Chapter 7 Constructions with lice (‘Face’) in Croatian: Lexico-Grammar and Cultural Models
In: Embodiment in Cross-Linguistic StudiesPurchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Abstract
This paper explores the relationship between cultural models and lexico-grammatical constructions which contain the noun lice (‘face’) in Croatian. The aim is to show that the meaning and structural features of constructions with lice are closely related to the cultural model which they reflect. We conducted a study of collocations in which the noun lice occurs in the hrWaC corpus. The results show that lexico-grammatical constructions containing lice reflect four cultural models of the face in Croatian: the main ones are communication and emotion, and the remaining two combine selected elements of the two main models. The results also show that constructions in which lice is used figuratively are relatively fixed lexically and grammatically. This confirms the findings of previous corpus studies of body-related items, which show that figurative meanings are expressed by a restricted range of grammatical patterns. On a more general level, this study shows that different grammatical elements of a specific construction contribute significantly to its overall meaning.