Bleating, growling, barking, and spitting: Metaphorical extensions and valency patterns of verbs of speaking.

ABSTRACT: This corpus-based and qualitative study examines the valency patterns of Croatian verbs that encode verbal activity and belong to the semantic field of verbs of speaking through metaphorical and metonymic extensions, using a cognitive linguistics framework, specifically the usage-based model. The analysis focuses on examples such as the metaphoric use of animal sounds (e.g., blejati 'to bleat') and verbs associated with bodily processes (e.g., srati 'to shit'), which often convey negative or stereotypical attitudes towards speakers or messages, or even extreme disdain. This paper contributes to the understanding of cross-domain figurative extensions of verb meanings and their valency adaptations. A dataset of 438 example sentences containing 152 verbs with figurative extensions targeting t

SUBMITTER: Brac I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12151387 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature