Integración conceptual y modos de inferencia

Abstract

This article is focused on the productive combination of some of the central assumptions of the relevance-theoretic analysis of metaphor and metonymy with related assumptions in Cognitive Linguistics. While the Principle of Relevance is argued to underlie all forms of verbal communication and to be able to motivate metaphor and metonymy, it falls short of allowing the analyst to determine the precise nature of the cognitive operations that take place during language production and comprehension. Furthermore, there are constraining factors that regulate the way in which metaphor and metonymy are used, such as the Extended Invariance and the Correlation principles. The article also addresses the problem of emergent structure in metaphor by proposing a modified version of Blending Theory, based on an account of cognitive operations and their role in producing inferences that are combined in a principled way into new conceptual constructs. The process complies at all stages with relevance requirements in terms of communicative efficiency and with the Extended Invariance and the Correlation principles as cognitively adequate constraining factors.