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TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION.............................................................1

1.1 Rationale....................................................................................................1

1.2 Aims of the Study......................................................................................1

1.3 Scope of the Study.....................................................................................1

1.4 Research methods......................................................................................2

2. CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE OVERVIEW...........................................2

2.1 Conceptualization......................................................................................2

2.2 Metaphor...................................................................................................7
2.2.1 Structural metaphor..........................................................................10
2.2.2 Orientational metaphor....................................................................11
2.2.3 Conceptual metaphor.......................................................................11
2.2.4 Systematicity....................................................................................12

CONCLUSION............................................................................................20

REFERENCES..............................................................................................21

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1. CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 Rationale
When one considers the aptness of creative metaphor and how one might
measure it, one finds a whole range of issues lurking between the apparent
unities of this umbrella term. This complexity is compounded by the fact that
metaphors operate at several different levels of representation simultaneously:
the conceptual level, or the level of ideas; the lexical level, or the level of
words; and the pragmatic level, or the level of intentions. A metaphor may fall
at any of these hurdles, either through a poor choice of a source concept, a
poor choice of words in communicating this concept, or in a failure to observe
the expectations of the context in which the metaphor is expressed.
1.2 Aims of the Study
Cognitive linguistics is expected to be one of the most important approaches
in the field of linguistics in the 21 century. Some linguists even say that the 21
century will belong to cognitive linguistics. Cognitive linguistics originated
from America in 1970’s the last century. Many linguists in China have turned
to cognitive linguistics. Papers about cognitive linguistics, papers introducing
cognitive linguistics and papers analyzing language structures with cognitive
approaches can be found in almost every academic journal or magazine
related to language study in China in recent years. If we pay little attention to
this approach, we are sure to lag behind.
1.3 Scope of the Study
The study express point of view of some authors through their study or quotes
about cognitive linguistics in general which will bring to an overview of the
study including Conceptualization and Metaphor. Other areas should be
beyond the scope of this study.

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1.4 Research methods
Applying theories accumulated during the learning process especially
Cognitive Linguistics at Graduate Academy of Social Sciences. Also, refer to
previous research; reality; gathering information from references, books,
magazines, the Internet and discuss with colleagues who have experience in
teaching English.
2. CHAPTER 2. LITERATURE OVERVIEW
2.1 Conceptualization
Very generally speaking, the conceptualizer comes into play when a
communicative intention is formed by the speaker. It then has to draw
upon a knowledge base represented in whatever format (Engelkam, 1990)
and to transform parts of it into a structure with which linguistic
knowledge at different levels (syntax, lexicon, morphology, phonology)
can be accessed. This structure has been called preverbal message (Levelt,
1989), input for encoding (Herrmann and Grabowski 1994) or temporary
conceptual structure (Carroll and von Stutterheim 1993). The range of
terminology found with respect to this level of planning reflects the lack
of clarity on the substance matter.
SEGMENTATION
Units have to be extracted from a knowledge bass that is neither structured
with respect to sequence nor organized at a specific level into what can be
seen as a hierarchically structured body of knowledge about a given
substance matter, which is more or less specific. Complex static situations,
for instance, have to be broken down into a number of states or property
predications, or complex dynamic situations have to be divided into events
or processes (cf. the notion of atomic formula in semantics [Parsons
1990]).

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SELECTION
The speaker has to select those units which he wants to verbalize as well
as the components by which these units can be represented. By
components we mean the conceptual building blocks, such as entities,
spaces, times, properties, or actions, from which propositional units can be
formed (cf. the notion of subatomic structure [Parsons 1990]).
STRUCTURING
The components selected have to be structured under several aspects that
cover options with respect to predicate types and argument roles (e.g.
sell/buy alternative), anchoring within a referential frame (e.g. spatial and
temporal anchoring), and attribution of informational status (topic/focus
assignment). All these steps in the planning process are perspective-driven
(cf. von Stutterheim and Klein 2002).
LINEARIZATION
The units selected for verbal representation have to be linearized in order to
be transformed into the one-dimensional medium language (cf. Levelt 1982).
When planning and producing a complex piece of discourse, these processes
operate on different levels, whereby two levels are distinguished in the
literature on language production: macro structural or global planning and
micro structural or local planning, where the latter is embedded in and
dependent on the first. What Hopper (1995) has pointed out very clearly for
structural descriptions of language is just as relevant for research in language
production, where most of the work has been concerned with linguistic units
at and below sentence level (cf. the survey in Rickheit and Strohner 1993).
To start with discourse is not simply to use discourse data for the same
projects that were previously carried out with invented sentences, but to face
the prospect of beginning anew and finding new generalizations about

