An Idealized Cognitive Model of Naming: Converging Linguistic and Cognitive Evidence from Tunisian Arabic

Abstract. Naming people has been studied etymologically (Jäkel, 1999) and syntactico-semantically (VanLangendonck, 1999). But they have been argued to lack lexical meaning (Jäkel, 1999; Van Langendonck, 1999).The present paper, however, offers a cognitive semantic view of naming in Tunisian Arabic (TA) as an IdealizedCognitive Model (Lakoff, 1987; Langacker, 1991). First names are regarded as semantically and unconsciouslymotivated, describing a propositional model (Lakoff, 1987), a LINK image-schema (Lakoff, 1987; Johnson,1987), a metaphoric mapping (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980-1999), and a part-whole metonymic model (Lakoff,1987). Prototypically, first names in TA rely on a conceptual domain either recruited from within the experience ofname-givers or are the outcome of a desirable state of affairs on the part of name-givers. Such a desirable state ofaffairs is the product of an imaginative projection on the part of name-givers, who build this projection fromwithin emotions, morality, beauty, piety, etc. The conceptual metaphors capitalized upon in naming reveal namegivers’bias to males at the expense of females. The result is a cultural model of naming, whereby conceptualmetaphors interface with categorization and derivational morphology.