I will see it done: Metonymic extensions of the verb see in English

Łukasz Matus

University of Silesia, Poland

Łukasz Matusz holds a PhD degree in linguistics from the University of Silesia in Katowice. He is currently employed as an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Linguistics of the University of Silesia. His research interests include the cognitive theory of metaphor and metonymy, as well as language taboo and the linguistic reality of swearing.


https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2810-5798


Résumé

English verbs of perception appear to be significant generators of divergent polysemous senses. The aim of this paper is to propose a dictionary study of the verb see. It appears that many semantic extensions of the term are metonymic in nature, because they are motivated by metonymic shifts within specific State-of-Affairs Scenarios (SASs). Three distinct dictionary sources are consulted in order to identify different metonymic extensions of the verb see. The majority of the database samples appear to belong to the part for whole propositional metonymy category (a stage of SAS for SAS). The conceptual link between seeing and intellectual comprehension is complex and appears to require the discussion of metonymy–metaphor interaction for its fuller explanation. The analysis is followed by conclusions drawn from the database study, as well as suggestions for future research in the field of metonymic extensions of English terms of visual perception.

Mots-clés :

propositional metonymy, State-of-Affairs Scenarios, metonymy–metaphor interaction, visual perception, see

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Publiée
2021-03-27


Matus, Łukasz (2021) « I will see it done: Metonymic extensions of the verb see in English », Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies, (31), p. 88–108. doi: 10.15290/CR.2020.31.4.05.

Łukasz Matus 
University of Silesia, Poland

Łukasz Matusz holds a PhD degree in linguistics from the University of Silesia in Katowice. He is currently employed as an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Linguistics of the University of Silesia. His research interests include the cognitive theory of metaphor and metonymy, as well as language taboo and the linguistic reality of swearing.

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2810-5798