Logical Metonymy in Dutch and German: Equivalents of Begin, Finish, and Enjoy

摘要

In sentences such as he began the book or she finished the sandwich some unmentioned activity is metonymically inferred on the basis of the direct object. This phenomenon has been dubbed logical metonymy (Pustejovsky 1989, 1991, 1995). Previous studies on logical metonymy have mainly focussed on English. If one compares English with closely related languages such as Dutch and German, some interesting cross-linguistic differences can be revealed. This article analyses such differences by investigating Dutch and German corpus examples of some equivalents of to begin, to finish, and to enjoy. This gives general insight into the actual usage of logical metonymy and results in a detailed account of the semantics of these verbs and their objects. These issues are of crucial importance for the lexicographic practice, especially since most dictionaries lack satisfying information on these constructions.