Metaphor-based metonymies: Evidence from Croatian scientific medical discourse

Distinguishing between metaphor and metonymy remains a moot point both at the theoretical level and in corpus studies. A metaphoric or metonymic interpretation of an utterance largely depends on the domain/domains in which the mapping occurs. So, domain delimitations play a major role in the definition of metaphor and metonymy. Schematic definitions of metaphor and metonymy which are based on functional domains facilitate the determination of an utterance as a metaphor, or metonymy or their interaction. The aim of this paper is metaphor-based metonymy in scientific medical discourse. Authentic cases of medical discourse in the Croatian language are presented. The analyses demonstrate that metaphoric and metonymic mappings are active and included in the interpretation of expressions. In most cases the metaphor is reduced by the metonymic mapping which activates a subdomain in the metaphoric source or target. At the conceptual level, the interaction of a metaphor as a source domain for a metonymy is classified as metaphor-based metonymy.