SOME PHYSIOGNOMIES OF CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS IN ASSAMESE

ABSTRACT Metaphors have been regarded as figures of speech, i.e. as more or less ornamental devices used in rhetorical style. However, expressions like the foot of the mountain indicate that the two phenomena also play an important part in everyday language. Moreover, philosophers and cognitive linguists have shown that metaphors are powerful cognitive tools for our conceptualization of the world. Conceptual metaphors are the mother metaphors which contain many other metaphorical expressions. In Cognitive Linguistics, metaphors are the conceptual structures that are based on our basic bodily experiences. In the present work I discuss conceptual metaphors in Assamese. Conceptual metaphor is defined as understanding one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain. Behind every metaphorical expression, there is a conceptualization. Conceptual metaphor enables us to organize metaphorical expressions in a systematic way