.This paper proposes a variety of criteria to understand the similarities and differences between these two figures ofspeech, among them the abstractness of the resemblance relationship, the greater subjectivity of metaphor, and the role ofcomparison in contrast to other factors. This discussion casts light on the metaphor-simile equivalence versus non-equivalence debate.

Except for metaphor and metonymy, the study of most traditional figures of speech has largely been neglected in Cognitive Linguistics. This article attempts to fill this gap by exploring a broad range of figures of speech in terms of their dependency relations and organizational patterns. It distinguishes between basic and non-basic figures of speech, where the latter arise from variants of the basic cognitive operations that shape the former. It then discusses these figures in terms of their interrelationships, their shared features, and the attitudinal or denotational nature of their meaning effects. The result is a unified account of figurative language.

Agent-deprofiling constructions have the function of drawing the language user’s attention to the non-agentive elements of a predication, while endowing one of these elements with agent-like qualities. Members of this family are the inchoative, middle, instrument-subject, location-subject, and cause-subject constructions. These constructions have been discussed in the literature, especially in projectionist accounts of language, without adequately accounting for their relatedness, which in our view can best be done by investigating their grounding in cognition. The present article addresses this issue by considering agent-deprofiling constructions as belonging to the class of what we term pretense constructions. Pretense constructions provide non-descriptive, or re-construed, representations of states, situations, or events. Because of their re-construed nature, which involves metaphor and/or metonymy, in these configurations there is no one-to-one match between the semantic and syntactic functions of their elements. We discuss how this reorganization of the semantic and syntactic function of constructional elements produces specific meaning implications that can be motivated by underlying metaphoric and metonymic shifts, sometimes working in cooperation.

This chapter accounts for the different outcomes resulting from the exploitation of different kinds of situational cognitive models (scenarios). Starting from Ruiz de Mendoza and Galera’s (2014) taxonomy of cognitive models, we take a step further by subdividing scenarios into descriptive, attitudinal, and regulatory types. It is our contention that the kind of scenario involved constrains the inferential mechanisms activated at the pragmatic levels, which are supported by metonymic activity in the form of metonymic expansion plus metonymic reduction. How such processes can motivate the various formal aspects of constructions is discussed with reference to Kay and Fillmore’s (1999) well-known description of the What’s X Doing Y? construction. This chapter also shows the connections between Langacker’s profile-base relations and the metonymic exploitation of the different kinds of scenarios.

The present paper goes beyond previous treatments of cognitive models, especially conceptual metaphor and metonymy, by drawing on linguistic evidence. It introduces needed refinements into previous meaning construction accounts by investigating the activity ofconceptual complexes, i.e., combinations of cognitive models whose existence can be detected from a careful examination of the meaning effects of some linguistic expressions. This improvement endows the linguist with a more powerful set of analytical tools capable of dealing with a broader range of phenomena than previous theories. The paper first exploresmetaphoricandmetonymic complexes, and their meaning effects. Then, it addresses the metonymic exploitation offrame complexesandimage-schematic complexes. The resulting analytical apparatus proves applicable to the study offictive motionandimage-schema transformations, which have so far been addressed in Cognitive Linguistics without making explicit any relation between them or with other phenomena. We give evidence that these two phenomena can be dealt with as specific cases of metonymic domain expansion and domain reduction respectively. This means that fictive motion and image-schema transformations can be fully integrated into an encompassing account of cognitive modeling based on the activity of single or combined cognitive operations on basic or complex cognitive models.

Andrew Marvell’s poem “To his coy mistress” has generally been taken as one more example of thecarpe diemtradition in literature. This tradition makes use of time metaphors, especially time is a resource. However, we find that Marvell exploits this and other time metaphors in ways that go beyond the traditional understanding of thecarpe diemmotif. We first give an overview of the treatment of the notion of time within Conceptual Metaphor Theory, which is then applied to the understanding of central thematic and structural aspects of the poem. We stress the importance of the metaphorstime is a resource, time moves, events are actionsand a cluster of metaphors revolving around thecarpe diemmotif. Finally, the paper discusses how Marvell imaginatively organizes what otherwise would be considered mere stock metaphors into an intricate logical network specifically tailored to sustain an argumentative line.

