Metaphorical phrasal
quantifiers and synonymy in a
cross-linguistic perspective
Ramón Martí Solano, University of Limoges, France
Raluca Nita, University of Poitiers, France
Typological research
• “[…] the study of linguistic patterns that are
found cross-linguistically, in particular, patterns
that can be discovered solely by cross-linguistic
comparison.” (Croft, 1990)
• Cross-linguistic comparative approach
• Cross-linguistically recurrent patterns of
synonymy
• Observed patterns and distribution across
languages
• Degrees of systematicity and specificities
Phrasal quantifiers 1
• Collocational frameworks (Renouf & Sinclair,
1991)
– a + noun + of / noun(s) + of
• Metaphorical and non-metaphorical usage
– stacks of dishes, torrents of rain
– stacks of evidence, torrents of criticism
• Typology
– a lot of, loads of
– a slew of, scads of
– a sea of, battalions of
Phrasal quantifiers 2
• Two levels of synonymy
– Broader level of functional synonymy
– Narrower level of conceptual synonymy
• These quantifiers are interchangeable in
discourse only at the second level of synonymy
–
–
–
–
–
–
an army of lawyers
a legion of lawyers
a battery of lawyers
a phalanx of lawyers
a battalion of lawyers
a platoon of lawyers
Metaphoricity
• Conceptual metaphors (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980)
– SOCIETY IS A SEA > a sea of people
– CRITICISM AND INSULTS ARE BULLETS > a barrage of
criticism
– LAWYERS ARE SOLDIERS > an army of lawyers
• Conventional metaphorical patterns (Hanks,
2006)
– a storm of protest
– a torrent of abuse
– an oasis of sanity
General / specific
• Across-language general features
– Geographical features and natural phenomena to
express a large number or amount
– Common combinatory patterns
• Language-specific features
–
–
–
–
Phraseology
Well-established metaphors
Culture-specific images
Other extra-linguistic factors
Research methodology
• 6 European languages: English, French, Italian,
Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish
• Corpus-driven research
– English: COCA
– Contrastive analysis
• Corpus choice: Google
Why Google?
• Homogeneity
Previous corpus research:
–
–
–
–
–
–
English: BNC (100 million words), COCA (410 million words)
French: Frantext (150 million words)
Italian: La Repubblica corpus (400 million words)
Portuguese: CETEMPúblico 1.7 v. 4.0 (180 million words)
Spanish: CREA (160 million words)
Romanian: ?
• Representativeness of the results
• Paremeters of the research
General features
• Metaphorised nouns
– natural phenomena
– geographical features
– the military
• Nominal bases
- people and hyponyms
- money & debts
- speech nouns: words and negatively-connoted related terms (criticism,
abuse, etc.)
- state-of-mind nouns: problems, doubts, etc.
• Language-specific combinations
-
mar de rosas (Portuguese)
mar de olivos (Spanish)
ríos de tinta (Spanish)
râu de lacrimi (Romanian)
shower of sparks (English)
ploaie de flori (Romanian)
a mountain of
English
French
Italian
Portuguese
[monte]
SG debt469,370
sg, pl.
