DOI 10.

1515/phras-2024-0006 YoP 2024; 15: 101–118

Zoltán Kövecses
Metaphorical Idioms in Extended
Conceptual Metaphor Theory
Abstract: In Extended Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Kövecses, 2020), I offered a com-
prehensive overhaul of “standard” conceptual metaphor theory. The present paper
attempts to demonstrate how the new view of CMT can handle metaphorical idioms.
To this end, I analyze four metaphorical idioms from the thematic area of money
(throw money about, money slips through someone’s fingers, be a cash cow, money
keeps someone/something afloat). The analysis assumes and starts out from the obser-
vation that money-related metaphors are based on two generic-level conceptual meta-
phors: money is a moving entity and money is a force. Extended CMT adds to CMT
the notion of “mental space-level metaphors” that were largely ignored in “standard”
CMT, but are given an important role in extended CMT. These are the metaphors that
represent actual, contextual meanings in a metaphorical usage event. Traditional
CMT-type analysis cannot account for the emergence of such idiomatic meanings
because the mappings, or correspondences, of standard CMT work on a single, generic
level (frame-, domain-, or even image schema level). However, the contextual mean-
ings of naturally used metaphors (including those of metaphorical idioms) are much
more information-rich and specific. The conceptual metaphors on the image schema,
domain, and frame levels are offline structures in long-term memory, whereas the con-
ceptual metaphors on the mental space level occur only online in working memory.
In online communication, speakers mobilize the static image schema-, domain-, and
frame-level metaphors at the mental space level, where they create highly specific
mental space-level metaphors. Given this framework, it becomes possible to explain
how and why the four metaphorical idioms have different contextual meanings (as
represented by different mental space-level metaphors), but, at the same time, why
they also share certain conceptual metaphors on the frame-, domain-, or image
schema-level. Additionally, we gain new insight into how the emergence of novel
metaphorical idioms occurs with the help of and constrained by a previously existing
large system of hierarchically arranged conceptual metaphors.

Keywords: metaphorical idioms, extended CMT, mental space-level metaphor,

contextual meaning, metaphor hierarchies

Zoltán Kövecses, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary, [email protected]

102 Zoltán Kövecses

1 Introduction
It is well-known that particular idioms (like add fuel to the fire) are based on con-
ceptual metaphors (like anger is fire, in this case). Consider some more examples
for this conceptual metaphor:

That kindled my ire.

Those were inflammatory remarks.
Smoke was coming out of his ears.
She was burning with anger.
He was spitting fire.
The incident set the people ablaze with anger.

The example sentences contain a number of metaphorical idioms. According to

“standard” conceptual metaphor theory (CMT, for short) (Lakoff and Johnson 1980;
Kövecses 2010a), the meaning of the examples is provided by a set of systematic
mappings, or conceptual correspondences, such as the ones below:

the cause of fire à the cause of anger

causing the fire à causing the anger
the thing on fire à the angry person
the fire à the anger
the degree of the heat of fire à the intensity of anger

For example, we can explain why burning, spitting fire, and being ablaze with
anger indicate a high intensity of anger. However, as Dobrovol’skij and Piirainen
(2005) and Charteris-Black (2017), among others, note, there can be subtle differ-
ences between, for instance, the causes and intensities, respectively, of target con-
cepts that are indicated by various specific lexical items. For instance, burn, spit
fire, and be ablaze with anger can denote different kinds of intense anger. The
mappings as usually formulated at a generic level are not sensitive to such dif-
ferences in specificity. Furthermore, the contextual meanings of metaphors are
often more specific and information-rich than what is indicated by the generic
mappings.
For these reasons, a more specific level of mappings, or correspondences,
needs to be incorporated into our account of the contextual meaning of metaphori-
cal idioms. Accordingly, the proposal here is to distinguish several hierarchically
organized levels of metaphorical meaning, including the online level of meta-
phorical usage. More generally, I would like to demonstrate how the machinery of
extended CMT (see Kövecses 2020) can offer such an account.
 Idioms in Extended CMT 103

The data used for illustration comes from the domain of money; more specifi-
cally, I analyze four money-related metaphorical idioms in English to show that the
usual generic level metaphors like money is a moving entity and money is a force
are insufficient as explanations (and explications) of the specific contextual mean-
ings of the four metaphorical idioms in actual usage events.
The next section provides a detailed analysis of the four expressions using the
machinery of extended CMT followed by a brief description of the general features
of the framework of extended CMT as based on the analyses. Finally, the implica-
tions of the analyses for metaphorical idioms in general are laid out.

