{"title":"For Better, for Worse, for Richer, for Poorer, in Sickness and in Health: A Cognitive-Linguistic Approach to Merism","authors":"M. S. Peña Cervel","doi":"10.1080/10926488.2021.1973870","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper is a qualitative usage-based treatment of merism from a cognitive-linguistic perspective. Considered a minor or non-basic figure of speech, especially if compared to the master tropes, metaphor and metonymy, merism is approached here as a figure of speech whose complexity has been largely and unfairly underestimated. We provide a principled account of the relationship of merism with metonymy starting off from the well-known assumption that merism is a particular kind of synecdoche. The notion of merism is delimited and used in its etymological sense, which serves as a starting point for a two-fold classification of this figurative use into contrast-based merism and merism in which contrast plays no role (bare merism). We also explore the constructions which might trigger meristic uses and the characteristics of the terms involved in meristic binomials and trinomials which make them readily available for fusion into specific syntactic patterns like “X and Y,” “both X and Y,” “X and Y alike,” “X as well as Y,” and “X, Y, and Z.”","PeriodicalId":46492,"journal":{"name":"Metaphor and Symbol","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2000,"publicationDate":"2022-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Metaphor and Symbol","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2021.1973870","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
ABSTRACT This paper is a qualitative usage-based treatment of merism from a cognitive-linguistic perspective. Considered a minor or non-basic figure of speech, especially if compared to the master tropes, metaphor and metonymy, merism is approached here as a figure of speech whose complexity has been largely and unfairly underestimated. We provide a principled account of the relationship of merism with metonymy starting off from the well-known assumption that merism is a particular kind of synecdoche. The notion of merism is delimited and used in its etymological sense, which serves as a starting point for a two-fold classification of this figurative use into contrast-based merism and merism in which contrast plays no role (bare merism). We also explore the constructions which might trigger meristic uses and the characteristics of the terms involved in meristic binomials and trinomials which make them readily available for fusion into specific syntactic patterns like “X and Y,” “both X and Y,” “X and Y alike,” “X as well as Y,” and “X, Y, and Z.”
期刊介绍:
Metaphor and Symbol: A Quarterly Journal is an innovative, multidisciplinary journal dedicated to the study of metaphor and other figurative devices in language (e.g., metonymy, irony) and other expressive forms (e.g., gesture and bodily actions, artworks, music, multimodal media). The journal is interested in original, empirical, and theoretical research that incorporates psychological experimental studies, linguistic and corpus linguistic studies, cross-cultural/linguistic comparisons, computational modeling, philosophical analyzes, and literary/artistic interpretations. A common theme connecting published work in the journal is the examination of the interface of figurative language and expression with cognitive, bodily, and cultural experience; hence, the journal''s international editorial board is composed of scholars and experts in the fields of psychology, linguistics, philosophy, computer science, literature, and media studies.