LIETUVIŠKOSIOS METAFORIKOS VERTIKALUMO MATAS
LITHUANIAN METAPHORS OF VERTICAL DIMENSION

Summary/Abstract: This paper deals with the specific group of conceptual metaphors derived from the Dictionary of Lithuanian Nominal phrases. The dictionary is compiled from collocations automatically extracted from the Corpus of Contemporary Lithuanian language. The dictionary is a suitable source for selecting metaphors since it contains the most frequent phrases of the contemporary Lithuanian language. It is assumed that metaphors reveal the cultural world-view and vertical dimension metaphors constitute the right type of lexicon to reveal it because of its evaluative component. A positive evaluation and notions dealing with big quantities of objects are presented high on the vertical scale; contrariwise, a negative evaluation and small quantities are presented as being low on the scale. However, an analysis of Lithuanian conceptual metaphors reveals that negative and even shocking notions like conflict, danger, panic, problems, threat and so forth are presented high. On the other hand, and quite unexpectedly, notions denoting feelings and events in the past are found low on the scale.

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