The Metonymicity of the Greek Deictic Adverbs εδώ [Here] and εκεί [There] in Politics

Abstract

This paper discusses the uses of the Greek deictic adverbs εδώ [here] and εκεί [there] in the language of politics. The paper draws examples from political speeches which took place in the Hellenic Parliament during 2011 and discussed the financial situation of Greece during that time. It is suggested that εδώ [here] and εκεί [there] have a high degree of metonymicity since they express ‘stand for’ relations. It is argued that the deictic adverbs have a referential function since they designate a range of concepts, namely, political parties, financial, political, and social situations, the Hellenic Parliament, political ideology, decisions, etc. It is also stated that the temporal and the spatial denotations of εδώ and εκεί are subject to image schemas. In particular, the paper discusses how the Greek deictic adverbs prompt for the image schemas of containment, part for whole, and centre-periphery and suggests that these types of image schemas have a metonymic basis.