Title: Semantic shifts and pain predicates: "rebranding"
The paper presents the results of the on-going project on pain-metaphors (like Eng. MY EYES ARE BURNING, Germ. MIR DRÖHNT DER KOPF, etc.) across languages. It argues that:
• there are universals not only in grammar, but also in lexical semantics, so that even metaphorical shifts within a certain domain are cross-linguistically governed by the same general rules;
• genetically and areally related languages, which are usually excluded from the samples in the framework of grammatical typology are highly relevant for lexical typology;
• there are meaning shifts within the lexicon which display a strong similarity to the semantic changes that take place during the process of grammaticalization.
