PRIKAZI FLUMINENSIA, god. 30 (2018), br. 1, str. 299-329 299 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Ovaj rad dostupan je za upotrebu pod međunarodnom licencom Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. 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