Metonymy-Guided Discourse Inferencing. A Qualitative Study

Abstract

Cognitive-linguistic research on metonymy has argued cogently that metonymy is a crucial factor guaranteeing discourse coherence. Barcelona (forthcoming) includes a detailed study of the metonymies guiding the pragmatic inferences claimed to be invited by the reading of a brief text. The analysis of the fragment, though internally consistent, is based on my own close reading of the text. In the paper I report on a qualitative study investigating whether native speakers of English derive the same inferences and whether they are guided by metonymy in this derivation. The results seem to confirm my claims in the earlier study.