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language, based on entire texts and contexts rather than on convenient
selections (Hopper 1995: 140). This view underlies the study at hand. It
means that contextually embedded language (text) production has to be
analyzed in order to get a hold on processes of conceptualization. On this
basis, hypotheses can be developed that can be tested in carrying out more
fine-grained experimental work. This is the path taken in the present study.
The properties of conceptualize as mentioned so far are too general to be
subjected to empirical research. In order to gain access to the processes
mentioned, we have to find a window that opens the view onto a specific
describable substance. It has to be a window that allows us to pin down the
objective perceivable input and its linguistic correlate at both ends of the
conceptualization process.
We selected the domain of events as one of the possible windows on the
interrelation between perception, cognition and language. The notion of event
has been treated extensively in different theoretical frameworks both in and
outside linguistics. There is philosophical work on eventhood (e.g. Kamp
1981; Parsons 1990), psychological work on event cognition (e.g. Newtson
1976), and then we find the notion of ‘‘event’’ as one of the central categories
in different linguistic fields, in particular in (logical) semantics and cognitive
linguistics. This is not the place to get involved in an in-depth discussion of
the notion ‘‘event’’ (cf. Klein 1994 for a critical discussion), so we will only
briefly introduce the central theoretical distinctions necessary in keeping
categories for empirical analysis clear- cut. There are three levels to be
distinguished:
a. The external world.
b. A partial conceptual representation of the external world. Note that
these conceptual representations are dynamic in nature, which

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means that they can be subjected to processes of reorganization.
c. Linguistic representations (predicate–argument structures).
Most work within the field of (logical) semantics and philosophy of
language only takes the two levels (a) and (c) into consideration. We
quote Parsons as a representative of this view: ‘‘I seek a theory that
describes the semantics of sentences of English that is the relations
between words of our language and things in the world’’ (1990: 11).

Approaches that focus on psycholinguistic aspects of production,


comprehension, and acquisition of language are often concerned with the
levels (b) and (c) only. This distinction is extremely difficult to operationalize
in empirical analysis, a problem that becomes evident from the inconsistent
use of the theoretical categories in the literature.

In many psycholinguistic and semantic studies, the distinction of levels


(b) and (c) is not really necessary, since categories at the level of
conceptualization are not operationalized independently of the units at the
semantic level. Addressing the question of the role of language in
processes of conceptualization — as in the study at hand — requires the
separation of the two levels, however. We will therefore introduce the
following working definition for the relevant units at the different levels.

a. SITUATIONS for what takes place in the external world.


b. EVENTS an event is a self-contained segment in a conceptual
representation of a network of interrelated situations, conceptualized
as a time – substance relation. The substance constituting an event is
characterized by the features DYNAMIC and POTENTIALLY
BOUNDED.

c. Linguistic representation.

