A Semantic Analysis and Comprehension of English Denominal Verbs from Animal Names
Lei Gao · Journal of Ningbo University · 2012
This article is a case study of English denominal verbs from animal names based on the online corpus Wordnet.The findings are:(1) names of animals denoting categories are more likely to be converted into verbs and names of rodent and invertebrate animals,predators,domestic birds and birds take up the highest percentage of converted verbs;(2) the possibility of converting animal names into verbs follows the principle of feature priority and verbs take the semantic characteristics of giving birth to N,behaving or doing like N,being like N,etc.(3) the conversion of English denominal verbs from animal names is a semantic expansion process of polysemic words based on metaphor and metonymy and the comprehension of converted verbs involves pragmatic inference.