2 Metaphorical idioms
This section analyzes four metaphorical idioms from the general domain of money.
The reason for this choice is that, despite the fact all four are “money-related
idioms,” their analyses exhibit both subtle differences and similarities between
them. The four expressions are:

throw money about (by the fistful)

money slips through someone’s fingers
be a cash cow
money keeps the company afloat

The metaphorical idioms come from my previous work (see Kövecses 2018, 2019),
but I reanalyze them here. The wider implications of the analyses will be discussed
in section 4.

Throw money about (by the fistful)

An example sentence for this metaphorical idiom is: At the first sign of an upturn in
their fortunes, Brenda and John were already throwing money about by the fistful.1
The idiom’s meaning is “spending money carelessly.”

At the mental space level, the sentence indicates that the speaker conceptual-
izes Brenda and John’s careless spending of money as throwing small objects about.
Thus, the following mental space level metaphor seems to be at work: brenda
and john’s carelessly spending money is brenda and john carelessly moving
(throwing) a large number of small objects about. This is a highly specific and

1 https://www.google.hu/books/edition/Piano_Man/0KS8CwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=%22At+the+
first+sign+of+an+upturn+in+their+fortunes,+Brenda+and+John+%22&pg=PA279&printsec=frontcover.
104 Zoltán Kövecses

information-rich conceptual metaphor that is constructed online in the given sit-

uation of use. This accounts for its novelty, or even strangeness, as a conceptual
metaphor. Nonetheless, it is a conceptual metaphor that has all the prerequisites of
a conceptual metaphor (source domain, target domain, mappings between them,
and a metaphorical expression that makes the conceptual metaphor linguistically
manifest). The metaphorical idiom that expresses the source domain of the mental
space level metaphor: brenda and john carelessly moving a large number of
small objects about is throw money about.
But the question is: Where does it come from? Mental space theory suggests
that the content of actual mental spaces used in natural discourse derives from
conventional, higher-level schematic structures such as frames (Fauconnier 1994;
Fauconnier and Turner 2002). The frame that is most closely associated with
spending is that of the commercial event scene, or frame, as Fillmore (1977) calls
the relevant mental structure. The commercial event frame involves roles of the
buyer, the seller, the money, and the goods, as well as the exchange of the money
and the goods. Metaphorically speaking, the buyer is the source of the money, the
seller is the source of the goods, and the exchange is the (caused) motion of money
and goods. In the sentence, the roles are specified relative to the commercial event
frame. In the mental space, Brenda and John fill the role of the buyer, and in the
role of the money we have some indefinite but large amount of money. In addition,
the sentence foregrounds only the buyer and money, leaving the seller and the
goods in the background. In general, the mental spaces in actual online usage are
partial as regards the conceptual materials they take over from the frames. By con-
trast, given the expression in question, the spending of the money is not careless
in the frame; it is a property that does not inherently characterize the prototypical
commercial event frame. It is added to the mental space level metaphor online,
in the actual communicative situation. We can describe the relevant conceptual
metaphor at this level as follows: the buyer paying money to the seller for some
goods is the transfer/caused motion (handing over) of some substance from
one source (that of money) to another (that of the goods) for an object.
The frame level commercial event situation is a part or an aspect of the domain
of the financial system that consists of numerous monetary transactions between
the participating entities, such as buying-selling, borrowing-lending, bank transfer,
investment, inheriting, and many others. What the transactions share is that they
involve a change of possession of some resource. This is viewed metaphorically as
the motion of an object or substance from one entity to another; hence the concep-
tual metaphor: change of possession of financial resources is the motion of an
object or substance from one source to another for an object.
The change of possession of money is a special case of change in general. This
gives us the metaphor change is motion, an image schema-level metaphor that
 Idioms in Extended CMT 105

pervades the entire conceptual system (see Lakoff 1993; Grady 1997). change is an
extremely general concept, and the concept of motion is image schematic. The met-
aphor has a strong experiential basis: any change of location by means of motion
is a change from one state to another. The metaphor only exists in the conceptual
system in that it cuts across many thematic domains without being linked to any
one of them in terms of its content. Thus, we get the following hierarchical meta-
phor structure, together with the names of the relevant conceptual units:

