Abstract
The use of figurative expressions or of lexical dark matters is very common in daily chats, but syntactic models typically focus on non-figurative language. Here, we discuss different syntactic approaches on how figurative expressions may be parsed. In particular, we focus on fixed expressions such as, idioms and novel and conventionalized metaphors. In line with the so-called en-block insertion account, we suggest grammatical features that constrain the syntactic flexibility of idiomatic compounds and phrases. The features introduced at the head-level of a syntactic tree and which are co-indexed with the relevant lexical concept, enable alternative parsing strategies. Again, we discuss how the novel metaphors create new mental spaces. The extension of a core mental space by considering alternative semantic attributes occurs at the post-syntactic, pragmatic level.
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Notes
- 1.
In generative grammar, the surface structure (S-structure) of a sentence is derived from its deep structure (D-structure) via syntactic movements, traditionally called ’transformations’ (Chomsky 1981). In X-bar (X’) theory X0 is the head or terminal node of the phrase, which is also called zero projection (e.g., Chomsky 1986; Di Sciullo and Williams 1987). Its value ranges over at least the lexical categories N (noun), A (adjective), V (verb) and P (proposition).
- 2.
Halle and Marantz (1994) postulated an additional semantic level of structural meanings to account for the observations that kick the bucket cannot mean die, because the verb phrase Âsubcategorizes a direct object.
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Hillert, D. (2014). Figurative Language. In: The Nature of Language. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0609-3_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0609-3_8
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