What is a substance-as-going-into-object metaphor?

What is a substance-as-going-into-object metaphor?

Definition
	A conventional metaphor in which the thing from which an object is composed or develops is represented as going into the object, which is treated as a container.

Examples
	Here are some examples in English:
	I made a sheet of newspaper into an airplane. I made the clay you gave me into a statue. The water turned into ice. The caterpillar turned into a butterfly.

Generic
	A substance-as-going-into-object metaphor is a kind of
	What is a metaphor for causation?

Source
	Lakoff, G. and Johnson 1980

Context for this page:

Concept module: substance-as-going-into-object metaphor
In modular book: Metaphors in English, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H. Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
In bookshelf: Lexicon

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 4.0, published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 1999. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 18 September 1998