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Go mad – come true – run dry: Metaphorical motion, semantic preference(s) and deixis

It has been suggested that the semantics of some metaphoricalmotion
constructions is related to the deixis of the verbs involved. In accordance
with the directions of movement, metaphorical go is said to be associated with
deterioration ( go rotten etc.) and metaphorical come – with improvement ( come
true etc (cf. Quirk et al. 1985: 1174). The paper at hand aims at empirically testing
this assumption from a usage-based construction grammar perspective. It
analyses metaphorical-motion constructions from the BNC whose verb-slot is
filled by the motion verbs go , come and run followed by an adjective, using the
methods of collostruction analysis (cf. Gries and Stefanowitsch 2004a). On the
basis of the quantitative analyses carried out, the semantic preferences of the
three verbs are determined, compared and related to the deictic aspects involved
in the verb meanings. The verb run was selected as a ‘control verb’, since it does
not exhibit any deictic aspect of meaning. All three verb constructions are found
to exhibit semantic preferences, and, since deixis is absent in run , other aspects
are discussed which may motivate such associations. Finally, the results of the
data analyses are inspected for what they can say about the emergence of semantic
prosodies ‘colouring’ the verbs in the respective constructions.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:80267
Date01 August 2022
CreatorsSchönefeld, Doris
PublisherDe Gruyter Mouton
Source SetsHochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Relation12

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