Image schema level:

In conceptual system.
Metaphor: change is motion
Domain level:
Domain: Financial System.
Metaphor: change of possession of financial resources is the motion of an
object or substance
Frame level:
Frame: Commercial Event.
Metaphor: the buyer paying money to the seller for some goods is the
transfer of some substance from a source to another for an object
Mental space level:
Mental space: Careless Spending.
Metaphor: brenda and john’s carelessly spending money is brenda and john
carelessly moving (throwing) a large number of small objects about

The schematicity hierarchy of the resulting metaphor would be as follows:

Image schema level:

change is motion
Domain level:
change of possession of financial resources is the motion of an object or
substance
Frame level:
the buyer paying money to the seller for some goods is the transfer of
some substance from a source to another for an object
Mental space level:
brenda and john’s carelessly spending money is brenda and john carelessly
moving (throw) a large number of small objects about

Metaphorical idiom: throw money about

The metaphor hierarchy goes from the most specific mental space level to the most
schematic image schema level; as we move from the top toward the bottom, more
106 Zoltán Kövecses

and more details of the actual situation are provided in terms of the nature of the
event and the identity of the participating entities.

Money slips through someone’s fingers

The second metaphorical expression, money slips through someone’s fingers, has a
meaning that is similar to but not quite the same as the meaning of throw money
about. The idiom money slips through someone’s fingers means “being unable to
control spending money.” As a staple example for the use of the idiom, take the
sentence: The best way to stop money slipping through your fingers is to cut up the
credit cards. (This is an often-heard recommendation to people who have difficulty
controlling their spending habits.)
Here again, there is an event, slipping, which is a special case of movement at
the image-schematic level. The slipping of the money through the fingers is a change
of state that involves motion; hence, change is motion. In addition, the person, in
particular, the palm as a body part of the person, is a metaphorical container, with
money being viewed as a resource substance in the person’s body container.
The domain in which the metaphorical motion takes place is the same as in
the previous case: the financial system. The change of state is also the same: there
is a change of possession of money from one entity of the system to another. Since
money is a financial resource, the change of possession is conceptualized as the
motion of some resource from one entity (source-container) to another entity
(goal-container), yielding: a change of possession of financial resources is the
motion of a substance.
At the frame level, we also have the commercial event frame, where there is
an exchange of money for some goods. This is conveyed metaphorically as the
caused motion, or transfer, of the money and the goods from one source-container
to another. This yields the frame-level metaphor the buyer paying money to the
seller for some goods is the transfer of some substance from a source to
another.
At the mental space level, the role of the buyer is filled by a generic person. The
buying action becomes an unintentional metaphorical transfer motion (slipping),
indicating lack of control over spending. Thus, here the metaphor becomes: to
unintentionally spend money in an uncontrolled way is for a generic person
to unintentionally move substance (slip) in an uncontrolled way. However, in
contrast to the frame level, the mental space level metaphor does not include the
goods. It foregrounds only the buyer and the spending action, together with the
inability of the buyer to exercise control over the spending. The metaphorical idea
of for a generic person to unintentionally move substance in an uncontrolled
way (the source concept) is linguistically expressed through the metaphorical idiom
money slips through someone’s fingers.
 Idioms in Extended CMT 107

This gives us the metaphorical schematicity hierarchy below:

Image schema level metaphor:

change is motion
Domain level metaphor:
a change of possession of financial resources is the motion of a substance
Frame level metaphor:
the buyer paying money to the seller for some goods is the transfer of
some substance from a source to another for an object.
Mental space level:
to unintentionally spend money in an uncontrolled way is for a generic
person to unintentionally move substance (slip) in an uncontrolled way.

