A Contrastive Analysis from the Perspective of Cognitive Grammar—the Names of Body Parts in the Domain of Musical Instruments

Abstract

Proposing a methodology based on the assumptions of Cognitive Grammar, this article presents a contrastive analysis of metaphorical extensions in French and Polish or, more precisely, of the categorising relationships that constitute their foundations. The object of analysis is the names of body parts that refer to parts of musical instruments. The analysis assumes the description of different levels of abstraction of the similarities and differences in the categorising relationships: beginning with the highest level, through the schematic structure [part of the body] - - - > [part of the musical instrument], to the level of specific elaborations of this structure, i.e. the level of specific extensions. These lowest-level extensions are analysed at three levels of equivalence: lexical, referential, and that of the activated domains. This leads to the identification of several types of equivalence between the French and Polish elaborations of the above-mentioned schema.