PRIKAZI FLUMINENSIA, god. 30 (2018), br. 1, str. 299-329 299

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How to disentangle the metonymy – word-formation puzzle

Mario Brdar METONYMY AND WORD-FORMATION. THEIR INTERACTIONS AND COMPLEMENTATION. Newcastle upone Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2017

Introduction guages. Apart from providing a full The book ‘Metonymy and Word- and accessible insight into the phe- Formation. Their Interactions and nomena of word formation and Complementation’ authored by metonymy, the author goes beyond Mario Brdar, proposes an original, the exploration of nouns function- insightful and extremely valuable ing as referential metonymies, and look into the relation between two examines the role of metonymy in linguistic phenomena: metonymy the grammar of also verbs and adjec- and word formation. By revisiting tives, exploring the relation between the role and, even more importantly, metonymy on the one hand, and a the impact of metonymy on the de- series of single (non-concatenative velopment of grammar, this work and concatenative) word-formation contributes to our understanding of processes, on the other. Centrally, he both metonymy, as well as (its role proposes the hypothesis that, differ- within) the development of gram- ently from what has been claimed in matical or, rather, linguistic systems the literature with respect to central as such. Throughout the work, exist- patterns of word-formation, concep- ing theoretical positions are tual metonymy and word formation succinctly and yet very clearly re- are not to be understood as working viewed and productively intertwined in unison and as one automatically with novel theoretical insights and triggering the other. hypotheses, which are in all cases Before we move on to the review underpinned by numerous and very proper, a point of clarification is convincing and adequate examples due: when not differently stated, taken from a variety of world lan- page numbers relative to citations PRIKAZI 300 FLUMINENSIA, god. 30 (2018), br. 1, str. 299-329 which are not followed by a biblio- studies of language and has only in graphic source are to be intended as recent decades gained focal interest relative to the book under review. within the cognitive linguistic For citations taken from other framework. This surge in interest work, the source is indicated imme- was prompted by increasing evi- diately following the quote, in dence supporting the view that standard citation format. conceptual metonymy might actu- ally be an indicator of general Overview of the book human thought processes (and not From the very first page of the just linguistic ones). Albeit their book the author draws our attention recognition within linguistics stud- to the fact that both phenomena un- ies, neither word formation nor der scrutiny have remained metonymy can be said to have been underexplored in the study of lan- anything but marginalized when it guage. While it might be correct to comes to centuries of traditional say that this claim is more true of mainstream study of language (and, metonymy than of word formation, more specifically, grammar). the attempt of the author to thor- In the introduction to the book oughly analyse and explain the (Chapter one) Mario Brdar takes us previously neglected interactive rela- for a tour of strategies language tion between the two phenomena uses for lexicalizing concepts. under investigation, represents a Among the mechanisms that world striking academic move and a poten- languages have at their disposal for tially far reaching step in the packaging ideas (concepts) into lexi- direction of a fuller understanding of cal items, the author focuses on: figuration in language and, more onomatopoeia, word manufacture, generally, of the development of lin- lexical borrowing and the method guistic systems. whereby already existing lexical While word formation has tradi- units are recycled. Within this latter tionally received academic attention group, two sub-methods are identi- that has combined aspects of for- fied: reinterpretation (making mal (morphosyntactic) and words polysemous), and combina- semantic (lexical) nature, it has tion (which includes the well-known (come to think of it, somewhat sur- morphological processes which prisingly) never gained centre stage yield combinations of free with oth- in the study of grammar. Similarly, er free and/or bound morphemes). metonymy has for its history of ex- Most interestingly and most impor- istence been confined to literary tantly for the purposes of the work PRIKAZI FLUMINENSIA, god. 30 (2018), br. 1, str. 299-329 301 under review here, in the introduc- The author also positions the re- tory part of his work the author viewed morphological types within draws his readers’ attention to the a more general context of inflection fact that metaphor and metonymy and derivation, i.e. two most pro- fall within this latter group of lexi- ductive word formation processes, calization strategies, as they yield introducing also the distinction new senses of words, whereas – between concatenative and non- clearly – word formation would concatenative processes (e.g. represent the second subgroup, i.e. affixation and compounding being that of lexicalization through mor- good illustrations of the former, phological combinatory patterning. and conversion, clipping, back-for- As metonymy – being one of the mation, blending or reduplication two central topics of the book - is being good illustrations of the lat- dealt with in a separate chapter ter). (chapter two), the author next The first, introductory chapter is turns to a concise and yet precise followed