| Based on a corpus study of 577 citations extracted from the COBUILD Bank of English, this study identifies a category structure for the verb ‘hold,’ and explains lexical sense extensions within the category by image schema, metaphor, and metonymy. An image schema cluster consisting of four schemas, CONTAINMENT, CONTACT, FORCE, and FIXATION structures the category prototype. Within the category structure, sense extensions are shown to emerge as a function of differing patterns of schema salience. For example, in a very peripheral sense like “His luck was holding,” FIXATION attains maximum salience. In another example, “The actors had to hold many parts in their heads,” CONTAINMENT is more salient and works to structure the source domain of the metaphor of the MIND AS A CONTAINER. Because CONTAINMENT implicates the other three schemas within the verb concept, it acts as a metonymy for the cluster when it is profiled as a sense extension. FORCE generally works collaboratively to structure other extensions within the category. Analyses reveal that senses more closely associated to the prototype preserve more of its concrete topography, e.g., overt descriptions of animate trajectors, hands, arms, and so on. As senses become more peripheral, this visual imagery of four other verbs—blink, bite, cut, and jump—are also included as a means of showing how the principles of sense extension exposed in the study of ‘hold’ can be seen operating in other concepts that describe physical movement and interaction. Finally, the process of analyzing imagistic sources of lexical category sense extension by examining corpus citations is discussed with regard to its potential usefulness in adult ESL education. Within the concluding discussion of the cognitive linguistic approach in language education, the study also addresses the question of how we should characterize the relative input of individual construal on the one hand, and sociocultural, pragmatic variables on the other, to linguistic meaning. |
