Proposal of a catalogue of criteria for the identification and classification of metaphorical collocations

Abstract This article focuses on metaphorical collocations , a special subtype of lexical collocations in which the cohesion between the constituents is based on a lexicalised metaphor (see Reder 2006; Volungevičienė 2008; Konecny 2010a, 2010b, 2023). The word combinations in question can develop from originally free sequences into recurrent patterns appearing in several semantically related collocations if they occur repeatedly in similar contexts (see Stojić and Košuta 2020, 2021). A case in point is the German collocation die Zeit verfliegt and its equivalents in Croatian, English and Italian: vrijeme leti (‘time flies’), time flies (by) , and il tempo vola (via) (‘time flies (away)’), which convey a rapid movement and the feeling of time rushing by. The various patterns often also reflect cultural concepts and experiences; for example, a pattern that conceptualises time as a resource could be anchored in a cultural idea that regards time as something valuable. Metaphorical collocations thus frequently reflect superordinate conceptual metaphors that are located at a cognitive level and common to more than one language community. Nevertheless, the concrete language-specific manifestations may vary, and in many cases show only partial equivalence. Unlike idioms, where metaphor has long been recognised as a fundamental semantic process (see, e.g., Casadei 1996: passim; Dobrovol’skij and Piirainen 2009: 19–29), collocations have not been thoroughly examined in this regard. It is therefore necessary to gain a more detailed insight into the semantic-cognitive processes underlying the creation of lexical combinations to draw conclusions regarding their relevance for the emergence of collocational sequences. This requires an analysis of extensive authentic language material, which will allow for the development of a catalogue of criteria that facilitates the identification and classification of these specific linguistic phenomena. This paper focuses on uncovering such processes based on a study carried out using SketchEngine in web corpora of German, Croatian, English, and Italian with the aim of creating a clear framework for the identification of metaphorical collocations by elaborating criteria that can serve as guidelines and by attempting a classification into subtypes. The proposed criteria and typology can contribute to the systematic investigation of metaphorical collocations and should also open up perspectives for future work in this field.