Abstract
Abstract In Systemic Functional Linguistics, meanings in semantic stratum could be realized by congruent/premetaphorical, metaphorical, or demetaphorical/post-metaphorical expressions in lexico-grammatical stratum. This paper, evidenced from the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA), explores the specific pathway from metaphorical expressions to post-metaphorical ones guided by principles of Context-first and AS IF and the principle of double functionality. The findings show that grammatical postmetaphorization is mainly realized by post-metaphor of ideation and that of modality. The former finds its expressions from common nouns to proper nouns (e.g. from security to Security), or from uncountable nouns to countable nouns (e.g. from security to securities), and the latter is evidenced by expressions shifting from explicit objective orientation to its explicit subjective counterpart (e.g. from it is possible that to it might be possible that), or by modal probability of I think type shifting from clausal initial position to clausal medial or final position (e.g. I think in the medial or final position of the clause).
Highlights
Grammatical post-metaphor denotes that the metaphorical expression has been developed into a new phase that its original characteristics of being a metaphor have been blurred or cannot be captured explicitly
This paper, evidenced from the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA), explores the specific pathway from metaphorical expressions to post-metaphorical ones guided by principles of Context-first and AS IF and the principle of double functionality
As investigated in this study, both ideational metaphor of nominalization and interpersonal metaphor of probability bifurcating it construction and I think type are undergoing the pathway of change in terms of GPM features
Summary
Grammatical post-metaphor (hereafter GPM) denotes that the metaphorical expression has been developed into a new phase that its original characteristics of being a metaphor have been blurred or cannot be captured explicitly. It could be identified by addition of new grammatical features to the metaphorical expression. If a metaphorical expression (e.g. consideration) is added with the grammatical feature of plurality (e.g. considerations), GPM occurs. GPM is used in this paper to directly presuppose its previous metaphorical or non-congruent phase and the premetaphorical or congruent phase with the implication of the prefix “post-”
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