Metaphor and Spatial Conceptualization. Observations on Orientational Metaphors in Lycophron’s Alexandra

Abstract

Drawing on the theoretical and methodological framework of the cognitive linguistic theory of conceptual metaphors and working from the textual basis of Lycophron’s Alexandra, this paper argues for the existence of a conceptual orientational metaphor ACTIVE IS UP (with a corresponding opposite conceptualization PASSIVE/DESTROYED/DEAD IS DOWN). Numerous individual linguistic instantiations of this conceptualization occur in the Alexandra, most often in the form of prepositions or prefixes (ἀνά/ἀνα-, ἐπί/ἐπι-; κατά/κατα-), but also in case of words with basic meanings containing the direction up or down, such as αἴρω, whose metaphorical usages in the Alexandra (Lyc. 1228, 1295) are discussed in detail.

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