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Metaphor is a way to conceptualize a cognitively difficult domain in terms of an easier domain; in other words, through metaphor it is possible to understand “conceptually complex phenomena in terms of less complex ones” (Claudi & Heine 1986: 299). Thus metaphor establishes a mapping between two different conceptual domains that, despite being equated, remain distinct (Croft 1993). Examples (1)–(2) show two different uses of the English preposition in:

1 Luke is in the kitchen.

2 Luke is in love.

Sentences (1) and (2) contain similar linguistic items: the proper name Luke, the third person singular of the verb to be, the preposition in, and a common noun, kitchen in (1), determined by the article the, and love in (2). However, while the noun kitchen denotes a real Location where Luke is, the noun love denotes a state that Luke experiences. Thus, the same verb to be and the same preposition in express a spatial relation in (1), but a metaphorical relation in (2). This shift toward the abstract plane is accounted for by conceptual metaphor: the room kitchen physically contains Luke; in a comparable way, the state of being in love is understood as a container in which Luke is metaphorically located. As Lakoff & Johnson (1980: 32ff.) point out, the same metaphors can be responsible for multiple semantic changes: for example, states are often conceptualized as containers (the so-called “Container metaphor”). Within this work, this tenet is borne out both within a single language and also across different languages: Sections 4.4, 5.4, 6.4, and 7.4 are devoted to the semantics of multiple preverbs, Chapters 4–7 show that morphemes with similar basic spatial meanings also tend to develop similar abstract meanings (cf. further Chapter 8).

Metonymy occurs when an entity of a certain conceptual domain is referred to by means of an entity belonging to a contiguous or identical conceptual domain (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 29; Croft 1993). Within the same domain, such entities are connected by means of humans’ encyclopedic experience (Lakoff 1987). For example, in (3) below, the expression the ham sandwich does not refer to an actual sandwich, rather to the person who ordered it. The entity ham sandwich belongs to the conceptual domain that can be labelled as [CUSTOMER], because a customer in a restaurant is presumed to order something to eat or drink.1

1 The ham sandwich is waiting for his check.

Notably, example (3) cannot be regarded as a case of personification metaphor, given that human qualities are not ascribed to the said sandwich. Rather, the sandwich is a part of the conceptual domain of the person ordering it. By contrast, example (4) contains an istance of personification:

1 Inflation has attacked the foundation of our economy. Inflation has pinned us to the wall.

In example (4), a non-human entity, inflation, is conceived or conceptualized as human owing to the metaphor INFLATION IS A HUMAN BEING (Lakoff & Johnson 1980: 28ff.).2 This metaphoric extension only selects one feature of the source-entity, specifically ‘a human being can be an adversary’, according to the personification INFLATION IS AN ADVERSARY. Categories of entities, including human beings, show a number of properties that can be either viewed as a whole or observed one by one. Categories of entities seem to be organized as so-called Gestalten, that is, structures in terms of which our perception of the world is given a shape, and that exhibit a number of properties, including that of being “at once holistic and analyzable” (Lakoff 1977: 246). Thus, metaphors can also be based on a single property possessed by a category of entities, as in (4).