The Role of the Event Structure Metaphot and of Image-Schematic Structure in Metaphors for Happiness and Sadness

Abstract

Taking as bases the well-known idea that in Cognitive Semantics metaphor, a conceptual rather than a linguistic phenomenon, is considered to be a series of conceptual mappings from a source to a target domain ( cfr. Johnson Lakoll and Turner) and such image-schemata (cfr. Johnson and Lakort) as the container and the path ones, which consist of some structural elements and a basic logic, I analyze some metaphors for emotions, particularly those which express happiness and sadness, two concepts provided with opposite axiological values. Antonio Barcelona studied the same topic a decade ago. My analysis shares some of his ideas, but it differs from his in several points. This article will deal with metaphors based on the container andver ticality schemas, as well as with other complementary metaphors in order to finish by conunenting on the force schema, as postulated by Johnson, and drawing some conclusions regarding the container image-schema.