Metaphorical extensions
As we indicated earlier, conceptual metaphor also has a central role in Lakoff’s theory of radial categories. Consider the following example (Lakoff 1987: 435).
In this example, over is understood metaphorically, which results in a CONTROL sense. In other words, this sentence does not literally mean that the TR (she) is literally moving above and across the LM (me), nor that the TR is located in a static position above the LM. This CONTROL sense of over is peripheral rather than central and is licensed by the metaphor CONTROL IS UP. Because over has a conventional ABOVE schema associated with it (see Table 10.2), this metaphor allows the ABOVE schema to be extended metaphorically, providing a new meaning for over: the CONTROL sense. Furthermore, Lakoff argues that just as schemas can be extended via metaphor, some schemas are derived via metaphor in the first place. Consider the REPETITION schema, which is illustrated in (12).
According to Lakoff, this schema is derived from the X.C variant of Schema 1 (recall Figure 10.6). However, the REPETITION meaning is derived via two metaphors. Firstly, this sense relies upon the metaphor A PURPOSEFUL ACTIV ITY IS A JOURNEY: because purposeful activities like university assignments can be understood as journeys, the X.C instance of the ABOVE-ACROSS schema associated with over is licensed. Secondly, the REPETITION sense relies upon the metaphor EVENTS ARE OBJECTS: the LM is metaphorically understood as an earlier performance of the activity, where each performance event is under stood as an object. According to this theory, REPETITION is understood in terms of movement ACROSS an earlier performance of the activity, which gives rise to the repetition sense. As with meanings which derive from image schema trans formations, meanings derived by metaphor can be instantiated in semantic memory as distinct lexical concepts. Table 10.3 provides a summary of the main claims to emerge from Lakoff’s full specification approach.
