Experiential metaphors in Latin - Wiley Online Library

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316 TRANSACTIONS OF THE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY 109, 2011 Figure 1. The STATES ARE LOCATIONS metaphor in Latin The employment of this metaphor with different verbs provides evidence for the productivity of the schema. A model for representing schematicity and productivity in metaphors has been worked out by Clausner & Croft (1997). Following this model, I suggest the graphic representation shown in Fig. 1, to show the possible levels of schematicity and entrenchment of the STATES ARE LOCATIONS metaphor in Latin and its subordinate instantiations. This metaphor is highly productive, because the most schematic level, where we find what I label a ‘Basic Event Type Metaphor’, is itself productive, as the boxes in bold show. Hence, the schematic metaphor placed at the highest level of generality is capable of extending its syntactic pattern (and its conceptual counterpart) to other, semantically related schema-specific metaphors. Some of them are productive also, and give rise to a number of low-level metaphor instantiations (cf. in dubio sum fi in dubio haereo, in dubio iaceo, in dubio sto). The bold lines symbolize these productive relations by means of which the general schema is actualised by different constructions at lower-level degrees of schematicity. It is worth noting that the locative schema shows productive trends also at lower levels of schematicity. In the first case, the stimulus holds steady while the verb changes: for example, the in dubio sum schema extends its partially lexically filled pattern to other verb types, and one could take the fact that they share the same stative Aktionsart as an indication that this case of metaphorical extension is basically motivated by aspectual factors. In another case, a metaphorical schema characterized by low schematicity singles out synonymous constructions by substituting the stimulus and maintaining the basic verb esse. These novel forms are structurally and semantically similar, not to say identical, to the more schematic model, as in the case of in timore esse in terrore esse. However, if the modelled item turns out to be a hapax, as in the case of in terrore esse, in maerore iacere, the relation which the superordinate schema yields is only partially productive, and this situation is symbolised by dashed lines. 5. EVENTS ARE MOVEMENTS: AN EXAMPLE OF SEMI-PRODUCTIVITY IN LATIN METAPHORS The EVENTS ARE MOVEMENTS schema constitutes a specific instantiation of the Event Structure Metaphor, which has been suggested by Lakoff and his associates in several works and subsequently studied in a number of languages, at least within the cognitivist approach (see e.g. Lakoff 1993; Emanatian 1992; Boers 1996; Radden 1998). The point of studies such as Lakoff (1993) is that ‘various aspects of event structure, including notions such as states, changes, processes, actions, causes, purposes and means, are characterized cognitively via
FEDRIANI – EXPERIENTIAL METAPHORS IN LATIN 317 metaphor in terms of space, motion, and force’ (p. 219). In a nutshell, both events and movements are mobile extensions: while taking place, they usually occupy both space and time. The EVENTS ARE MOVEMENTS schema is a very general and schematic metaphor whose source domain is semantically rich and with only few details filled in (initial location, movement and final location): therefore, it can be actualised in many different ways and used to represent a wide range of processes and situations (Ko¨ vecses 2002: 33). One of the main consequences of the semantic generality of this schema is that, arguably, it can be applied to a wide range of domains other than that of experience. As an example, one can quote the Latin expression tempus fugit (‘time flies’, lit. ‘escapes’), which, though metaphorically entering a motion schema, does not describe an experiential situation or process, but rather may be labelled as an instance of the sub-schema TIME PASSING IS MOTION OF AN OBJECT (see Ko¨ vecses 2002: 33), which also pertains to the general mapping EVENTS ARE MOVEMENTS and represents a more specific – and thus less schematic – instantiation of it. To sum up, it is clear that the degree of semantic generality of the schema EVENTS ARE MOVEMENTS is inherently too high for our purposes and needs to be further specified. In particular, I argue that Latin experiential constructions featuring a motion schema can be described as two less schematic metaphors, which I label: CONTRACTING A DISEASE IS A FALLING INCEPTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STATES ARE ENDPOINTS OF TELIC MOVEMENTS Semantically constrained in this way, the two subordinate patterns are cast at their proper degree of schematicity and can account for the Latin data. For instance, the metaphorical schema INCEPTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STATES ARE ENDPOINTS OF TELIC MOVEMENTS imposes more constraints on the general schema, because INCEPTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL STATES is a particular subtype of EVENT, and ENDPOINTS OF TELIC MOVEMENTS constitute a specific subclass of the broader category MOVEMENTS which cast light on a unique semantic feature of the motion process, i.e. its last segment. Thus, generic metaphorical schemas differ from specific ones with regard to the degree of semantic generality (i.e. the number of details that could be filled in), the degree of schematicity (i.e. the number of subordinate instantiations the schema may be applied to) and what Ko¨ vecses (2000) called the SCOPE OF METAPHOR (i.e. the conceptual range within which the metaphor can be applied and exploited). The first sub-schema is CONTRACTING A DISEASE IS A FALLING. Typically, this pattern combines a motion event and the entrance into a container, which expresses the specific psychological state and the final goal of the movement itself. Thus, this schema is meant to join two different metaphors: specifically, DISEASES ARE CONTAINERS and CONTRACTING A DISEASE IS A FALLING. It is instantiated by six different nouns denoting disease which combine with two verbs, cado ‘I fall’ and incido ‘I fall into’, which are structurally related: in morbum cado ⁄ incido ‘I fall into disease’ (10 tokens) in febrim incido ‘I fall into a temperature’ (1) in aegritudinem incido ‘I fall into sickness’ (1) in insaniam incido ‘I fall into madness’ (1) in dementiam incido ‘I fall into (mental) insanity’ (1) in iram incido ‘I fall into anger’ (3) ‘Falling into disease’ is the most frequent (and, probably, entrenched) schema, and therefore it is likely to have paved the way for further extensions to other specific, semantically related types of stimuli, being extended to quasi-synonymic, but more specific, expressions (febris
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Experiential metaphors in Latin - Wiley Online Library

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