A lexical and conceptual study of metonymy

Abstract

This study, whose object of investigation is metonymy, aims at analysing the non-convencionalized cases of this process, like – I am parked – which has been traditionally given a pragmatic analysis. Pustejovsky (1995) and Jackendoff (2002) stand out as theoretical background supporting the research. The former addresses logical polysemy based on Generative Lexicon, which combines the levels of lexical representation and the generative mechanisms that account for the explanation of new meanings. The former approaches the cases of non-conventionalized metonymy as an enriched composition process through which the contextualized part of the utterance is represented in the conceptual structure. By proposing an approximation of both authors, the selected linguistic datum is analyzed as a type coercion mechanism, where the more comprehensive formalization is the enriched composition, with emphasis on the relation of ownership as the relation that makes such coercion possible.