Aspects of metonymy in language and thought

Based on the theoretical insights from cognitive linguistics, this paper aims to shed fresh light on certain aspects of metonymy as one of the basic mechanisms of conceptualsemantic organization. It is argued that the prototype model of categorization can provide substantial explanatory potential in the linguistic treatment of metonymy, that anthropocentricity is an important aspect of metonymic conceptualization, and that metonymy has multiple roles in the creation of meaning, including meaning extension, meaning construction and meaning imposition. The significance of investigating the multifaceted character of metonymic conceptualization (as well as of figurative language and thought in general) from an interdisciplinary perspective is highlighted as fundamental for a more comprehensive insight into the nature of meaning.