Page 349 - Gabrijela Kišiček and Igor Ž. Žagar (eds.), What do we know about the world? Rhetorical and argumentative perspectives, Digital Library, Educational Research Institute, Ljubljana 2013
P. 349
the cowboys, the poets, the professor...
– antonomasia in croatian sports discourse 349
Louis Pasteur; the flower “dahlia” can be traced to the Swedish botanist
Anders Dahl etc.). In all of these cases antonomasias transformed to ca-
tachreses which are classified as eponyms in linguistics.
There has been a strong tradition of reducing tropes to only four ma-
jor ones – metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony (Burke, 1969). In
this tradition antonomasia is seen as a part of metonymy or synecdoche
(see Lausberg, 1990; Monson, 2003).2 The structuralist view on tropes is
often simplified through Jakobson’s discussion about metaphoric/para-
digmatic and metonymic/syntagmatic relations (Nerlich, 2005), but the
similar dichotomic principle can be traced through the works of cogni-
tive linguists (who are often deemed opposed to linguistic structural-
ism). If they ever discuss antonomasia as an independent linguistic en-
tity, they are mostly concerned with the classical form which can easi-
ly be interpreted as metonymy. The Vossian type is rejected as a special
form of antonomasia and it is simply described as a metaphor (Brdar and
Brdar-Szabó, 2001). Other authors close to the cognitive linguistic view
describe the classical type as metonymic as opposed to the metaphoric
Vossian type (Holmqvist and Pluciennik, 2010).
Although this strict binary classification seems valid, there are many
examples of antonomasia which can be described as a combination of
metaphor and metonymy (e.g. the Swiss Wizard for Roger Federer, the
Giant from Šalata for Ivo Karlović, the basketball Mozart for Dražen
Petrović, the Croatian Ibiza for the Zrće beach on the island of Pag etc.).
All of these examples are phrases, consisting of two parts: head and de-
pendent. Head is in most cases a common or proper noun (e.g. wizard,
giant, Mozart, Ibiza) and dependent is usually an adjective (e.g. Swiss,
basketball, Croatian) or a prepositional phrase containing a noun (e.g.
from Šalata). The head part is always some type of trope (usually a met-
aphor) which all by itself already constitutes antonomasia, but in order
to be properly and unambiguously understood it requires a non-figura-
tive dependent part. For example, naming Ivica Kostelić King or his sis-
ter Janica Queen could be easily confused with the same figurative sub-
stitution for Usain Bolt or Madonna, respectively. Therefore, if we want
antonomasia to be specific and unambiguous, we must add some kind of
dependent which will have a strict literal meaning such as snow, of ath-
letics or of pop.
2 This view could be accepted if we disregard the existence of the second, Vossian type of antonoma-
sia. Since the followers of this approach defined antonomasia only in its classical form, they could
easily classify it simply either as metonymy or synecdoche.
– antonomasia in croatian sports discourse 349
Louis Pasteur; the flower “dahlia” can be traced to the Swedish botanist
Anders Dahl etc.). In all of these cases antonomasias transformed to ca-
tachreses which are classified as eponyms in linguistics.
There has been a strong tradition of reducing tropes to only four ma-
jor ones – metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche and irony (Burke, 1969). In
this tradition antonomasia is seen as a part of metonymy or synecdoche
(see Lausberg, 1990; Monson, 2003).2 The structuralist view on tropes is
often simplified through Jakobson’s discussion about metaphoric/para-
digmatic and metonymic/syntagmatic relations (Nerlich, 2005), but the
similar dichotomic principle can be traced through the works of cogni-
tive linguists (who are often deemed opposed to linguistic structural-
ism). If they ever discuss antonomasia as an independent linguistic en-
tity, they are mostly concerned with the classical form which can easi-
ly be interpreted as metonymy. The Vossian type is rejected as a special
form of antonomasia and it is simply described as a metaphor (Brdar and
Brdar-Szabó, 2001). Other authors close to the cognitive linguistic view
describe the classical type as metonymic as opposed to the metaphoric
Vossian type (Holmqvist and Pluciennik, 2010).
Although this strict binary classification seems valid, there are many
examples of antonomasia which can be described as a combination of
metaphor and metonymy (e.g. the Swiss Wizard for Roger Federer, the
Giant from Šalata for Ivo Karlović, the basketball Mozart for Dražen
Petrović, the Croatian Ibiza for the Zrće beach on the island of Pag etc.).
All of these examples are phrases, consisting of two parts: head and de-
pendent. Head is in most cases a common or proper noun (e.g. wizard,
giant, Mozart, Ibiza) and dependent is usually an adjective (e.g. Swiss,
basketball, Croatian) or a prepositional phrase containing a noun (e.g.
from Šalata). The head part is always some type of trope (usually a met-
aphor) which all by itself already constitutes antonomasia, but in order
to be properly and unambiguously understood it requires a non-figura-
tive dependent part. For example, naming Ivica Kostelić King or his sis-
ter Janica Queen could be easily confused with the same figurative sub-
stitution for Usain Bolt or Madonna, respectively. Therefore, if we want
antonomasia to be specific and unambiguous, we must add some kind of
dependent which will have a strict literal meaning such as snow, of ath-
letics or of pop.
2 This view could be accepted if we disregard the existence of the second, Vossian type of antonoma-
sia. Since the followers of this approach defined antonomasia only in its classical form, they could
easily classify it simply either as metonymy or synecdoche.