by a chapter on metonymy. and very informative review of cen- The notion – which together with tral theoretical concepts and word formation represents the focal assumptions that are at the core of point of the book – is in this chap- (the study of) word formation (Sec- ter detailed both in terms of its tion 1.2.). Morphology, as the types and functions, as well as its linguistic discipline that concerns less known role in grammar. Given itself with the understanding of the that the topic of metonymy has structure of words, is reviewed in held central stage position amongst terms of the types of morphemes the academic interests of Mario traditionally proposed on the basis Brdar over a number of years (see of: a) their meaning (lexical or Brdar 2007, 2016; Brdar and Brdar- semantic vs. grammatical or func- Szabó 2011, 2014, 2017) it comes tional morphemes), b) their (in) as no surprise that this chapter pro- dependence status (free vs. bound vides a fascinating illustration of morphemes), and c) their position both the traditional answers to the (applied to affixes, and yielding a questions of what goes on in me- distinction into prefixes, suffixes, tonymy and what metonymy brings infixes with the subtype interfix, about, as well as a thought provok- circumfix, transfix, and supraseg- ing challenge that there might be mental morphemes suprafix, more in metonymy than first meets superfix and simulfix). All instances the eye, and that this pertains to are exemplified. the power that metonymy has in PRIKAZI 302 FLUMINENSIA, god. 30 (2018), br. 1, str. 299-329 terms of its lexicalization (and also metaphor and metonymy, chapter grammatical) potential. two proposes both an account of es- Quite interestingly, in chapter tablished notions relative to these two the discussion of metonymy is two linguistic concepts, while at the constantly intertwined with men- same time, the author manages to tion (and more!) of metaphor. The question some standard and gener- author is fully aware of this intrin- ally accepted views and puts forth sic bond and comments on the (un) some novel and deeply thought pro- natural binomial in the following voking theoretical questions: way: 1) how far can we take the analogy “It is interesting to note from a between metaphorical and me- methodological point of view that tonymy mappings and, relatedly, while research on metaphor, cogni- how can we spell out the nature tive and otherwise, has been able to of metonymy mapping; focus on its object of interest with- 2) could it be the case that metony- out necessarily discussing, or even my is not a simple case of considering, metonymy, things are unidirectional traffic but, rather, quite different when metonymy a process of two-way mental comes under scrutiny. Metonymy projections; and finally has as a rule been studied against 3) should we consider dropping the the backdrop of metaphor. This is notion of ‘mapping’ within the of course, partly due to the rhetori- context of metonymic processes cal tradition, and its continuation altogether, and start treating me- in one form or another up to the tonymy as a discourse driven present day, where metonymy has inference or pragmatic functions. occasionally been subsumed under The above questions have their metaphor as one of its specific in- origin in a detailed analysis of prob- stantiation forms.” (p. 31–32). lems and shortcomings identified It is also in view of the quote with previously proposed defini- proposed above, that this work rep- tions and treatments of metaphor resents a fresh departure from the and metonymy (and their interrela- traditionally ingrained analytical tion). More specifically, Brdar takes views, and proposes to study the a careful look at and, when needed, link between word formation and productively challenges three cen- grammar, isolating in this latter tral points of difference which have context metonymy from metaphor. traditionally kept metaphor and By reviewing a number of points metonymy separated in the litera- of similarity and difference between ture. They are: a) the widely PRIKAZI FLUMINENSIA, god. 30 (2018), br. 1, str. 299-329 303 accepted theoretical claim that opens up a mental space that is dy- while metaphor is based on similar- namically expanded or reduced so ity, metonymy builds on contiguity; as to come as close as possible to fit- b) the view that the difference be- ting the conceptual gabarits tween metaphor and metonymy lies provided by the co(n)text of use, in in the number of conceptual do- the course of which the mental mains involved, and c) the position space thus opened and elaborated that metaphor and metonymy are also comes very close in terms of its to be differentiated with respect to contents to another conceptual the directionality of conceptual cluster (or metonymic target) with- mappings involved. in the same conceptual domain that The interesting and convincing may be or is typically associated arguments (and linguistic exam- with another expression” (p. 55). ples) that point to certain Having put forth his own under- inadequacies and limitations of standing of metonymy, in the final each of these three positions, to- part of chapter two the author ex- gether with a thoughtful analysis of plores the role of metonymy with the three novel questions spelled respect to grammar. In this context, out above, lead Brdar to re-read the he invites us to go beyond the ex- standard views and re-combine ploration of nouns functioning as them in his own light. This move referential metonymies, and, once provides him with a new venture again, ventures along the road less point, from which he can and does travelled by proposing that word