Summary: | In this paper, –ness nominalization is interpreted as a case of grammatical metaphor, following recent cognitive approaches such as Langacker [2009], Panther et alii [2009]. –ness suffix is one of the most productive suffixes in the English language, because it is “transparent”: it allows the predicative stem to remain fully perceptible within the derived noun. The decategorization process is thus perceptible, giving access to the speaker’s lexical creativity. –ness words are prototypically nonce-words, created by the speaker in a situation whose unique dimension (s)he needs to express; as in lexical metaphors, the transfer of symbolic traits (from the nominal category to the adjective one) leads to a form of concretization. Conceptual Metaphor Theory fails to take this fact into account: all metaphors are motivated by the search of a linguistic difference, which diminishes as metaphors get lexicalized and turn into structural, “conceptual” mapping. Prototypical metaphors are not pre-established cognitive projections. Metaphoricity and lexicalization are opposite evolutive processes.
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