Non-literal and non-metaphorical uses of Danish komme ‘come’: A case study

Abstract: Drawing the borderline between literal, metonymical and metaphorical uses of lexical units is by no means a trivial enterprise and a number of attempts have been made to establish intermediate categories between these. Opinions seem to be divided on how the literal meaning of lexical items can be determined, and on how to separate metaphorical uses of lexical items from nonmetaphorical ones. However there seem to exist uses of lexical items that fall between these two categories. The present article concentrates on such uses of the Danish verb komme ’come’ and discusses whether the notion of metonymy is appropriate to characterise these. It is assumed that every lexical item has its own linguistic meaning which consists of the elements of the particular conceptual domain or an idealized cognitive model (ICM) that the lexical unit belongs to – in this case the motion-ICM. The ICM has some obligatory elements and it can have non-obligatory elements. The literal use of the lexical item must contain all the obligatory elements of the ICM it belongs to, and additionally some other elements – from the non-obligatory elements of the ICM – which define them in relation to other lexical items belonging to the same ICM. Which additional element(s) belong to its literal meaning beside the obligatory elements of the ICM, must be determined for every lexical item separately. Metaphorical uses are derived through mapping the ICM the item belongs to on another, usually more abstract ICM. The most fundamental elements of the item’s linguistic meaning – in our case motion and moving object – are missing in the metaphorical uses. Beside literal and metaphorical uses there are several uses of lexical items that do not fall in either of these categories. These can be regarded as metonymical if the notion of metonymy is interpreted wider than traditionally, that is stating that metonymical uses of the lexical unit can be derived from the literal meaning through taking away from or adding to its elements.