The starting point for the present paper is the classification of constructions, understood as fixed pairings of form and meaning, into four levels of meaning representation, i.e., the argument-structure, implicational, illocutionary and discourse levels. The meaning part of constructions contains fixed and variable elements. In argument-structure constructions the fixed elements are generic and, as such, they are open to parameterization through the integration of lower-level lexical structure into them. For example, the 'caused-motion' construction, which takes the form X CAUSES Y TO MOVE Z, can parameterize 'cause to move' by means of such predicates as 'push', 'kick' and 'drag'. In constructions from other levels of description, the fixed part, which is non-generic, contains sets of conditions that are stably realized by specific formal configurations, which are highly idiomatic. For example, the sentence Who's been messing up the bulletin board? is usually not a question about the identity of the person that has performed the described action, but an expression of irritation on the part of the speaker at someone having handled the notices on the board inefficiently. The underlying configuration, which can be labeled Who's Been VP-ing (Y)?, is an implicational construction whose VP componentwhich completes the past perfect form of the fixed part-is necessarily a progressive form, thus indicating that the action has taken place in the recent past and is of consequence to the present moment. The rest of the meaning cannot be derived compositionally but is obtained from previous inferential activity based on the non-grammatical content of the "VP Y" part of the construction: People are expected not to misuse what is not theirs. Such content is a matter of socio-cultural conventions that regulate human interaction with other humans and the inferences originally derived from it have become entrenched through frequent association with the expressive pattern that now constitutes the formal part of the construction. The same is the case with illocutionary meaning, which is often captured by idiomatic constructions. For example, Can't you please stop making noise? derives its combination of directive and expressive force (it is a request and a complaint at the same time) from the entrenchment of meaning implications arising from the fact that it is not socially acceptable for people to act in ways that bother other people. Along these lines, the paper explores other such socio-cultural conventions, examines the type of inferences that they underlie and makes correlations with formal expression patterns. Such a correlation reveals networks of meaning relations among formal patterns that enable us to give structure to the implicational and illocutionary segments of the 'constructicon' of English. It also sets up explicit connections between the constructional and inferential domains of linguistic research.Keywords: Construction, Meaning Implication, Illocution, Socio-Cultural Convention, Lexical-Constructional ModelIntroductionThe starting point for the present paper is the classification of constructions, understood as fixed pairings of form and meaning (Goldberg, 1995; 2006), into four levels of meaning construction. These are the argument-structure, implicational, illocutionary and discourse levels. This classification, which is part of the architecture of the Lexical Constructional Model (LCM; Ruiz de Mendoza and Mairal, 2008; Mairal and Ruiz de Mendoza, 2009; Ruiz de Mendoza, 2013; Ruiz de Mendoza and Galera, 2014), is based on the distinction between high-level and low-level situational and non-situational cognitive models. As we will see below, implicational and illocutionary constructions are both based on situational cognitive models, while argument-structure and discourse constructions exploit non-situational cognitive models. What is more, implicational and illocutionary constructions capture meaning that arises from the same kind of cognitive activity. …

Construction Grammar approaches assume the existence of a constructicon, i.e. a network of grammatical constructions, or the conventionalized form-meaning pairingsof a given language. However, construction grammarians generally offer analyses of constructions at one specific level of linguistic enquiry, without exploring the connections that exist with constructions belonging to other levels of description. The constructicon as a whole is thus hardly ever accounted for in a single explanatory theory or approach. Moving towards a more holistic view of language, this paper discusses the way in which a Construction Grammar model (the Lexical Constructional Model) deals with constructions of diverse nature and complexity and withparallel inferential meaning-makingmechanisms by relating bothto the common idealized cognitive model typesthatthey exploit. Abordagens da gramática de construção assumem a existênciade uma constructicon, ou seja, uma rede de construções gramaticais, ou de pareamentos convencionalizados de forma-significado de uma dada língua. Contudo, gramáticos de construções geralmente analisam construções em um nível específico de investigação linguística, sem explorarem as conexões que existem com construções que pertencem a outros níveis de descrição. A construçãocomo um todo é, portanto, difícilmente contabilizadaem uma única teoria explicativa ou abordagem.Direcionando o olhar para uma visãomais holística da língua, este trabalho discute o modo como um modelo de Gramática de Construções (o Modelo Construcional Lexical) lida com construções de natureza e complexidade diversas e com mecanismos de construção de sentidos inferenciais paralelos por relacioná-los com tipos de modelos cognitivos idealizados que tais construções exploram.

The notion of “conceptual mapping”, as a set of correspondences between conceptual domains, was popularized in Cognitive Semantics, following seminal work by Lakoff & Johnson (1980), as a way of accounting for the basic cognitive activity underlying metaphor and metonymy. Strangely enough, Cognitive Semantics has paid little, if any, attention to other cases of so-called figurative language such as hyperbole, irony, paradox, and oxymoron. This paper contends that it is possible to account for these and other figures of thought in terms of the notion of conceptual mapping. It argues that the differences between these and other figurative uses of language are a matter of the nature of the domains involved in mappings and how they are made to correspond. Additionally, this paper examines constraints on mappings and concludes that the same factors that constrain metaphor and metonymy are operational in the case of mappings for the other figures of thought under discussion.

