Analogy and iconicity

Abstract As a process believed to shape both thought and language, analogy has a long history in linguistic thinking and beyond. It also has a long history of being variously understood. To this day, it is a divisive concept in linguistic theorizing. This chapter explores the definitional space the concept occupies—or could occupy. In doing so, it aims to clarify the relation between analogy and other concepts, such as iconicity, metaphor, productivity, and blending. At the same time, it offers relevant parameters to typologizing analogy into more fine-grained types, such as formal, semantic, and distributional analogy, or proportional and non-proportional analogy. Finally, it highlights the theoretical ramifications that come with definitional choices and discusses some of the ways in which recent research into analogy has parried some of the criticisms traditionally leveled against it.