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Given a particular situation in the external world, there are options
with respect to the cognitive representation of this situation as an
event, and there are again options in presenting an event linguistically.
These options concern first of all the level of granularity, furthermore
the components selected (e.g. bounded/unbounded) for representing
this particular situation, as well as the perspective under which it is
viewed. In the course of language production, all these decisions have
to be taken before the linguistic form is activated. If we assume an
‘‘unintelligent formulator’’ — a position which has not been
questioned — then all information that is relevant for the selection of
lexical and syntactic form has to be provided by the conceptualizer.
Let us illustrate the requirements for the conceptualizer by an example
from the domain of events: a speaker wants to talk about a situation, for
example, the delivery of a parcel, and produces the following text: The
postman rang, I opened the door and he gave me a small parcel. Three
events are reported in temporal sequence. As regards SEGMENTION,
the speaker could also produce a chain such as the postman came and gave
me a small parcel, or present the overall situation as one event: the postman
delivered a small parcel. He could also be more specific, for instance, the
door bell rang, I went downstairs and opened the door, the postman had come
early, he opened his big bag, took out a small parcel and gave it to me ... The
differences shown in these short texts are referred to as differences with
respect to the level of granularity. Processes of concern the components by
which the single events are represented. Instead of the postman rang the
speaker could have produced the postman rang at my door at 9 o’clock
providing more information about the situation. The processes we have
called STRUCTURING are manifold. We will mention a few aspects

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which illustrate the impact of perspectivation on message construction.
The parcel-delivery event could be presented from the viewing point of
the recipient leading to a different lexical choice and to different argument
structures: I received a small parcel from him. Spatial anchoring could be
of a different nature, as shown in the following reformulation of the text:
the postman went over to the house, he rang the bell, a woman opened
and he gave her a parcel. The last aspect to be mentioned in this brief
overview concerns the necessity of deciding on a specific information
structure. Given all these options, what are the criteria that enable the
speaker to come up with consistent patterns of information organization?
While we find studies on situational factors (e.g. attention [ Tomlin 1997]),
type of subject matter (e.g. object reference [ Herrmann and Deutsch 1976
]), and contextual factors (e.g. implicit information [Brown and Dell 1987]),
language has not been considered as a factor in structuring processes within
the conceptualizer. This is the goal of the present enterprise. The question
underlying this study can now be formulated more specifically. In addressing
this question we will proceed in three steps. In the main section of the
paper, we will present empirical evidence from a comparative analysis of
English and German, taking both texts and single utterances. The results
show that language structure can be correlated with specific patterns of
event conceptualization. Then possible causes for these differences will be
discussed, thereby extending the data base to Algerian Arabic. In the last
section, we will touch on implications of the findings for models of
language production
2.2 Metaphor
Definitions of metaphor in the terminology in the English language are many,
complex, vary from a school of language to another and from a language to

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another. For example, in the Longman New Universal Dictionary (2891)
"Metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or a phrase literally denoting
one kind of object or idea is applied to another to suggest a likeliness or
analogy between them". A definition of metaphor in the dictionary of the
Random House Unabridged (2881) has been received almost the same
meaning, where "metaphor is a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is
applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest
a resemblance''.
It is well known that the previous definitions show us clearly the idea of
putting the word into another without the meaning of this word to have the
literal meaning, but their purpose is to highlight the resemblance and
likeliness between them. In BBC English Dictionary (2881), a definition of.
metaphor may be inclusive of these two ideas:" Metaphor is a way of
describing something by saying that it is something else which has the
qualities that you are trying to describe''.
Alvarez (2881: 192) mentions in her study of the metaphor that the linguist
Brooke-Rose (2891) developed a definition of metaphor which she said: ''Any
identification of one thing with another, any replacement of the more usual
word or phrase by another''.
All of these definitions state that it is clear to us the full breadth of metaphor
in English. It is the likeliness and resemblance between two things; and it is a
description of the benefits of something else; and is a departure from the
regular use of language, and it is sometimes a single word or a group of
words; and other times a phrase or even a full-text.
All languages contain metaphors. A lot of them are used in our own language.
Searle claims that "the metaphorical statement and the corresponding
similarity statement cannot be equivalent in meaning because they have

