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A man is beside his body: The role of metaphor in grammaticalization pathways

In general, metaphors emerge “out of our clearly delineated and concrete experiences” (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, p. 115) and “allow us to construct highly abstract and elaborate concepts” (ibid.).
 
Metaphor is undisputedly recognized as a mechanism that accompanies grammaticalization (cf. Hopper and Traugott 2003, Bybee et al. 1994). It is often discussed alongside metonymy, and Heine et al. 1991 claim that it is a problem-solving strategy in grammaticalization, where speakers employ more accessible (i. e. more concrete) concepts in order to convey something more abstract. This is in line with the suggestion (ibid.) that grammaticalization itself stands for a transition from the concrete to the abstract.
 
This goal of this paper is to explore and compare the nature and role of the metaphors involved in two grammaticalization pathways: the development of the German am-progressive (Er ist am Essen, 'He is eating’), and the development of the discourse marker besides from an adverbial of location, as postulated by Traugott (1997). The development of the am-progressive exemplifies the SPACE IS TIME metaphor (Di Meola, 2000), whereas according to Traugott, the development of the adverbial takes place on a front-back axis.
 
Building upon my undergraduate work, in which I only looked at the metaphors involved in the development of the am-progressive, I now link and compare it to some recent work on the grammaticalization of discourse markers. The two pathways are chosen because they represent a more prototypical and a more marginal grammaticalization process, respectively.