What is a love-as-commodity metaphor?

What is a love-as-commodity metaphor?

Definition
	A conventional metaphor in which love is represented as a valuable substance to be traded, thus entailing mutuality of the trade and comparability of the amounts traded.

Examples
	Here are some examples in English:
	I gave her all my love. I didn't get much in return. What am I getting out of this relationship anyway? I am putting more into this than you are. She's invested a lot in that relationship.

Generic
	A love-as-commodity metaphor is a kind of
	What is a metaphor for love?

Source
	Kovecses 1986

Context for this page:

Concept module: love-as-commodity 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