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different truth conditions". In addition, he affirms that "the notion of
similarity plays a crucial role in the analysis of a metaphor, or the
metaphorical utterances are dependent on the context for their interpretation".
Indeed metaphors are closely linked to parables and proverb if someone says:
- A stitch in time saves nine
S/he generally means it to apply metaphorically to the situation in hand.
Whatever explains the understanding of these sorts of utterances is likely to
explain metaphor, and it will not be a semantic theory however constructed.
Moreover, "a good creative metaphor is precisely one in which a variety of
contextual effects can be retained and understood as weakly implicated by the
speaker".
They add that "metaphor thus requires no special interpretive abilities or
procedures: it is a natural outcome of some very general abilities an
procedures used in verbal communication".
An easy style of expressing metaphor is done by Kuiper and Allan who state
that:
a simple way to look at metaphor is to see it as a breaking down of the normal
literal selectional restrictions that the semantic components of words have in a
sentence. When we talk about, for instance, a window on the future, we have
to ignore some of the semantic components of the word window -for example,
that is a concrete object- and just take the fact that windows are things that
allow us to look from enclosed space outwards. The metaphor could also be
seen out of a window. The metaphor lies in the suppression of some of each
word's semantic features.
On the one hand, a metaphor uses an idea to stand for another idea. On the
other hand, Löbner supports that "metaphor is: concepts, notions, models,

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pictures from one domain, the source domain, are borrowed for the
description of things in another domain, the target domain".
Generally speaking, "a metaphor yields a new concept in the target domain, a
concept that is similar to the original concept of the source domain in that it
contains certain elements, although not all, of the source concept" (Ibid).
Besides, metaphors and similes differ only in the presence or absence of an
explicit comparison (like, as). A more recent approach to metaphors considers
them as examples of flouting the cooperative principle.

2.2.1 Structural metaphor


They bring an experience in a structure, or rather in a field of another
experience and this is in the form of specific concepts, as in the concept of: -
Argument is war. Where we bring 'debate' in the 'war'. The similarity between
them that a strong debate occurs between two people in a case, where they
differ, and each has a point of view. They, then, end with a victory or defeat,
or end with a truce. All of this is a field of war. In the daily debate of the talk,
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson list the following examples:
- I demolished his argument.
- Your claims are indefensible.
- He attacked every weak point of my argument.
In these examples, the used structures are borrowed in the field of war as the
verb demolishes the adjective indefensible, and the verb attack. The used
structures are put in the place of other structures which may be, for example,
the verb refuted, and the adjective unjustifiable, and the verb reproached or
criticized.

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2.2.2 Orientational metaphor
They are the metaphorical use of a word with their semantic concepts
'directionality' and 'specialization' where this type organizes metaphors of the
many concepts, the one with the other; in the form of the concepts that
indicates the place, as in the following examples:
- Try to pack more words into fewer words.
- Don't force your meanings into the wrong words.
- Can you extract coherent ideas from that prose?
The words that are used indicate directionality and specialization which are
borrowed here in the abstract expressions of the lingual that have nothing to
do with the place at all. These words are all included within the conceptual
framework:
- Linguistic expressions are containers.
This means that it can, through the above-mentioned examples, regard the
linguistic expressions that the speakers use in daily conversation as things
indicate the space and the place.
These things have interior, apparent, and limits that can be found within or
outside or next to it, like a bowl or a box or container or a car or house, and
not only an abstract mental image.

2.2.3 Conceptual metaphor


The third type divides metaphor in terms of the concepts depending on speech
of a personal experience or the experience of the society as a whole. This type
is called Conceptual metaphors.
Some sections of the third type of metaphors are founded the knowledge of
the linguists Michael Reddy (2898), George Lakoff (2899; 2881), Mark
Johnson (2899), and Mark Turner (2898) who have studied me taphor
carefully and in particular Lakoff and Johnson in their book entitled

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Metaphors We Live By, where their opinion settle that metaphor is originally:
" not a linguistic process, but a process of mind. They label it the conceptual
metaphor. The conceptual metaphors are based on individual experience and
perception of the world around us. They are conceptual imaginative in which
we do not feel it, but, in their expressions 'we live'. The linguists concluded
that these sections of metaphor do not encroach three sections in which all the
sub-sections of the used metaphor in English are inserted within them. They
are, as we shall see in sections of the following three conceptual metaphors, a
philosophical approach for metaphor in which they depend on concepts, but
do not rely on pillars.
Metaphors are conceptual (mental) operations reflected in human language
that enable speakers to structure and construct abstract areas of knowledge
and experience in more concrete experiential terms.
According to this view of metaphor, speakers make use of a familiar area of
knowledge, called the source domain, to understand an area of knowledge this
is less familiar, the target domain.
There is a kind of conceptual mapping operation in which aspects of
knowledge in the more familiar source domain are placed in correspondence
with aspects of the less-familiar target domain in order to structure the target
domain in way that makes it more accessible to human understanding.