Metaphorical idiom: money slips through someone’s fingers.

How is metaphorical meaning construction achieved in the two cases above (throw
money about and money slipping through the fingers)? In both, the image schema,
domain, and frame level metaphors are the same, but the mental space level meta-
phors are different. Both cases involve the notions of change, change of possession
of money, and the commercial event. Where they differ is how the metaphorical
meaning on the mental space level elaborates on the commercial event. In one case,
it adds the property of carelessness to spending and in the other the properties of
unintentionality and its lack of control.

Be a cash cow

Not all of the conceptual metaphors related to the motion of money derive from
the same higher level conceptual metaphors. Consider an example sentence taken
from my Hungarian-English idiom dictionary (see Kövecses 2010b): Everybody bor-
rowed money from Joe, the cash cow of the family. Here the metaphorical expression
is cash cow. The sentence does not describe the commercial event frame but that of
borrowing-lending – a different frame-level concept within the same schematicity
hierarchy as we saw above.
On the mental space level, Joe is identified as a cow with an udder. The udder is a
large container of milk that is produced anew every day. Here the milk corresponds
to money, and milking the cow corresponds to getting money from Joe. Since the cow
has a full container of milk every day, it is possible to get milk from the cow daily.
Getting milk is the movement of milk from the udder to the person who “requests” it.
This situation gives us the mental space level metaphor: the availability of money
from joe any time is the possibility of getting milk from the cow daily. This
metaphor represents the intended contextual meaning of the example sentence.
The mental space level metaphor is part of the borrowing-lending frame, in that
the availability of money is a precondition for borrowing. The borrowing-lending
108 Zoltán Kövecses

frame has roles for the money, the borrower, and the person who can supply the
money (the lender). In the typical case, the lender gives the money (i.e., moves
it) to the borrower. The money is conceptualized as a substance and the lender
as a source-container. The frame level metaphor would thus be: (the borrower
requesting and) the lender supplying the money to the borrower is the lender
moving (handing over) the money-substance to the borrower.
As with the expressions throw money about and money slips through someone’s
fingers, the domain of knowledge involved in the interpretation of be a cash cow is
that of the financial system that consists of a variety of frames, such as those of the
commercial event and borrowing-lending, among many others. Borrowing-lending
is a special case of a change of possession of money. The domain level metaphor
would thus be: a change of possession of financial resources is the movement
of a substance from one entity (source-container) to another (goal-container).
The entities can be persons or institutions.
On the image schema level, we simply have change is motion (from one
location to another), a generic primary metaphor that can be applied to a large
number of different, more specific cases of change outside the financial system,
such as My life went from bad to worse.

In other words, the metaphor hierarchy for this example is as follows:

Image schema level metaphor:

change is motion
Domain level metaphor:
 a change of possession of financial resources is the movement of a
substance from one entity to another
Frame level metaphor:
the borrower requesting and the lender supplying the money to the
borrower is the lender moving the money-substance to the borrower
Mental space level metaphor:
the availability of money from joe any time is the possibility of getting
milk from the cow daily

We now turn to a metaphorical idiom that is based on a very different metaphor

hierarchy.

Keep something afloat

When used about money (as in Money keeps the company afloat2) on the face of it,
and like the metaphorical idiom be a cash cow, this phrase also involves money as

2 See https://metaphorsofmovement.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/money-metaphors.pdf.
 Idioms in Extended CMT 109

