Attributive type of metonymic transfers denoting a person in English

Abstract

The article deals with the study of metonymic transfers to denote a person in English. It has been noted that there are four main types of metonymic transfers: attributive, causal, local and temporal. It has been emphasized that the attributive type of metonymic transfers is one of the most frequent. It is due to the association of the concepts of a feature (attribute) and an object that possesses this feature. It has been pointed out that this type of metonymic transfer can be realized by various models. The main models include the following: feature → person, feature → place, feature → object, feature → event, feature → action, and others. The main attention has been focused on metonymic transfers formed according to the feature → person model. It has been concluded that metonyms formed according to this model are divided into a number of thematic groups. The most numerous groups are the following: rank (degree, title) → a person who has this rank; distinctive feature → a person characterized by this feature; article of clothing → a person who wears this clothing; colour → a person associated with this colour, zodiac sign → a person born in the corresponding period, etc.These groups are distinguished by the largest number of fixed meanings and examples of use. It has been found out that when combined in one context with other stylistic devices, metonymic transfers give statements a noticeable stylistic colouring. The possibility of correlations between semantic types, models, and thematic groups of English and some other languages has been mentioned. They can be explained by the commonality of the biological and psycho-physiological basis of human language, which does not depend on the nationality. It has been emphasized that the problem of studying the semantic and conceptual features of metonymy is promising and can be continued on the material of the texts of different functional styles.