Another Facet of Literary Similes : A Study of Noun+Colour Term Adjectives

Abstract

Similes can be expressed not only by using comparatives but also through noun+colour term (CT) adjectives such as “lily-white” or “hearse-black”. This work studies such adjectives in a corpus of British prose fiction from the 19th- and 20th-century in terms of their structure and context of use. More specifically, it seeks to determine how similes built with those adjectives differ from traditional colour similes as far their distribution and their stylistic usage are concerned. In addition, it proposes a framework to classify noun+CT adjectives based on their originality.

Keywords

• Colour terms
• Simile
• 19th- and 20th-century British novels and short stories
• Berlin and Kay’s hypothesis
• compound adjective