a liquid (money = milk, money = water). However, it does not indicate the motion of
a liquid (as in “getting milk/money” from someone). Money keeps something afloat
means “sustaining an institution or company”. More generally, in the latter phrase,
water as a liquid is not a moving entity; it is a static sustaining force. And we find
the same difference with the throw money about and money slips through some-
one’s fingers examples, where the objects and the substance are also moving entities.
While in the three cases discussed previously, the idea of a moving entity was evoked
for the purpose of conceptualizing a change in the possession of money, money keeps
something afloat is used to conceptualize the idea of a “sustaining force”.
Let us now examine the metaphorical structure of the sentence: money keeps
the company afloat in an actual usage event. It appears that, on the mental space
level, money is conceptualized as water and the financial viability (functionality)
of the company is metaphorically viewed as the buoyancy of water keeping the
ship afloat. This can be formulated as the mental space level metaphor the money
keeping the company financially viable / functional is the water keeping up
the ship. This is the metaphor that directly underlies the metaphorical sentence
Money keeps the company afloat.
The mental space level metaphor elaborates on the frame level one, which is:
the force that keeps an entity functional is the physical force that keeps it
up. This is one of the aspects of the more general financial system. The frame for
“keeping something up” includes the force that keeps an entity up and the entity
itself; in this case, the company. The “keeping something up” frame derives from the
functional / viable is up image schema level metaphor (see Grady 1997) and adds to
it the force that enables the entity to remain up or upward-oriented. Thus, the appli-
cable force is of the enabling kind in that it enables the ship to remain functional.
On the domain level, we are dealing with the financial system again (as in the
previous metaphorical phrases); in particular, the financial viability of a company.
We have two metaphors here: one for an entity (the company) and one for a prop-
erty of the entity that is involved, which is its financial viability. The metaphor
that applies to the entity is a company is a complex physical object (ship) and the
one that concerns its property is the financial resource that enables a company
to remain financially viable is the physical force that enables the complex
physical object (ship) to remain functional.
The domain level metaphor is based on two further image schema level met-
aphors: one for causes and one for complex abstract systems. Complex abstract
systems are commonly viewed metaphorically as complex physical objects of
various kinds, such as buildings, machines, and other complex manmade objects
(here, a ship), or as fire, plants, and other complex natural objects (see Kövecses
2010a). The resulting domain level metaphor would then be: complex abstract
systems are complex physical objects (Kövecses 2017, 2020). As regards causes,
110 Zoltán Kövecses

these are commonly conceptualized as forces: that is, causes are forces (Lakoff
1993; Grady 1997).
Thus, we end up with the following metaphor hierarchy for the metaphorical
phrase keep something afloat and the sentence that contains it:

Image schema level: in Conceptual system

causes are forces
complex abstract systems are complex physical objects
Domain level: in Financial System
a company is a ship
financial resources are physical forces
the financial resources that enable a company to remain financially
viable is the physical force that enables the complex physical object (ship)
to remain functional
Frame level: Money as an Enabling Force
for money to enable a company to remain financially viable is for a physi-
cal force to keep a ship up (i.e., functional)
Mental space level: Successful Enablement
the money enabling the company to survive is the buoyancy of the water
keeping the ship afloat

Metaphorical utterance: Money keeps the company afloat.

This concludes our examination of the four metaphorical idioms. The next section
provides a brief outline of the metaphor theory that underlies the analyses above,
which is necessary if we want to see the larger theoretical framework that moti-
vates the analyses.

3 Extended CMT
With this goal in mind, we can briefly characterize extended CMT in the following
way (for a detailed description, see Kövecses 2020).
Metaphors can be either resemblance-based or correlation-based (see Grady
1999). Resemblance metaphors are based on some kind of similarity between enti-
ties or situations and are commonly referred to as analogies in some frameworks
in metaphor theory (see e.g.,, Holyoak et al. 1995; Gentner et al. 2001). An example
of this kind of metaphor could be “life is like a box of chocolates; you never know
what you get,” in which the uncertain outcome of life’s actions is compared to
the unpredictability of the kind of chocolate that we pick from a selection of dif-
ferent flavors. Another example is Martin Luther King’s metaphorical analogy
 Idioms in Extended CMT 111