2.2.4 Systematicity
2.2.4.1 Internal systematicity
Because purely taxonomic interpretations are created on the basis of
commonalities, they tend to be highly symmetric, as in the case of similes
such as “credit unions are like banks” and “gamblers are like alcoholics”. In
contrast, the most creative metaphors are asymmetric (Ortony, 1991), since
they impose the highly-developed relational structure of the source concept

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onto that of the less-developed target (see Lakoff and Johnson, 1980; Gentner,
1983; Veale and Keane, 1997). Without this imposition of relational structure,
metaphor can be used only to highlight existing similarities rather than to
actually create new ones, and is thus robbed of its creative function.
The projection of relational structure can be performed either literally or
figuratively. In a literal interpretation, the relational structure of the source is
simply instantiated with the target concept, so for example, a literal “travel
diary” is a diary that contains travel recordings and travel observations. In
contrast, figurative interpretations first attempt to find a target domain
correspondence for the source concept, and then project the relational
structure of the source onto this counterpart (Gentner, 1983). For instance,
WordNet contains a variety of concepts that are formally similar to {diary,
journal} and which also mention “travel” in their glosses, such as
{travel_guidebook} and {passport}.
“travel”+ {diary, journal} ->
{passport} + *observer_of:travel:observation
*recorder_of:travel:recording
of_experience:travel:experience
Projecting the relational structure of {diary, journal} onto {passport} causes
the latter to be seen as a journal of travel observations and experiences, and
indeed, many travelers retain old passports for this very purpose.
Metaphors are most apt when projection highlights a latent relational structure
that already exists in the target concept (Ortony, 1979). For example, the
compound “pastry surgeon” can be understood taxonomically as referring to
{pastry_cook}, since like {surgeon} it is a sub- category of {person}. But to
fully appreciate why

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{surgeon} is more apt than other hyponyms of {person}, like
{astrologer} say, one must look to the shared relational structure that is
highlighted by the metaphor. WordNet 1.6 defines a surgeon as a “physician
who specializes in surgery”, while a pastry cook is glossed as “a chef who
specializes in pastry”. Both {surgeon} and {pastry_cook} thus become
associated with the relationship specializer_of:specialism. This common
relational structure facilitates the measurement of what we have termed
‘internal systematicity’ (in the Gentner sense). Thus, {surgeon} is seen as an
apt vehicle for
{pastry_cook} as both are people that specialize in a particular field.
Instantiation of the shared structure leads to the following interpretation:
“pastry” + {surgeon} ->
{pastry_cook} + specializer_of: pastry:surgery
One can reasonably argue that much more sophisticated interpretations are
available to human readers of this metaphor, e.g., that pastry cooking and
surgery are both delicate operations involving special training, both are
performed with specialized instruments in very clean surroundings, etc. But
given the inherent limitations of working with an existing semi-structured
knowledge source such as WordNet, as opposed to a dedicated, hand- crafted
knowledge-base, “pastry specialist” must suffice as a generalization for these
richer interpretations. Alternately, one might argue that it is “pastry” rather
than “surgeon” that undergoes metaphoric reinterpretation, so that the phrase
denotes a literal surgeon that operates on metaphoric pastries, such as
movie starlets or supermodels. In this current work we choose to focus on the
relational potential for the head word to metaphorically denote a relationally
similar, if sometimes semantically distant, referent, while acknowledging that
this illuminates just one part of the picture.

