A Grammar of Italian Sign Language (LIS)

In metonymic processes, entities which are related for some reason are used one in place of the other. The abstract schema through which metonymies are represented is generally X for Y. In metonymy, the relationship between the two associated concepts or objects has to be close. Indeed, differently from metaphors, metonymic relations involve two related concepts included in the same semantic sphere. The picture below schematizes such mechanism.

 

         

         Figure: Schema illustrating a metonymic relationship (recreated from Quer et al., 2017: 764)

 

One of the most common types of metonymy is synecdoche, a relationship in which a part of an object stands for the whole entity. In this case, as illustrated in the picture above, the macro-domain of an entity or of a concept is decomposed into several smaller subcomponents.

LIS, as other sign and spoken languages, displays lots of linguistic uses of this type. For example, in the video below, the signs face new stands for a new person. Therefore, the signer selects one single aspect (i.e. the face) of the domain to denote the whole entity (i.e. the person).

 

 

 

         ix₁ see face new

         ‘I see a new face.’

 

Lots of signs in LIS have been generated by this type of metonymic process, so that many frozen signs are inherently metonymic. For instance, many of the signs derived from handle classifiers (MORPHOLOGY 5.1.3) display a part-whole relationship. An example is shown by the picture below in which the sign for the steering wheelis used to refer to the whole entity, the car.

 

         

         car

 

Similarly, the sign pot derives from the way in which a pot is commonly grabbed, namely by its pot-handles.

 

         

         pot

 

Another type of metonymic relationship is the producer who stands for the product. For example, in the case of movies or books, the name of the director or the author might be employed in substitution of their intellectual product. The example below displays one of these cases in which the Italian writer Dante is used in place of his well-known poem the ‘Divina Commedia’.

 

 

 

         ix₁ dante ix read

         ‘I read Dante (Dante’s poem).’

 

A similar case might happen with other types of products, such as the brand of a car which stands for the car itself, as in the example below.

 

 

 

         ix₁ mercedes ix₁ buy

         ‘I bought a Mercedes (a Mercedes car).’

 

Another type of metonymic relationship consists in substituting an institution with the place related to that institution. In the example below, the building which represents the seat of the Senate of the Italian Republic, Palazzo Madama, is used for referring to the Senate itself.

 

 

 

         palace ix m-a-d-a-m-a law approve

         ‘Palazzo Madama (the Senate) has approved the law.’

 

Metonymy in LIS is also realised in the relationship effect for cause. In the following example, the concept of being weak is realised through the mention of having trembling legs.

 

 

 

         brother_a poss₁ ix_a character weak

         ‘My brother has a weak character.’

 

Both metonymy and metaphor show a widespread use in LIS discourse. Sometimes, it may be hard to distinguish between the two phenomena. For example, the fact that a verb referring to a feeling such as love is articulated on the signer’s chest may be interpreted either as metaphor or metonymy.

 

         

         love

 

This case can be analysed as metaphor if we consider that the chest is metaphorically conceived as the container of emotions. However, it can also be analysed as metonymy as the chest stands for the locus of emotions.