in his “I have a dream” speech in which King compares America’s not granting
to its colored citizens the same rights as white people enjoy to an unpaid check.
Metaphor researchers who work within the CMT framework typically concen-
trate on correlation-based metaphors. These are conceptual metaphors in which
two situations (states, events), a physical and a subjective mental experience, are
tightly correlated (such as body heat and anger or physical closeness with social/
emotional closeness). These metaphors emerge from metonymic associations
between these situations. From the perspective of extended CMT (see Kövecses 2020),
many analogies are grounded in shared image schemas (as opposed to bodily cor-
relations in experience). Shared image schemas function as the basis for the analogy
(as opposed to an image schema metaphor [for which we saw examples in section 2],
which constitutes and conceptually represents a correlation in experience).
The conventional and entrenched resemblance- and correlation-based concep-
tual metaphors form a stable metaphor system in long-term memory, which serves
as the background to specific metaphoric usage events. The metaphor system forms
a part of the conceptual system, which is a structured organization of concepts
and a set of cognitive operations used to make sense of the world. There are two
kinds of structure that characterize the conceptual system. Conceptual systems
are organized “vertically,” which essentially provides for a thematic structure
in the system (see e.g., Rosch 1978), and “horizontally,” which essentially defines
individual concepts and consists of smaller domains, frames, or idealized cogni-
tive models (see e.g., Fillmore 1982; Lakoff 1987; Langacker 1987; Barsalou 1999). It
is generally assumed that the conceptual system is both hierarchically and hori-
zontally organized (see e.g., Rosch 1978), consists of frame-based concepts (see e.g.,
Fillmore 1982; Lakoff 1987; Langacker 1987; Barsalou 1999), is dynamic in its func-
tioning (see e.g., Langacker 1987; Barsalou 1999; Gibbs 2003; Gibbs and Cameron
2007), and is embodied in nature (see e.g., Johnson 1987; Lakoff 1987; Gibbs 2006). In
line with this outline of the conceptual system, I suggest that metaphors occur on
various levels of schematicity, as demonstrated in section 2. There is no single level
where metaphors can be satisfactorily characterized. In addition, the choice of met-
aphors (both linguistic and conceptual) in discourse is prompted by context (see
Kövecses 2015).
Metaphorical conceptualization can work jointly with the construal opera-
tion of schematization. The proposal in extended CMT is that there are essentially
four different levels where conceptual metaphors emerge. The four levels form a
hierarchy in which conceptual metaphors occupy different levels of schematicity.
The schematically highest level is that of image schemas, followed by the level of
domains, the frame level, and the mental space level occupying the bottom of the
hierarchy. In this view, each conceptual metaphor of the correlation kind is char-
acterized by metaphors on all four levels. The mappings between the source and
112 Zoltán Kövecses

target concepts occur on the same level: domains correspond to domains, frames
to frames, and mental spaces to mental spaces. In the case of the level of image
schemas, the image schemas such as force, motion, object, heat, etc., structure
highly schematic target concepts like cause, action, intensity, control, etc., result-
ing in image schema level metaphors, for example, causes are forces, action is
motion, intensity is heat, etc.
The conceptual metaphors on the image schema, domain, and frame levels are
offline structures in long-term memory, whereas the conceptual metaphors on the
mental space level exist or, more precisely, occur only online, in working memory.
The offline structures (such as frames and domains) provide the conceptual mate-
rial for the online, mental space-level conceptual metaphors. In every metaphoric
usage event involving correlation metaphors the metaphors come in the form of
schematicity hierarchies on four levels of conceptual structure: image schema,
domain, frame, and mental space. In online communication, speakers mobilize
the static image schema-, domain-, and frame-level metaphors at the mental space
level, where they create highly specific mental space-level metaphors.
The next section highlights the most important implications of the four
analyses for the broader study of metaphorical idioms within the framework of
extended CMT.

4 Discussion and conclusions

As mentioned above (see section 2), in actual usage events involving metaphors
based on correlations in experience, conceptual metaphors occur at four levels
of schematicity in an interlocking vertical hierarchy of image schemas, domains,
frames, and mental spaces. This means that conceptual metaphors cannot and
should not be linked to a single conceptual structure, such as frames or domains,
when they occur in actual usage. In real usage events, correlation-based conceptual
metaphors are complexes of all four of these at the same time. That is, when we use
(produce and comprehend) such metaphors online in context, we make use of very
specific and information-rich conceptual metaphors at the mental space level of
schematization. Mental space-level metaphors only emerge in naturally occurring,
online communicative situations.
However, mental space-level metaphors rely heavily on metaphors that are
available offline and come in the form of hierarchies based on their level of sche-
maticity; frame-level metaphors are less schematic than domain-level ones, which
are less schematic than metaphors at the image schema-level. Image schema-level
metaphors, such as change is motion and causes are forces, can apply to any
 Idioms in Extended CMT 113

