Explicature Derivation and Conceptual Mappings

The present paper attempts to explore the relationship between explicature derivation and conceptual mappings from the following three aspects:metaphoric mappings,metonymic mappings and interaction between metaphor and metonymy. It is argued that the existence of once-correspondence metaphors provides the basis for a metaphor-metonymy continuum; that predicative uses of metonymy yield explicatures similar to those derived from one-correspondence metaphoric mappings (both by singling out a feature which applies to the target),while referential uses of metonymy involve either domain expansion or domain highlighting. As to double metonymic mappings and conceptual interaction between metaphor and metonymy,they are more complex cases. It is found that in double metonymies which only make use of domain highlighting the relevance of the conceptual structure of the two metonymic sources is kept intact,whereas in those double metonymic mappings involving both highlighting and expansion only the structure of the source domain of the second mapping is preserved. In cases of metaphor-metonymy interaction,we have noted that metonymy may serve either a developing or a highlighting function of the source or the target of a metaphor. The resulting cognitive operations are necessary for the derivation of the intended explicated meaning,which,whatever the interaction pattern,is to be found always in the metaphoric target.