En este artículo se trata la cuestión de la organización del conocimiento proposicional en forma de redes conceptuales. A este respecto, seguimos las ideas expuestas en Ruiz de Mendoza (1996), intentando hacerlas compatibles con las propuestas, todavía programáticas, de autores cognitivistas como Langackory Lakoff Señalamos algunas de las deficiencias de sus trabajos y argumentamos a favor de una explicación unificada según la cual las caracterizaciones semánticas adaptan la forma de redes conceptuales que -una vez activadas- producen conjuntos de proposiciones ordenadas según su grado de prominencia. Para ilustrar nuestra tesis, desarrollamos diversos aspectos del esquema conceptual relativo a la palabra party.

This paper provides formalized, machine-tractable representations of two broad kinds of constructional configuration, argument-structure and implicational constructions, on the basis of previous linguistic analyses. It discusses computational implementation requirements on constructional description. In this respect, the paper argues that the Goldbergian approach (cf. Goldberg, 2006) provides the best fit for the implementation of implicational constructions, while a mini-constructionist account (cf. Boas, 2014) is suitable for argumentstructure constructions. Because of their representativeness, we have chosen to illustrate our discussion by making reference to the family of English resultatives, which are argumentstructure constructions, and to the family of Wh-attitudinal constructions, which are implicational. Computational implementation demands that the members of the family of the resultative be split into mini-constructions, while the complexity of implicational configurations requires that different formal variants be grouped together under one single computational representation. The paper further makes explicit proposals for the machine tractability of lexical-constructional integration and of meaning implications that have reached constructional status through entrenchment, two problems that remain unsolved within standard computational approaches to language processing

This paper offers a principled account of the integration processes of Levin’s (1993) say verbs into two constructions, the dative and the as construction. In the light of the Lexical Constructional Model (LCM) and taking Levin’s (1993) original account of verb classes and alternations as a point of departure, we explore the principles that regulate such integration, which in the LCM is referred to as subsumption. These principles, which act as either licensing or blocking factors on this process, can be based upon conceptual compatibility between lexical and constructional structure or upon an alternative construal of the verbal predicate in order to adapt it to constructional requirements. Our study of this group of verbs in relation to the two constructions mentioned above has further allowed us to propose a robust sub-classification of them on the basis of more refined syntactico-semantic criteria.

This article discusses some of the claims of the earlier and later versions of the Contemporary Theory of Metaphor (CTM) and addresses some of the criticism that has been leveled against it. It is argued that much of this criticism arises from common misconceptions as to the real claims made by the theory. However, CTM is still in need of further exploration and empirical support. In this connection, we identify some areas where research is still needed and supply our own developments. We argue for a more complex classification of metaphor types, which takes into account various complementary taxonomic perspectives, including the nature of source and target and the genericity and complexity of the metaphoric operation. We also explore metaphor in relation to cognitive prominence and conceptual interaction issues. Finally, we deal with the problem of constraints on metaphor and make a proposal for three complementary kinds of constraint.

The “feeling” that Relevance Theory (RT) and Cognitive Linguistics (CL), especially Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT), despite sharp differences, have enough points in common to make them largely co...

1. Contributors 2. Introduction 3. On the relatedness of functionalism and pragmatics (by Gomez Gonzalez, Maria de los Angeles) 4. I. Methods in the analysis of language and discourse 5. Developing comprehensive criteria of adequacy: The challenge of hybridity (by Wray, Alison) 6. A method of analysing recontextualisation in the communication of science (by Connolly, John) 7. Contrastive corpus annotation in the CONTRANOT project: Issues and problems (by Lavid, Julia) 8. Form and function in evaluative language: The use of corpora to identify context valence shifters in a linguistically-motivated sentiment analysis system (by Moreno Ortiz, Antonio) 9. Life before Nation: Bibliometrics and L2 vocabulary studies in 1982 (by Meara, Paul) 10. II. Pragmatics and grammar 11. A lexico-paradigmatic approach to English setting-constructions (by Guerrero Medina, Pilar) 12. How did we think? (by Janssens, Karolien) 13. The adverb truly in Present-Day English (by Simon-Vandenbergen, Anne-Marie) 14. III. Current trends in pragmatics and discourse analysis 15. Nominal reference and the dynamics of discourse: A cognitive-functional approach (by Davidse, Kristin) 16. 'Pragmatic punting' and prosody: Evidence from corpora (by Romero-Trillo, Jesus) 17. Besides as a connective (by Hannay, Mike) 18. Searle and Sinclair on communicative acts: A sketch of a research problem (by Stubbs, Michael) 19. Strategies of (in)directness in Spanish speakers' production of complaints and disagreements in English and Spanish (by Hidalgo-Downing, Laura) 20. Name index 21. Term index