number of domains that involve changes and causation, respectively. Domain-level

metaphors, such as a change of possession of financial resources is the move-
ment of a substance from one entity to another, are more specific and apply
to a single domain, such as the financial system at large. Frame-level metaphors,
such as the lender supplying the money to the borrower is the lender moving
the money-substance to the borrower are still more specific and capture a par-
ticular conventionalized aspect of the larger domain. Finally, mental space-level
metaphors are based on higher level ones, typically frame-level metaphors. Since
the mental space-level metaphors capture just a portion or a special feature of a
conventional frame, they are unconventional, creative, and sometimes even seem
strange. We saw this in the case of the availability of money from joe any time is
the possibility of getting milk from the cow daily.
If we examine the analyses of the four metaphorical idioms, we find they share
certain properties and differ in others. The metaphor hierarchies related to throw
money about, money slips through someone’s fingers, and be a cash cow involve
the property of the motion of money. In these cases, money is conceptualized as
a moving entity. By contrast, the hierarchy attaching to money keeps the company
afloat has as its central feature that money is viewed metaphorically as a force.
This is a noteworthy difference because force appears in the form of water, a
liquid, which might create the impression that we are dealing with the same kind
of moving entity that is present in, say, the cash cow example. This difference is the
basis for distinguishing between the two traditionally distinguishable conventional
conceptual metaphors, money is a moving entity and money is a physical force.
(However, please note that the analyses presented here have gone beyond such
conventional metaphors.)
If we look at the first group of (three) examples, we see that, despite the fact they
share the view of money as a moving entity, their analysis is not uniform. Although
they share the image schema-level and domain-level metaphors (change is motion
and change of possession of financial resources is the motion of an object or
substance, respectively), they differ in the frame-level and mental space-level ones.
Throw money about and money slips through someone’s fingers also share their
frame-level metaphors (the buyer paying money to the seller for some goods is
the transfer of some substance from a source to another for an object), but
they differ on the mental space-level, where the former has brenda and john’s care-
lessly spending money is brenda and john carelessly moving (throwing) a large
number of small objects about, whereas the latter has to unintentionally spend
money in an uncontrolled way is for a generic person to unintentionally move
substance (slip) in an uncontrolled way. In the case of be a cash cow, the situation
is yet again different: the idiom, while sharing the image schema-level and domain-
level metaphors with throw money about and money slips through someone’s
114 Zoltán Kövecses

fingers, differs from them on both the frame and mental space levels. Its frame-level
metaphor is based on the notion on borrowing (instead of buying) and its mental
space-level metaphor is that of the availability of money from joe any time is the
possibility of getting milk from the cow daily.
The result that all three (indeed, all four) metaphorical idioms have a different
mental space-level metaphor is not surprising at all. These are the metaphors that
express the actual, contextual meaning of the three (four) different idioms when
they are used in natural discourse situations. As can be expected, the fourth idiom,
money keeps the company afloat, has different metaphors all the way through on
the four levels. This is because this linguistic metaphor triggers a metaphor hier-
archy that features a different domain-level metaphor than the other three (the
financial resources that enable a company to remain financially viable is
the physical force that enables the complex physical object (ship) to remain
functional) within the same general domain of knowledge, which is the Financial
System.
In light of the metaphor hierarchies above, it may seem that such hierarchies
consist of a single metaphor on each level. But that is not the case. On each level,
there are additional metaphors that participate in the hierarchy, but in most cases,
they have not been included in our discussion so far to preserve the clarity and
transparency of the relevant hierarchical structures. However, in the hierarchy
associated with the last example, Money keeps the company afloat, some additional
metaphors were included as well. Next to causes are forces, we also have complex
abstract systems are complex physical objects on the image schema level. This
is because the concept of cause commonly occurs in the way complex abstract
systems, of which financial systems are a special case, function in general. On the
domain level, we have companies as one of the participants of the financial system,
resulting in the metaphor a company is a ship (a special case of complex physi-
cal objects). Companies and financial resources interact in the financial system,
where their interaction can be causal. The “cause” part is viewed metaphorically as
financial resources are physical forces, a special case of causes are forces. The
metaphors a company is a ship and financial resources are physical forces are
needed to construct and comprehend the third domain-level metaphor the finan-
cial resources that enable a company to remain financially viable is the physi-
cal force that enables the complex physical object (ship) to remain functional.
The mental space-level metaphors that were largely ignored in “standard”
CMT are given an important role in extended CMT. These are the metaphors that
represent actual, contextual meanings in a usage event. For this reason, we need
to be able to account for the emergence of such meanings. The traditionally used
mappings, or correspondences, of standard CMT cannot do this because they work
on a generic level (frame-, domain-, or even image schema level). However, the
 Idioms in Extended CMT 115

