Foundations of meaning : primary metaphors and primary scenes

Abstract

tio n 1 .1 M etaphor, m eaning a n d m indThis dissertation focuses on an analysis of metaphorical language, including an account of how metaphors are motivated, and how they might be constrained.There are other important and more general questions, though, which form the context for the investigation presented here.In particular, how are aspects of our experience in the world related to aspects of language and conceptual structure?These are questions which linguists, psychologists, and philosophers have each addressed in their own ways, and which are of concern to anyone interested in the nature of language and the mind, and the processes that shape them.If the dissertation is successful, it contributes to the ongoing, crossdisciplinary effort to answer these fundamental questions.In addition, the linguistic and conceptual phenomena discussed here have implications regarding even more basic questions-about the nature of consciousness and subjective experience.We will see when we examine the patterns in a range of data that the conceptual relationships which underlie metaphorical language appear to constitute a link between physical experience and the subjective self-a type of link, moreover, which is consistent with current views of the neural correlates of cognition.In short, the analysis of linguistic metaphor proves to be a powerful tool for exploring topics beyond figurative language: By pushing towards deeper analyses of metaphor, we ultimately discover an even deeper level of analysis at which relationships between language, mind, and experience become defined. P a tte rn s in m etap h o rical languageWe begin our investigation by observing the linguistic fact that words associated with particular meanings are associated with similar metaphorical usages in languages around the 1 R ep ro d u ced with p erm ission o f th e copyright ow ner.Further reproduction prohibited w ithout perm ission.world.Consider the following usages of words that refer to concepts like 'heavy,' 'support' and 'carry:' Medieval Irish Is trom m form fo r n-ingnas.'Your absence is grievous [literally 'heavy'] to me' trom re hloc 'difficult [literally 'heavy'] to pay for' Russian t'azholij 'heavy; difficult; grievous' Ancient Greek baros 'weight; oppression' Armenian krem 'carry; bear; suffer' Turkish agir 'heavy; serious; cumbersome; fatiguing; etc.' Japanese omoi 'heavy; grave; severe; difficult' Swahili zito 'heavy; difficult; severe' Arabic thaqiil 'heavy; cumbersome; oppressive; difficult' As these examples reflect, people in speech communities widely separated by time and geography all associate words from one particular semantic field (relating to physical weight) with meanings from another (relating to personal, emotional experience).Similar 2 R ep ro d u ced with p erm ission o f the copyright ow ner.Further reproduction prohibited w ithout p erm ission.patterns can be found in metaphors for many other concepts, such as intimacy, happiness, the future, and so forth.We also find striking cross-linguistic patterns in the etymologies of words for particular meanings.Eve Sweetser (1990), for instance, has examined the widespread occurrence in Indo-European languages of words which mean 'know' or 'understand' but formerly referred to vision.(This pattern is also found in languages outside the Indo-European family.)In English, see can refer metaphorically to a mental event rather than a perceptual one, but the words perspicacious and wit are better illustrations of the kind of historical trend Sweetser discusses; both formerly referred to vision but have lost this sense in modem English.In various other languages, the most basic words for knowledge and understanding derive from older words for seeing-e.g., Irish fio s 'knowledge' (from 'sight').This same pattern of semantic change is observed in connection with different roots, in different languages, and in different historical periods.Why should these patterns exist?Why should there be consistency between metaphorical usages in languages that have little or no connection with each other?An important point to note is that the pairs of meanings which a given word can refer to are not random.In English, light cannot mean 'difficult' or 'unpleasant' while heavy can.Likewise in other languages, there are pairs of meanings that do occur in association with particular words, and other meanings that never seem to be paired.1The pairings of literal and metaphorical meanings, in other words, are not arbitrary; not just any two concepts can be metaphorically associated.(Even though it often seems possible to create "arbitrary" metaphors by combining random pairs of concepts-e.g., Life is a kiwi fruit-we will see that these colorful metaphors are typically understood in terms of the more fundamental metaphors that occur more predictably.)It also seems very unlikely, given the robustness 1 Any claims along these lines are based on suggestive rather than exhaustive data, of course.It is easy to find examples of some meaning pairs, and no amount of looking seems to turn up examples of other pairs which are logically possible.R ep ro d u ced with p erm ission o f the copyright ow ner.Further reproduction prohibited w ithout p erm ission.

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