El algodón no engañaalgunas observaciones sobre la motivación en fraseología

Zusammenfassung

The traditional debate among linguists about the motivation or the arbitrariness of linguistic signs includes a metaphysical aspect, since it refers to the inaccessible field of the origins of language. However, when it comes to speaking about motivation occurring in figurative language, the discussion is limited to a closer frame, which allows reconstruction: the existence of a relationship between the literal and the figurative meaning of a given linguistic form. Phraseology is probably the domain that offers the most abundant and illustrative examples in this regard, since it allows monitoring many of the phenomena involved in the process of crossconceptual mapping. It also shows certain peculiarities which justify the definition of phraseological motivation as a specific phenomenon within the general issues of sign motivation, beyond the dilemma between nature and convention. We distinguish here several types of phraseological motivation, and mixtures and overlaps between them. Keywords: Phraseology. Metaphor. Motivation. Figurative language