replace the extant - what he himself classes other than nouns can be calls - ‘negative type of definition’ used as referential metonyms and (p. 55) of metonymy, with his own introduces the examination of the definition of metonymy, which he role of metonymy in the grammar states in the following terms: of also verbs and adjectives. ”Metonymy can be seen as a cog- Chapter three, while being very nitive operation of conceptual short, represents in a sense the cen- elaboration based on the part- trepiece of the volume and a strong whole relationship that is triggered bridge between the theoretical re- by the use of an expression (or me- view of extant, standard linguistic tonymy vehicle) that is associated positions, proposed in the first two with a certain conceptual cluster (or chapters, and the remaining, ana- metonymic source) within a concep- lytic part of the work where the tual domain so that the activation author provides linguistic evidence of the source conceptual cluster for his own view of the relation PRIKAZI 304 FLUMINENSIA, god. 30 (2018), br. 1, str. 299-329 between metonymy and word-for- back-formation, clipping, blending, mation. In other words, chapter reduplication, and conversion. The three is an invitation to think about author proposes that, except for and, if need be, rethink the relation- conversion, no other type of non- ship between metonymy (and, for concatenative processes appears to that matter, metaphor as well) on work in sync with metonymy. Fur- the one hand, and word formation thermore, the author finds that or – more generally – grammar, on metonymy may operate on the the other. While an increasing body output of non-concatenative word- of work has been focused on this formation processes (e.g. in relation, a number of influential back-formation and clipping), or authors have proposed analyses prior to any word-formation proc- that have blurred if not completely ess i.e. on the input (e.g. in eliminated the boundary between blending). the two, so as to ultimately equate In chapter five we find the same word-formation with metonymy. approach – i.e. detailed analysis of The challenge of this position is, at linguistic examples - but relative to the same time, the central hypothe- concatenative word-formation sis that the author puts forth in his processes, specifically compounding book. The hypothesis is summed up (endocentric and exocentric) and in the claim that ”metonymy opera- suffixation. The author proposes tions proper and word-formation numerous, adequate and detailed processes do not normally take case studies which seem to support place simultaneously.” (p. 69) his claim that metonymic shifts The next two chapters, four and take place either before suffixation five, are devoted to the exploration and compounding, or tend to follow of all the active word-formation them. In other words, it is proposed processes (in English, occasionally that as a rule metonymy operates contrasted with other languages) either on the input or the output of with respect i.e. in light of their re- concatenative word-formation lation to metonymy. These two processes. Furthermore, the author chapters are mainly devoted to pro- also pinpoints the possibility that viding linguistic evidence in metonymic shifts can apply to both support of the central hypothesis of the input as well as the output of the volume. Chapter four outlines suffixation and compounding, and explores non-concatenative which results in tiered metonymies. word-formation one by one. In it, Departing, in chapter four, from the author looks at abbreviations, the more marginal word-formation PRIKAZI FLUMINENSIA, god. 30 (2018), br. 1, str. 299-329 305 processes, and moving on – in chap- metonymy and word-formation ac- ter five – towards the more central tually block each other, and the ones, the author checks how each occurrence of one form, actually rep- word-formation process interacts resents the reason behind the with metonymy and proposes the non-occurrence of the other, com- following conclusion: in concatena- plementary form. For most cases tive word-formation processes, complementarity is due to synony- metonymy (or metaphor) may pre- my (the two mechanisms would cede a word-formation process, or yield two synonymous forms). Most follow it, or both, but the two do commonly, simple or complex not take place in unison, whereas in morphological forms block the ap- non-concatenative word-formation plication of metonymy. However, the processes metonymy and word-for- opposite case – where metonymy mation may – but need not blocks the coinage of morphological- necessarily – apply simultaneously ly complex words, seems to also be (in the non-concatenative category possible, albeit much less frequent. of word formation processes the The huge validity of crosslinguistic question of their interrelation with data and examples, which are pro- metonymy is partly left open, but vided throughout the book, becomes the claims that can be found in the particularly relevant in this chapter, literature and that identify the two, as showing the complementarity are challenged by Brdar with con- between metonymy and word for- vincing linguistic arguments). As mation could not be possible if we already pointed out, the author ac- were to stay within the confines of a tually explicitly states that the only single language. In this sense, exam- word-formation phenomenon that ples from numerous languages might genuinely involve metonymy represent an added value to chapter proper is conversion. six as well. Having reviewed the various In the seventh, conclusive chap- ways in which word-formation and ter of the volume, the author metonymy can