Formal metonymy
Metonymy in Language, Thought and Brain - Bogusław Bierwiaczonek
Bogusław Bierwiaczonek [+ ]
University of Częstochowa
Bogusław Bierwiaczonek is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Częstochowa in Poland. His most recent publications include Studies in Cognitive Semantics (co-edited with Anna Turula, Wydawnictwo WSL, 2010) and Syntax in Cognitive Grammar (co-edited with Bożena Cetnarowska and Anna Turula, Wydawnictwo WSL, 2011).
Description
This chapter focuses on formal metonymy, which is the metonymy based on a formal relation between the vehicle and the target. The most obvious cases of formal metonymy are alphabetisms, acronyms, clips and various kinds of ellipsis in syntax. Examples of such formal metonyms are further discussed. In addition, it is shown that formal metonymy may underlie a number of spelling conventions as well as syntactic and pragmatic phenomena.