RT Article
T1 Polysemy Revisited
JF Altorientalische Forschungen
VO 46
IS 1
SP 61
OP 87
A1 Guasparri, Andrea
LA German
YR 2019
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1801475784
AB This paper addresses the cognitive models that frame our understanding of what is traditionally called “metaphoric polysemy”, a well-established principle at work when it comes to naming the animals around us. In particular, taking the Roman nomenclature of aquatic animals as a case study, polysemy is redefined according to some basic cognitive principles of ethnobiological classification such as analogical similarity, biological essentialism and the role of simultaneous metaphoric and metonymic associations to the perceptual/cultural constraints targeted on the biological referent for naming it – the result is at least two kinds of metaphoric polysemy, to be called “external” (or exo-polysemy ) and “internal” (or endo-polysemy ), respectively. The idea is that the naming patterns that emerge from the ethnozoological nomenclature under examination may not only provide a better understanding of an ancient people’s zooanthropology but a paradigm for analysing descriptive ethnobiological naming in general.
K1 Linguistic Ethnobiology
K1 Metaphoric Polysemy
K1 Ancient Ethnozoological Nomenclature
DO 10.1515/aofo-2019-0006