COMICAL FEATURES IN CONSTRUCTIONS WITH TRANSFORMATION AND IDENTIFICATION MOTIFS IN PLAUTUS’ COMEDIES1
COMICAL FEATURES IN CONSTRUCTIONS WITH TRANSFORMATION AND IDENTIFICATION MOTIFS IN PLAUTUS’ COMEDIES1

Summary/Abstract: In this paper, constructions with transformation and identification motifs (Fraenkel, Plautine Elements in Plautus 2007) are analysed against the background of Lakoff and Johnson’s concept of metaphor (Metaphors We Live By 2003, 1st ed. 1980). The typology of these constructions as well as their wider context is presented. The paper shows that constructions with transformation and identification motifs can range from easy-to- understand figurative expressions to riddles where two domains from distant semantic fields are connected on a very unusual ground. The constructions are highly contextual phenomena. In them, there is a playing out of various connotated meanings that depend on cultural, pragmatic, and other contexts.

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