contextual meanings of naturally used metaphors are much more information-

rich and specific, which is what we have seen in all four cases discussed in detail.
Extended CMT proposes that, in any communicative situation involving metaphors,
the producers of metaphors make an intuitive and automatic assessment: Which
concepts stand out in the way I conceive of the situation given my communicative
intentions? Making use of the four examples above: Is it the notion of change that
stands out and that I want to talk about? Or is it causation? If it is change, I need to
rely on metaphorical ideas that I have in long term memory. That indicates for the
speaker, for instance, change is motion. This metaphor may trigger change-related
metaphors in the domain that I am engaged with. However, the domain is too broad
and unspecific, and I need to focus attention on one of the aspects of the domain,
which is represented by a smaller frame. But the frame-level metaphors still do not
work because frames employ roles, not specific values of roles, and are mental rep-
resentations of habitual situations that either involve too much information, on the
one hand, or a lack certain information, on the other. Therefore, I need to elaborate
further on frames until I arrive at a mental space-level metaphor online (i.e., in a
particular discourse situation) that suits my communicative purposes best. Then, I
search for a word or phrase that can accomplish this.
The process that I have just described is of course only a conjecture on my part.
All I can say about it at present is that it sounds reasonably plausible to me. I am
not an experimental psychologist or a psycholinguist, and thus I do not know how it
could be proved or what it would take to prove it by means of experiments.
Another issue that can be raised in connection with this account of metaphori-
cal idioms is that, while the account is concerned with how metaphorical idioms
are used in cognition (as discussed in this and the previous sections), it ignores the
study of their internal structure. What makes the situation even worse is that the
external cognitive functioning of these idioms is indistinguishable from the cogni-
tive functioning of other metaphorical lexical items (like words) and thus does not
say anything specific about the internal structuring of metaphorical idioms. How
can we respond to this criticism? Let us take the cash cow example. It is clear that
this is a metaphoric blend (see Fauconnier and Turner 2002) in which a person is
conceptually fused with a cow. The creative invention of this metaphorical idiom
(i.e., its first use) must have occurred on the mental space level, which, due to
its online character and dynamic nature, provides a favorable circumstance for
inventing novel idioms. It should be noted that the creation of this idiom would not
have been possible at the frame, domain, or image schema levels, which are offline
structures residing in long-term memory and as such cannot and do not partici-
pate directly in online functioning. However, they can do so indirectly through the
online processes that occur in mental spaces – the here and now aspect of thought.
A major claim of extended CMT is that metaphorical conceptualization at the
116 Zoltán Kövecses

mental space level assumes and requires the schematically higher-level metaphors
that are more stable and entrenched than the mental space-level ones. In other
words, the creation of cash cow at its first occurrence could not have happened
without the presence of some higher-level metaphors already in the metaphori-
cal conceptual system, such as change is motion, resources/money are objects
/substances/ liquids, people are animals, the human body is a container, and so
on. Extended CMT is primarily concerned with attempting to explain the cognitive
functioning of metaphorical idioms in this larger system, and not with how these
idioms initially emerged.

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