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In Italiano, As Gaeilge: A Matter Of Metaphorical Semantics, Alessio S. Frenda

The ITB Journal

In the present article the linguistic expression of MATTER will be considered with regards to (a) the prepositions involved and (b) the basic spatial meanings (BSMs) of such prepositions. The analysis will concentrate on Italian and Irish. The motivations for the choice of the preposition(s) will be sought after in the theoretical frame provided by Lakoff’s metaphorical semantics. In other words, we shall assume that the MATTER sense is a motivated extension of the spatial senses that primarily expressed by those prepositions. According to the abovementioned framework, a preposition is chosen to express MATTER when there is a metaphorically (i.e., …