METAPHORS IN MAORI VOCABULARY AND TRADITIONAL POETRY

The appearance of metaphors in speech is stimulated by factors inherent in problem situations, when the speaker (or writer) is looking for an adequate, telling, potent expression, or to name a new phenomenon. We can distinguish two functionally divergent types of metaphors, namely, poetic and cognitive metaphors (transitions between them are not excluded). Predominantly cognitive metaphors, for example, typically occur not only in (the terminology of) science, especially at its forefront where we stumble upon something new, but also in the spontaneous speech of children, and, for example, also in the early phases of the existence of pidgin languages. Here we have to do with lexicalized metaphors that generally serve practical purposes of communication and their basis is in a way cognitive or based upon the parallelism of sensual perceptions and psychical impressions. The resulting expressions may be stylistically marked (if emotional factors are in the foreground) or neutral.