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Metaphorical phrasal quantifiers and synonymy in a cross-linguistic perspective

Metaphorical phrasal quantifiers and synonymy in a cross-linguistic perspective. Ramón Martí Solano, University of Limoges, France Raluca Nita , University of Poitiers, France. Typological research.

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Metaphorical phrasal quantifiers and synonymy in a cross-linguistic perspective

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  1. Metaphorical phrasal quantifiers and synonymy in a cross-linguistic perspective Ramón Martí Solano,University of Limoges, France Raluca Nita, University of Poitiers, France

  2. Typological research “[…] the study of linguistic patterns that are found cross-linguistically, in particular, patterns that can be discovered solely by cross-linguistic comparison.” (Croft, 1990) Cross-linguistic comparative approach Cross-linguistically recurrent patterns of synonymy Observed patterns and distribution across languages Degrees of systematicity and specificities

  3. Phrasal quantifiers 1 Collocational frameworks (Renouf & Sinclair, 1991) a + noun + of / noun(s) + of Metaphorical and non-metaphorical usage stacks of dishes, torrents of rain stacks of evidence, torrents of criticism Typology a lot of, loads of a slew of, scads of a sea of, battalions of

  4. Phrasal quantifiers 2 Two levels of synonymy Broader level of functional synonymy Narrower level of conceptual synonymy These quantifiers are interchangeable in discourse only at the second level of synonymy an army of lawyers a legion of lawyers a battery of lawyers a phalanx of lawyers a battalion of lawyers a platoon of lawyers

  5. Metaphoricity Conceptual metaphors (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) SOCIETY IS A SEA > a sea of people CRITICISM AND INSULTS ARE BULLETS > a barrage of criticism LAWYERS ARE SOLDIERS > an army of lawyers Conventional metaphorical patterns (Hanks, 2006) a storm of protest a torrent of abuse an oasis of sanity

  6. General / specific Across-language general features Geographical features and natural phenomena to express a large number or amount Common combinatory patterns Language-specific features Phraseology Well-established metaphors Culture-specific images Other extra-linguistic factors

  7. Research methodology 6 European languages: English, French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish Corpus-driven research English: COCA Contrastive analysis Corpus choice: Google

  8. Why Google? Homogeneity Previous corpus research: English: BNC (100 million words), COCA (410 million words) French: Frantext (150 million words) Italian: La Repubblica corpus (400 million words) Portuguese: CETEMPúblico 1.7 v. 4.0 (180 million words) Spanish: CREA (160 million words) Romanian: ? Representativeness of the results Paremeters of the research

  9. General features Metaphorised nouns natural phenomena geographical features the military Nominal bases people and hyponyms money & debts speech nouns: words and negatively-connoted related terms(criticism, abuse, etc.) state-of-mind nouns: problems, doubts, etc. Language-specific combinations mar de rosas (Portuguese) mar de olivos (Spanish) ríos de tinta (Spanish) râu de lacrimi (Romanian) shower of sparks (English) ploaie de flori (Romanian)

  10. a mountain of • Common nominal bases • money: 5/6 • debt: 5/6 • Language-specific • evidence: English & Italian

  11. a sea of Common nominal bases -people: 6/6 -troubles: 3/6 • Language-specific • olivos: Spanish [cultural image] • soldi/denaro:Italian • dudas: Spanish [frequency: 1,242,630] • rosas: Portuguese

  12. a legion of Common nominal bases -hyponyms of people -fans (English loan word & native equivalent) Language-specific - Romanian: preference for numeral quantifiers

  13. criticism • Source domains • - WATER: 6/6 • BULLETS: English, Portuguese, Romanian Language-specific: a barrage of in English

  14. words

  15. Conclusions Metaphorical phrasal quantifiers tend to be recurrent and systematic in all six languages, although significant differences in frequency should be taken into account Overall marked preference in English for metaphorical phrasal quantifiers compared to numeral quantifiers or other non-metaphorical phrases in other languages The lexical fields associated to these quantifiers are quite restricted in number (people, money and words), which favours across-language synonymy a sea of people and a legion of fans as paradigms of interlinguistic synonymy Language-specific preferences: streams of comes at the bottom of all the possible metaphorical phrasal quantifiers preceding money in English. On the contrary, rios de is by far and away the preferred realisation in Portuguese

  16. References • CROFT W., 1990, Typology and Universals, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. • HANKS P., 2006, “Metaphoricity is gradable” in A. Stefanowitsch & S. Th. Gries (eds.) Corpus-based Approaches to Metaphor and Metonymy, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 17-35. • LAKOFF G. & JOHNSON M., 1980, Metaphors We Live By, Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press. • MARTÍ SOLANO R. (forthcoming) “L’expression idiomatique de grandes quantités en anglais contemporain”, Littérature et multilinguisme n° 1, Oran: Publications de l’Université d’Oran. • RENOUF A. & SINCLAIR J. M., 1991, “Collocational Frameworks in English” in K. Aijmer & B. Altenberg (eds) English Corpus Linguistics,New York: Longman, 128-143.

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