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Preface

We are happy to announce that the second special issue of metaphorik.de is now available online. The present volume – the second special issue since the first volume of metaphorik.de appeared online in 2001 – focuses on the topic of metonymy, a linguistic and cognitive trope that has received increasing attention during the last decade. This provides us with the opportunity to emphasise – again – that metaphorik.de tries to offer an online forum for research on metaphor and metonymy. Despite the title of our journal, we have always been aware of the deep interrelation between metonymy and metaphor: they are two sides of a coin.

The close relation between metonymy and metaphor is investigated from different angles and perspectives in the articles of this volume. The authors address the fact that many cognitive processes, formerly understood as metaphoric projections, should nowadays be re-defined and re-conceptualised as metonymic shifts. Similarity and contiguity overlap in the way they motivate semantic shifts or transfers while they differ concerning their referential scope. Metaphor is a mechanism used to project aspects from one frame onto another frame while metonymic projections take place inside the same frame.

We are delighted that prominent colleagues in the field of metonymy have offered us their new findings and valuable work, and we are proud that metaphorik.de can provide the ‘online venue’ for publishing their research.

The following special issue opens with two papers by Wendy Faith and Celia Martín de León. Both authors investigate the close semantic link between metaphor and metonymy while the articles by Klaus-Uwe Panther/Linda L. Thornburg, Markus Egg and Richard Waltereit emphasise various pragmatic dimensions of metonymy: Panther/Thornburg and Egg address general questions concerning metonymy and pragmatics while Waltereit concentrates in detail on the metonymically motivated language change of quand même. Finally, Ulrich Detges’ paper sheds light on the character of metonymic processes underlying the argument inheritance of deverbal nouns. All papers show how important it is to study metonymy, an enterprise that can only complement and enhance research into metaphor.

We hope that this special issue will be well received by our readership and will stimulate further research into metonymy for which metaphorik.de will be happy to offer an online forum. We therefore invite authors to send us their manuscripts on metonymy and metaphor!

We hope that this volume will provide a good read and will stimulate discussion.

Bonn, July 2004

Hildegard Clarenz-Löhnert

Martin Döring

Klaus Gabriel

Dietmar Osthus

Claudia Polzin-Haumann

Katrin Mutz

Nikola Roßbach

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ISSN 1618-2006