A cognitive account of compound forms of adjectival similes
A cognitive account of compound forms of adjectival similes

Summary/Abstract: This study examines expressions such as razor sharp and argues that they should be analysed as compound forms of adjectival similes (C-forms). In the existing literature, these expressions are typically treated as noun–adjective compounds, while their semantic nature often remains backgrounded. It is argued that such an approach relies primarily on formal properties and that neglecting the semantic aspects of C-forms obscures their nature. The paper provides a theoretically grounded cognitive account of C-forms and explains why they are best viewed as extensions of conceptual adjectival similes. The theoretical claims are supported by corpus data from the original British National Corpus and the British National Corpus 2014. The data show that established C-forms often occur with higher frequencies than their corresponding as-forms (e.g. sharp as a razor), while constituting a smaller set of unique types, since not every conceptual adjectival simile is realised in the C-form. Conversely, some conceptual adjectival similes, particularly those expressing colours, are attested exclusively in C-forms. The relatively high frequencies of C-forms help explain why conceptual adjectival similes persist in the lexicon despite the limited use of their prototypical as-forms.

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