Grammatical Metaphor

[Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim]

What's grammatical Methaphor?
Thank you for your contributions
Regards
Jamshid

[Pete]

What's grammatical Methaphor?
Thank you for your contributions
Regards
Jamshid
I had never heard of that term before your posting. The following article (from a Google search) seems to define the term as the creation of a noun via a grammatical derivation from a word that is another part of speech. (I personally don't really see why "metaphor" is used in the name of that process.)

http://papyr.com/hypertextbooks/grammar/style3.htm

[sc231426]

(I personally don't really see why "metaphor" is used in the name of that process.)

Even though this usage of "metaphor" is different from the traditional (poetic) metaphor, both have to do with transference/transportation, which is what the word "metaphor" means in the Greek.

Whereas the traditional metaphor transfers a dominant quality/characteristic of one thing to another thing, grammatical metaphor transfers noun-class status to another (non-noun) word.

[Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim]

Thanks Pete and Sc231426 for your posts.

As you know metaphor is a very important feature in human language. There is no exaggeration when we say that language itself is a metaphor (compare George Lakoff: the metaphor we live by).

The Macmillan Dictionary has realized this important feature and dedicated two full pages to this important issue by Dr Rosamund Moon: e.g.: He is hurt. He gave me a cold look. Hurt and cold here as you know are metaphors because they are based on comparison or analogy with injury and temperature.

Simile is the same and differs from metaphor only in the use of words: “like, similar, the same as, resemble, look alike and so on”. Since prepositions refer to directions they show metaphor clearly. She has split up with her boyfriend. I wonder why our excellent dictionaries still lag behind on this matter.


Human language is analogous and not digital as I discussed earlier (see Linguistic predictions). Analogue means like or the same as. This is part of human perception. We reflect or mirror what we see or perceive. Metaphor, as you know, is a figure of speech in which a name or a descriptive word or phrase is transferred to an object or action different from, but analogous to, its original referent.

Finally, a metaphor is after all a picture. A picture goes deeper into memory and communicates ideas faster and more conveniently.

Unfortunately some people mistakenly believe that the use of metaphor is restricted to special forms of language only, such as idioms, preposition, and verbs of movement. There are different types of metaphor:

- Metaphor is common in ordinary language
- literature is very popular for using metaphor

- Now there is another kind of metaphor that is especially characteristic of written English "grammatical metaphor". Grammatical metaphors are created through the grammatical process of 'derivation or nominalization' by which a verb or an adjective is converted into a noun, often by adding an ending. Thus, Grammatical metaphors are a very prominent feature of written English due to nominalization (on account of information density. More meaning can be packed into nouns than into verbs. This is the reason why the words "verbal" and "verbose" are derived from the word "verb".In addition you can do more operations on nouns than on verbs: i.e. use them in the plural or with an adjective etc....

Complete books have recently been dedicated to grammatical metaphor since information density is becoming an issue and a problem due to the increase in human knowledge.

Now compare:
I conclude (verb)
I come to the conclusion (noun)

I would welcome more ideas.
Regards
Jamshid

[sc231426]

It is important to remember that grammatical metaphor/nominalization is only one type of derivation. There are derivations altering every part of speech to other parts of speech. (And there are also grammatical derivations which do not change part of speech, as in "un-" N-->N and "re-" V-->V)

These are very easy to find... here are a few to start with:

adj --> adv
- happy --> happily
adj --> V
- sterile --> sterilze
V --> N
- sterilize --> sterilization, derive --> derivation
- prefer --> preference, transfer --> transference
- judge --> judgment, govern --> government
N --> adj
- philosophy --> philosophical


While more morphological derivations may be V --> N than N --> V, note that we also have inflectional derivations in English to relate nouns and verbs by word stress. A few examples:

'per-fect, to per-'fect
're-cord, to re'cord
'con-trast, to con'trast

In addition, some words belong to both word classes without any derivations, simply because English speakers have started to use nouns as verbs and verbs as nouns! These range from the more traditional:

We traded. We made a good trade.
It puzzled me. It was a very interesting puzzle.

to the more modern:

I went to Google to search for the answer. I googled it.
We have a network at the office. We networked the computers last month.

By the way, English is not alone in its use of derivational morphemes. These are quite common for "synthetic" languages, and contrast with more "isolating" languages such as Chinese, where the typical word contains just one unit that cannot be broken down. On the opposite end of the continuum, in "polysynthetic" languages such as Swahili, words contain so many morphemes that entire sentences in English can be represented by one word.

By the way, Dr. Ibrahim, I disagree that more meaning can be packed into nouns than verbs. While nouns do inflect for plurality, verbs inflect for person, number, and tense. While nouns can be modified by adjectives, verbs can be modified just as easily by adverbs. (As you know well, since in German, adjectives and adverbs differ only in distribution.) Nouns represent whole, completed events, whereas verbs can convey the temporal and aspectual nuances of those events. They convey different meaning for sure, but I would not say that one conveys more than the other. I understand your preference for nouns, but perhaps your cultural/linguistic background is affecting this preference...? The average German document will contain a much higher noun to verb ratio than the average English document. Good writers in German simply prefer nouns, but English teachers here in America tell their students to use more verbs to make their writing more exciting. Again, it is not a question of "good" or "better," simply of what society / the linguistic community perceives as good writing.

[Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim]

Hi sc231426
Thank you for your interesting post. I like and agree with your ideas about the derivations but I would like now to discuss this issue of nominalization a bit more with you.

First how do you expalin the fact that verbal (Spoken language) and verbose (too many words but less content) are derived from the word verb?

Second, how can we find out why academic language (written text) prefers nominalization (apart from certain high frequency verbs like "have"e or stative verbs like "be" to verbal langauge? Admittedly nominalization makes language less lively and boring but more objective and dispassionate. I mean nouns have a higher information density than verbs. I need some more time to reflect on nouns and why they carry more meaning. I'll come back later.

I live in Bremen Germany and I know that formal German (the langauge of philosophers) or sometimes even everyday German tends to nominalization. Academic language is more objective and nouns are more objective than verbs. In addition, nouns can be subjects and objects with all the qualities of nouns as labels of natural phenomena which provide meaning. Nouns are also quieter than verbs because they lack the energy produced by verbs especially Germanic verbs in English like come and go.

As you said verbs show number, tense, aspect, mood and voice. This is exactly what objective scientific language tries to avoid. So the principle of objectivity, density and a language which is quieter in its flow force academics to nouns. By the way when religion talks about language there is always reference to nouns and not to verbs.

I would love to continue discussing this interesting issue with you. I am also a bit curious if you don't mind. Are you German?
My best wishes
Jamshid

[sc231426]

You make some very good points. You are absolutely right about nouns bringing objectivity to written language. Because there is no reference to time/aspect/mood/etc, the referenced event is whole, complete, assumed. I believe that German culture values objectivity and precision more than American culture does - perhaps this is the underlying reason to the German preference for nouns, even in everyday speech. This brings up an interesting discussion about culture affecting language, and language affecting culture.

I don't understand your argument about "verb," "verbal," and "verbose." Could you explain your reasoning?

To answer your question, I am American, but I have studied German and spent a fair amount of time in Switzerland over the past several summers.

Looking forward to hearing from you. Best wishes.

[Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim]

Hi sc231426
Thanks for your post and your objective way of discussion.
By verbal I mean as you know oral not written. By verbose I means when something is too long but lacks matter. These are typical qualities of verbs. They say a lot but impart little. One thing I have to make clear is that what I write about verbs doesn't mean I don't like them. On the contrary verbs are part and parcel of our human life and they reflect our emotional, attidudal needs. In addition, the majority of verbs are dynamic and not stative which is a quality of our life.

Obviously since the development of human knowledge and the establishment of disciplines in universities there is a need for a more precise, objective language. If you increase the degree of objectivity and precision you have to revert to a formal, mathematical, digital language which is based on decisions or two modes yes/no( The duality principle). This means human language is translated into a formal mathematical one by means of reduction because formal language is based on reduction (i.e. loss of part of information which is beyond human perception as with compressed or zipped data/program files) for the sake of precision (reduction v. fuzziness).

Nevertheless, this duality is ubiquitous in human life and language:
Regular verbs v. irregualr verbs
Infinitive v. gerund
nouns v. verbs
women v. men
life v. death
God v. devil
Everything seems to have a polarity or an adversary.

However, as I already stated human langauge is analogue. different meanings can be packed into one word or a sentence. This gives room to playing on words, poetry, jokes, mysticism and implications (between- lines messages: fuzziness). Moreover, there might be other messages which are not perceived consciously but on a subconscious level.This is definitely superior to digital language (superiority of analogue mode over digital mode).

The only problem with analogue language is it is slow and ambiguous (But ambiguity can also be an advantage).

In academic language lexical density means giving preference to nouns. It also means using more words in one sentences (I am afraid lots of nouns of Romance origin are long- multisyllabic- , slow and a bit boring in comaprision with nouns of Germanic origin). you can refer to many nouns or list them. in a more verbal sentence you don't need to use so many verbs. So information density is low. I haven't finished. But I believe we might go on with our interesting discussion.
My best regards
Jamshid

[Dr. Jamshid Ibrahim]

A metaphor can only occur in analogue language.
Metaphors on the one hand can be lexical or grammatical.
On the other hand an expression can be metaphorical or congruent: without a metaphorical stratum. When an expression is metaphorical there is stratal tension (the potential for tension/humour or potential for insertion i.e. fuzziness):

Question: Have you got the time, please?
Answer(1): Yes (without telling the time).
Answer (2): yes, it's half past five.

The World of Metaphor
- Metaphor and simile
- Dead metaphor: Usually in common language and because of their frequent use its metaphorical character became invisible: feelings up and down

- Grammatical metaphor is part of lexical morphology (e.g. nominalzation). there are two types of tendencies in English:
A consistent movement towards metaphorization
A counter-movement against metaphorization.
Regards
Jamshid