Metaphorical polysemy and paradigmatic relations: A corpus study

Abstract

The recent cognitive view of metaphor has implications for semantic relations between established metaphorical senses of polysemous lexemes. It has been suggested that the relations of synonymy, antonymy and hyponymy holding between literal senses of lexemes may be replicated by their metaphorical senses. In this paper, lexemes with literal senses in the semantic areas of temperature, illness and tools are examined using concordance data from a large computerized corpus. Semantic relations between their literal and metaphorical senses are studied. It is concluded that semantic relations between literal senses are upheld between their metaphorical counterparts at the most general, abstract level, but that there are a number of inconsistencies when specific uses and collocational patterns are examined. The metaphorical senses of frequent lexemes such as hot or cold are less likely to behave predictably than the metaphorical senses of less frequent lexemes such as chilly or tepid, which often form semantic relationships that echo those of their literal senses.