Who really turned off the light?: Defining the licensing of metonymic clipping from an empirical standpoint Open Access

Abstract

Abstract
Who really turned off the light?:
Defining the licensing of metonymic clipping from an empirical standpoint

By Tonia N. Davis

Metonymy is the process by which one word stands for another, as exemplified by I ate a box of
cookies (literally cookies - not a box - were eaten). In this research, we examine the semantic
conditions that license the use of metonymy, and in particular, test the proposal that certain types of
metonymic reference - those involving metonymic clipping - are licensed by agency-based vagueness.
Metonymic clipping occurs when a single individual is used to refer to an entire series of events, as in
William the Conqueror changed the English language. In Experiment 1, metonymic clipping was rated
more acceptable for sentences with vague verbs (e.g. change) than without, and for sentences involving
groups of agents rather than single agents. In Experiment 2, metonymic clipping was rated more
acceptable for sentences in which there was temporal overlap between the initiator's and the agents'
actions than when there was no overlap. Experiment 3 indicated that the conditions licensing
metonymic clipping are not simply due to the sheer number of agents in the causal chain, but rather (by
hypothesis) the vagueness of events in the series. Experiment 4 indicated that metonymic clipping was
less acceptable when the agents of the action were named than when they were nameless. Implications
of metonymy on our understanding of the interface between language and cognition are discussed.

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Experiments
Experiment 1......................................................................................................10-14
Experiment 2......................................................................................................14-18
Experiment 3......................................................................................................18-22
Experiment 4......................................................................................................22-25

Tables
Table 1.................................................................................................................12
Table 2.................................................................................................................16
Table 3.................................................................................................................20
Table 4.................................................................................................................24

Figures
Figure 1................................................................................................................13
Figure 2................................................................................................................17
Figure 3................................................................................................................21
Figure 4................................................................................................................24

References........................................................................................................32-34

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Linguistics
Degree	BA
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Language, Linguistics Psychology, Cognitive
Keyword	metonymy vagueness metonymic clipping
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Wolff, Phillip, Emory University
Committee Members	Lourenco, Stella, Emory University Pak, Marjorie, Emory University

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