paperwor
k-134,500
SG, pl
evidence96,700
SG,pl dettes89,400
SG,PL argent
-62,300
SG,pl
problèm
es17,370
SG,PL
soldi/dena
ro-184,300
SG,PL prove36,000
SG,PL debiti32,300
SG,pl
dinheiro57,200
SG,PL
problem
as19,740
Romanian
SG,pl bani176,200
SG datorii19,300
Spanish
sg, PL dinero59,700
SG, (pl) deudas53,780
Common nominal bases
Language-specific
-money: 5/6
-evidence: English & Italian
-debt: 5/6
a sea of
English
SG troubles141,000
SG/pl people14,720
French
SG
hommes/personn
es-70,400
SG ennuis-9,300
SG larmes-5,860
Italian
SG persone474,011
SG
soldi/denaro213,718
SG difficoltà47,600
Portuguese
Romanian
Spanish
SG
gente/pessoas
—146,230
SG sangue11,027
SG rosas-9,331
SG oameni –
433,000
SG, pl dudas/
contradicciones/
indecisiones/conf
usiones-1,286,830
SG olivos-87,790
SG, pl gente77,370
Common nominal bases
Language-specific
-people: 6/6
-olivos: Spanish [cultural image]
-troubles: 3/6
-soldi/denaro:Italian
-dudas: Spanish [frequency: 1,242,630]
-rosas: Portuguese
a legion of
English
SG,pl fans1,175,000
French
Italian
Portuguese
SG, pl
avocats129,380
SG,PL fans/
SG,pl
admirateurs48,079
SG,pl
ammiratori/sg,
PL fans37,720
SG,PL
avvocati-5670
SG,pl
fãs/admiradores88,831
SG,pl
seguidores6,949
Romanian
(fani)
Spanish
SG,pl
fans/admiradores/a
ficionados-284,310
SG,pl seguidores211,200
Common nominal bases
-hyponyms of people
Language-specific
-fans (English loan word &
native equivalent)
- Romanian: preference for numeral quantifiers
criticism
English
barrage
(217,000)
wave
(107,000)
French
pluie (136,000)
flot (71,340)
Italian
pioggia
(17,620)
mare (15,006)
Portuguese
chuva
(9,845)
barragem
(3,840)
Source domains
- WATER: 6/6
- BULLETS: English, Portuguese, Romanian
Language-specific: a barrage of in English
Romanian
ploaie
(2,390)
tir (1,610)
Spanish
aluvión
(342,230)
lluvia (160,068)
words
English
torrent
(74,400)
stream
(13,500)
French
Italian
flot de
paroles
(161,600)
pluie de
mots
(34,300)
fiume
(109,700)
marea
(43,500)
Portuguese
rio (1556)
torrente
(1,323)
Romanian
ploaie de
cuvinte
(5,340)
şuvoi de
cuvinte/vor
be (3,480)
stream
(English)
sea: marea
(Italian)
flood:
aluvión(
(Spanish)
rain: pluie
(French),
ploaie
(Romanian)
river: fiume
, (Italian), rio
(Portuguese)
flot (French),
şuvoi
(Romanian)
torrent:
English,
Portuguese,
Spanish
Spanish
aluvión
(342,230)
torrente
(15,301)
Conclusions
• Metaphorical phrasal quantifiers tend to be recurrent and
systematic in all six languages, although significant
differences in frequency should be taken into account
• Overall marked preference in English for metaphorical
phrasal quantifiers compared to numeral quantifiers or
other non-metaphorical phrases in other languages
• The lexical fields associated to these quantifiers are
quite restricted in number (people, money and words),
which favours across-language synonymy
• a sea of people and a legion of fans as paradigms of
interlinguistic synonymy
• Language-specific preferences: streams of comes at the
bottom of all the possible metaphorical phrasal
quantifiers preceding money in English. On the contrary,
rios de is by far and away the preferred realisation in
Portuguese
References
• CROFT W., 1990, Typology and Universals, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
• HANKS P., 2006, “Metaphoricity is gradable” in A.
Stefanowitsch & S. Th. Gries (eds.) Corpus-based
Approaches to Metaphor and Metonymy, Berlin/New
York: Mouton de Gruyter, 17-35.
• LAKOFF G. & JOHNSON M., 1980, Metaphors We Live
By, Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.
• MARTÍ SOLANO R. (forthcoming) “L’expression
idiomatique de grandes quantités en anglais
contemporain”, Littérature et multilinguisme n° 1, Oran:
Publications de l’Université d’Oran.
• RENOUF A. & SINCLAIR J. M., 1991, “Collocational
Frameworks in English” in K. Aijmer & B. Altenberg (eds)
English Corpus Linguistics, New York: Longman, 128143.