Vindicating Synecdoche: A Study in Rhetoric and          Cognitive  Semantics

Mohammed Hasan Al-Kawwaz, Siham

	Vindicating Synecdoche: A Study in Rhetoric and Cognitive Semantics
Journal of the College of Languages
Article 1, Volume 0, Issue 29, 2017, Pages 45-65
Author
Siham Mohammed Hasan Al-Kawwaz
Abstract
Synecdoche is a term used to refer to a classical rhetoric phenomenon that substitutes part for whole, genus for species or vice versa. It appears in different pictures that vary from a scholar to another ranging from a trope to a semantic mechanism. Some scholars identify synecdoche as a separate trope, others see it as a special form of metonymy and some expand it to be a master trope that includes most metonymical relations. More recently, cognitive semantics redefine synecdoche as an independent trope exclusively based on inclusion (taxonomic relations) in that they exclude the part-whole relation and subsume it entirely within metonymy. They, as the researcher sees, make a dangerous step that jeopardizes the concept of synecdoche and transforms it to an anemic trope or a merely semantic mechanism which belongs to a normal functioning of ordinary language. The present paper aims at defending the concept of synecdoche through conforming its independence without losing its fundamental part . Therefore, it tries its best to arrive at semantically based justifications to retrieve the lost part from metonymy to synecdoche. It, thus, announces the independence of synecdoche on condition that it preserves its most tropical part, viz. part-whole relation. Key words: trope, synecdoche, metonymy, contiguity, inclusion, partonymy, taxonomy.

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