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COGNITIVE METAPHOR IN EXPRESSING TIME, LENGTH AND DISTANCE IN SLOVAK LANGUAGE

Zuzana Kovacova

Abstract

Cognitive linguistics dealing with cognitive reflection on language considers the categorization and conceptualization as crucial for understanding the words and phrases in the figurative sense. People often use words not at the level of their meanings, but at the level of concepts and conceptual symptoms. The anthropocentric nature of expressing the time or other physical variables is obvious from the expression of the smallest unit of time: “okamih” – word which originated from two words: “mihnutie okom” what means the blink of an eye – a small fraction of a second. The opposite, that is, a long period of time was expressed by the perception of the light during the day: “od svitu do mrku” (from dawn to dusk); in the case of whole period of a year it was used: “od leta do leta” (from summer to summer), “od jari do jesene” (from spring to autumn), “študoval štyri zimy” (he studied during four winters - meaning four years). For the current users of the Slovak language the word itself “mrk”, “mrkᔠ(winks) is semantically opaque, it is perceived as archaic and being kept alive only by the idiom “od svitu do mrku” (from dawn to dusk), as absolutely perceiving the course and duration of the day. Its alternative “od nevidím do nevidím” (from I cannot see to I cannot see) is also used. The theory of metaphorical synergetic of living word is based on the fact that the metaphorical thinking lies in the metaphor basis and it is initiated by mobilizing the whole conceptual structures among themselves bound by general cognitive abilities to associative-metaphorically and transform into knowledge.

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