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

Abstract

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.