Метафоры глаголов падения в адыгейском языке

Известия РАН. Серия литературы и языка. 2020. Т. 79. № 5. С. 69–86.

Bagirokova I., Ryzhova D.

The paper considers metaphoric extensions of the West-Circassian (Adyghe) verbs of falling ‑fe- ‘fall’, wəḳʷerejə- ‘topple’, -zə- ‘detach’, zexeteqʷe- / zexezə- / zexefe- / zexewe- ‘crumple’ in typological perspective. The present analysis of metaphoric meanings is drawn on the frame-based approach to lexical typology created by the Moscow lexical typology group (MLexT): all semantic shifts that the given verbs undergo are considered to be motivated by their literal, physical meanings. Metaphoric uses under discussion have been inventoried through corpus data and supplemented by the survey among native speakers.

The research demonstrates that the verb wəḳʷerejə- ‘topple’ has no metaphoric derivations, while the rest of the West-Circassian verbs of falling are each characterized by a specific set of semantic shifts. The verb ‑fe-, which originally refers to falling from a height with the focus on the goal of movement, when used metaphorically, maintains this orientation and serves to cover the situations with the idea of an unexpected coincidence, overlapping of some objects, situations or parameters. The verb -zə-, focused on the source point of the movement, in its direct meaning is normally applied to situations of falling from a height caused by detachment. Metaphors, derived from it, denote the loss of a contact or of some properties. The semantic shifts of the verbs zexeteqʷe- / zexezə- / zexefe- / zexewe, describing crumpling in their direct use, entail the meaning of the destruction of abstract constructions or that of a person’s functionality loss.

The number and the diversity of metaphors of falling attested in West-Circassian, a minor language with a young written tradition, is quite unexpected. Still, the majority of them represent specific realizations of more general semantic patterns attested in other languages and thus additionally confirm the recurrence of these patterns across languages.

Keywords: Adyghe, адыгейский язык, метафоры, lexical typology, лексическая типология, metaphors, глаголы падения, verbs of falling, фреймовый подход, frame-based approach