interact and facili- recapitulates the findings stem- tate each other and actually prepare ming from the analysis of language the ground for each other, in chap- data provided in chapters 4-6, and ter six the author moves on to reiterates his hypothesis that meto- examine the complementarity of nymic operations and central the two subsystems under investi- word-formation processes do not gation. In other words, chapter six normally take place simultaneously looks at ways and cases in which in English. Furthermore, on the ba- PRIKAZI 306 FLUMINENSIA, god. 30 (2018), br. 1, str. 299-329 sis of data from other languages both phenomena in isolation, of provided in the analytic chapters, their relationship, but also of their the author also states that it seems (joint) contribution to grammar, safe to assume that the hypothesis and – ultimately – of our under- applies to other languages as well, standing of the development of thus providing the platform for fu- language systems in particular and ture research. the language system as such (given that this is a work of the cognitive Conclusion linguistic nature). In his book ‘Metonymy and Word- By providing numerous linguis- Formation. Their Interactions and tic case studies the author does an Complementation’ Mario Brdar takes excellent job supporting the central his readers for an interesting and, claim of the volume, i.e. the hypoth- at times, even adventurous journey esis that conceptual metonymy and into the realm of two language word formation are not to be equat- phenomena – metonymy and word- ed (as some authors have tried to), formation – and their interactive nor are they to be understood as ties. In the first part of the book, working in unison and as one auto- the phenomena are explored and matically triggering the other. In reviewed in a detailed and yet clear doing that, the author also provides fashion at the theoretical level, ample evidence supporting the whereas in the second, analytical claim that metonymy may play an part of the book, the relationship important role in motivating whole between metonymy and word-for- grammatical sub-systems (distribu- mation is insightfully explored on tion of elements and their division extensive linguistic data i.e. case of labour). studies from various languages. The only aspect of the work that Looking at the academic contri- might leave us wishing (or perhaps bution of this book, it can be stated only hoping) for more, relates not without any hesitation that given so much to the linguistic side of the its combination of theoretical in- material, as does to its cognitive sightfulness and novelty, structural dimension. In fact, while being ease of exposure and logical clarity written from the cognitive linguis- of the material covered, it provides tic perspective, the book, upon a unique piece of work when it having read it, still leaves us with comes to our understanding of both more cognitive linguistic questions phenomena in focus: metonymy than answers. In other words, while and word-formation. This is true of contributing greatly to our under- PRIKAZI FLUMINENSIA, god. 30 (2018), br. 1, str. 299-329 307 standing of language structure and cognitive reality of language phe- general linguistic mechanisms, and nomena. most certainly enlightening our Summing up, our understanding understanding of conceptual me- of figuration in grammar, and – tonymy as a cognitive linguistic more generally – figuration in phenomenon, the book does not of- language – following the insights fer as much concrete, practical put forth in Mario Brdar’s book insight in the direction of our un- ‘Metonymy and Word-Formation. derstanding of general cognitive Their Interactions and Complemen- structural elements and operation tation’ – have gained a new principles underlying human lan- analytical perspective and I dare guage. Of course, truth be told, this conclude this review by saying that potential shortcoming is not so this work has fundamentally and much a ‘fault’ of the book or, rather, definitively changed our under- its author, as it is a ‘sin’ of the cur- standing of two very important rent state of affairs within the linguistic phenomena – metonymy cognitive linguistic movement and word-formation, but also – giv- (as very convincingly proposed by en the proliferous view on the Dabrowska, 2016, who has criti- relation between the two phenome- cised the framework for not having na under scrutiny – that it has payed true service to the cognitive impacted our understanding of the aspect of the cognitive commitment development of the language sys- and having insufficiently and inad- tem, in all its evolutionary and equately explored the psychological structural intricacies. reality of the key constructs). How- Maja Brala-Vukanović ever, in terms of the need to explore the psychological reality of – in this References case metonymy – Brdar’s book un- doubtedly provides both very Brdar, Mario (2007) Metonymy in interesting language data that could Grammar: Towards Motivating be used in psycholinguistic experi- Extensions of Grammatical Cate- ments, as well as an interesting link gories and Constructions. Osijek: between two crucial linguistic Faculty of Philosophy. phenomena (metonymy and word- Brdar, Mario (2016) “Going produc- formation) that could, again, be of tive with metonymy”. In English interest for psycholinguistic, neuro- Studies from Archives to Prospects: linguistic and related studies aimed Volume 2 – Linguistics and Applied at exploring the psychological i.e. Linguistics. Dinković, Irena Zovko; PRIKAZI 308 FLUMINENSIA, god. 30 (2018), br. 1, str. 299-329

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