SENSORY METONYMY AS A LANGUAGE PHENOMENON: LINGUOCOGNITIVE AND LINGOUCULTURAL ASPECTS. Article 2

Abstract

The present publication continues a series of articles dealing with sensory lexis in English, Ukrainian and Russian, namely with adjectives of colour and gustatory codes. The main focus here concentrates upon studying the process of semantic derivation that results in appearance inside the lexical structure of a sensory polysemant some new sememes which are formed on the basis of a metonymic shift on condition that additional semes join the main seme of colour/gustatory indication while the type of sensority (colour/taste) in such newly coined sememe is preserved. The latter differentiates a sensory metonymy and a synesthesia which was regarded in particular in article 1of the present series of articles. We come to a conclusion that metonymy (as a phenomenon of usual semantic derivation) is inherent in colour and gustatory lexis of all the three languages under analysis, meanwhile we have also found certain lacunas, i.e. in some languages dictionaries do not register metonymical shifts in sensory polysemants. All the registered cases of usual metonymy are investigated and treated as being culturally conditioned. The article elucidates the thesis that metonymical shifts and expansion of semantic structure of a word are caused by peculiarities of linguocognitive nominative creativity of people who live in certain environment and practice certain types of activity (social, productive, everyday life). Some such peculiarities are of generally human character, some are of areal character, and some have narrow-ethnical character. We put forward the following typological triad of usual (as opposed to occasional) metonymy in sensory lexis: absolute (which is registered in all three languages), frequent (registered in two languages), and unique (registered in dictionaries of only one language). Each of these types are scrupulously analyzed and interpreted on the material of the English, the Ukrainian and the Russian languages.