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Nonetheless, interpretations like “pastry specialist” can be given more
credibility if one delves deeper into its metaphoric ramifications to consider
the recursive sub-metaphors that it implies. For instance, as stated in the
analysis above, “pastry surgeon” implies the plausibility of a meaningful
interpretation for “pastry surgery”. This choice to delve deeper, and
recursively determine an appropriate interpretation of “pastry surgery” , is left
to the comprehender, who may instead choose to read the metaphor as a
simple request to view pastry chefs as specialists. But this raises the question
of how much structure must be shared for an interpretation to appear apt
rather than merely inept. For example, one can equally well say “pastry
linguist” or “ pastry geologist” to highlight the specialist nature of pastry
chefs, since {geologist} and {linguist} are also associated with an extracted
specializer of relationship. What makes these alternate metaphors seem
clumsy is the difficulty in assigning appropriate interpretations to the
recursive metaphors that they imply: “ pastry geologist” implies the
metaphor “ pastry geology” , while “ pastry linguist” implies the metaphor “
pastry linguistics” .
(?) “pastry” + {linguist} ->
{pastry_cook} +
specializer_of:pastry:linguistics
There is little that can be done to put a sensible interpretation on “pastry
linguistics” in WordNet, given the taxonomic and relational structure of
{pastry} and {linguistics}. In contrast, “pastry surgery” has more potential for
meaningful interpretation using WordNet structures. There exists a sense of
surgery that denotes a discipline in the natural sciences and from {pastry} a
broad search will find the concept {dietetics}, another discipline of the natural
sciences dedicated to food preparation. This analogue of {surgery} can be

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found by first considering all concepts associated with “pastry”, then all
concepts associated with “baked goods”, then “foodstuff” and “food”, until an
appropriately similar candidate is found.
{dietetics}  the scientific study of food
preparation and intake
This is not a particularly well-known concept, so it would be difficult to argue
that this forms the cornerstone of an easily understood metaphor like “pastry
surgeon”. However, the concept {dietetics} does at least concretize, in
WordNet terms, the idea that one can take a precise, scientific view of food
preparation, and it is the plausibility of this notion that allows us to make
sense of pastry preparation as a surgical activity. There is no true substitute
for situated experience of the world, but when it comes to metaphor
interpretation using lexical resources like WordNet, we should be willing to
use any lexical precedent we can find.
As an alternate strategy, we can seek to recruit a sub-category of surgery that
can be modified in some way to accommodate the concept {pastry}. One such
category is {plastic_surgery}, whose gloss reveals a concern with the
reformation of body tissue.
{plastic_surgery}  surgery concerned with
therapeutic or cosmetic
reformation of tissue
“pastry” + {surgery} ->
{plastic_surgery} + reformation_of: pastry:tissue
This interpretation requires that an existing form of surgery is recruited and
adapted so as to accommodate the concept {pastry}. In taxonomic terms,
{plastic_surgery} is perhaps most appropriately adapted for this
purpose, since {tissue} and {pastry} are both hyponyms of {substance}

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in WordNet. Of course, the intended sense of “tissue” in the above gloss is not
{tissue, tissue_paper} but {tissue} as a hyponym of {body_part}. However,
creative metaphors often involve a degree of domain incongruence, whereby a
given word has a different meaning in the source and target domains (Ortony,
1979). In fact, one might say that domain incongruence is essential to creative
metaphor, since interpretation will necessitate the grafting of structure from
radically distant parts of the concept ontology, and such grafts may fail if the
features involved maintain their strict, source-dependent definitions.
2.2.4.2 External systematicity
Metaphors appear more apt when they systematically evoke, or connect into,
established modes of metaphoric thought. This is systematicity considered
from an external vantage as described by (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980). For
example, when processing the metaphor “political mechanic”, several
concepts can be reached from “political” that prove to be taxonomically
compatible with {mechanic}, among them
{political_leader}, {political_scientist} and {machine_politician}. However,
closer inspection of the projected structure suggests that the last,
{machine_politician}, is the most systematic:
“political” + {mechanic}
 {machine_politician}
+ machinist_of: political:machine
Because the extracted qualia structure for {mechanic} hinges on the
relationship machinist_of: machine, there is a suggestive lexical systematicity
with the concept {machine_politician}. Furthermore, the instantiated
structure creates a fortuitous pairing political: machine, which already exists
in WordNet as the lexicalized metaphor {political_machine}. This marks
“political mechanic” as a systematic outgrowth of the established metaphor

