Metonymy as a privileged manifestation of linguistic motivation

Abstract

In the paper, it will be argued that metonymy represents a particularly relevant manifestation of linguistic motivation, both on account of the pervasiveness of metonymy itslef in everyday communication (pointed out, among others, by Lakoff e Johnson: 1980; Littlemore: 2015; Radden: 2005; Wachowski: 2019), and in consideration of the fact that several of the principles that regulate the linking of linguistic-conceptual entities in motivation can also be observed in the operation of metonymy. Among these, the basic condition that involved entities are connected within the same knowledge network, be it the linguistic system itself, or a frame of extralinguistic knowledge entrenched in a linguistic-cultural community. The first brief section sets as a starting point the saussurean notions of arbitrariness, relative arbitrariness and motivation. Section 2, based on recent studies, offers a characterization of the notion of motivation. Section 3 is devoted to a description of metonymy, primarily based on studies in Cognitive Linguistics. Also, in these two sections, the commonalities and areas of overlap between the two phenomena are highlighted, to then be briefly resumed in the conclusions.