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schema Political System. As Machine (whose corollary is Political Operatives
as Fixers). The same schema comes into play when interpreting the metaphor
“political draftsman”, whose WordNet gloss also evokes images of machinery.
Lexicalized metaphors like {political_machine}, {political_science} and
{political_campaign} act as the recognizable landmarks in the search space of
possible interpretations for novel metaphors. So if an interpretation can be
generated that connects into an established metaphor, it has a greater
provenance than one that stands alone. Here are some further examples:
{torchbearer}  a leader in a campaign or movement
“political” + {torchbearer} ->
{political_leader} + campaigner_of:political:campaign
{missionary} = someone who attempts to convert others to a [...] program
“political” + {missionary} ->
{political_commissar} + programmer_of: political:program
{sociologist} = a social scientist who studies
[...] human society
“political” + {sociologist} ->
{political_scientist} + scientist_of: political:science
These examples are fortuitous in the sense that the instantiation of qualia
structure directly suggests an existing WordNet concept. In most cases,
however, the external systematicity becomes visible only upon recursive
consideration of the instantiated structure as a source of metaphor in itself.
Consider the metaphor “genetic cartographer”, for which {geneticist} is
retrieved as a thematically similar concept:
{cartographer}  a person who makes maps
{geneticist}  a person who specializes in genetics
“genetic” + {cartographer} ->

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{geneticist} + mapper_of: genetic:mapping
There is no denotation for “genetic mapping” in WordNet, so at first blush the
above interpretation fails to connect into an existing lexicalized metaphor.
However, when we recursively consider the combination “genetic mapping”
as a metaphor in itself, we obtain the following interpretation:
“genetic” + {mapping} -> {chromosome_mapping}  the process of locating
genes on a chromosome
This allows us to recognize “genetic mapping” as an alternate way of
denoting the concept {chromosome_mapping}, while the fact that a mapping
metaphor has already been lexicalized in the genetics domain allows us to
recognize the external systematicity inherent in the interpretation of
“geneticist as cartographer”. This WordNet entry serves to ground the sub-
metaphor of genetic mapping in an existing concept, allowing the recursive
analysis of sub-metaphors to halt at this point. A “genetic cartographer” is
thus a geneticist that performs a specialized kind of map-making called
chromosome mapping, where the terrain that is mapped is biological and
information-theoretic rather than geological or geographic.

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CONCLUSION
Language is part of our general cognitive ability rather than a separate
module. Cognition is rich and embodied rather than algorithmic manipulation
of abstract symbols. Language is an inventory of constructions which are
pairings of form and meaning. Constructions span both the areas traditionally
described as grammar and lexicon. In the most radical formulation the only
relationship is part/whole and the only operation is unification. Under this
conception the words and rules view of language disappears. There is no
sharp distinction between semantics and pragmatics (meanings are rich and
encyclopedic). Semantics is best defined through models (frames) which
include propositional meaning as well as scripts, schemas, images, etc.
Figurative language (metaphor, metonymy) is not parasitic but one of the
central structuring principles Categories are subject to prototype effects and
do not follow the rules of Aristotelian logic. The key syntactic and semantic
operation is one of integration (blending).

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REFERENCES
1. Croft W.A. (2001). Radical Construction Grammar, 416 pp. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
2. Croft, W. and Cruse, D.A. (2004) Cognitive Linguistics, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
3. Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire and dangerous things. What categories
reveal about the mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
4. Lakoff, G. and Mark Johnson (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago:
Chicago University Press.
5. Langacker, R. (1987). pp 516 Foundation of cognitive grammar.
Volume I. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press
6. Rosch, Eleonor. (1978). Principles of categorization. In Eleonor Rosch
and Barbara B. Lloyd, ed. Cognition and categorization. Hillsdale/N.J.,
N.Y.: Laurence Erlbaum.

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