The ups and downs of the Great Chain of Being: the case of canine zoosemy in the history of English Robert Kiełtyka and Grzegorz A. Kleparski Cognitive semanticists argue that since language is systematically grounded in human cognition, the phenomenon of semantic change is to be viewed as a cognitively motivated process explicable in terms of metaphor, metonymy and other figurative language use. Indeed, such cognitive mechanisms as analogy and association are proved to be playing a crucial role in the emergence of novel meanings in that speakers tend to modify conventional meanings by resorting to various cognitive processes in order to meet changing communicative and cognitive demands. 1 1. Introduction The main purpose of this paper is to formulate some evidence in favour of the view that semantic change is a cognitively motivated process. The idea that semantic shifts seem to have cognitive roots is clearly advocated by, among others, Kardela and Kleparski (1990), Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk (1992), Kleparski (1996, 1997), Györi (2002) and Grygiel (2004). It has been postulated in linguistic literature (see, for example, Györi (2002: 123)), that semantic change is accountable in terms of the conventionalisation of context-dependent modification of usage and its constraints are delimited by such general cognitive mechanisms as analogy, association and categorisation. This paper examines selected cases of zoosemy (animal metaphor) pertaining to the conceptual macrocategory HUMAN BEING and seeks the basis for their explanation in the operation of Conceptual Metaphor viewed as one of the causes of meaning construction and alteration. True enough, cognitive linguistics treats metaphor as a central issue in language analysis. Dwelling upon Reddy’s (1979) concept of conduit metaphor, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) and Lakoff and Turner (1989) put forward a theory where metaphor is viewed as a much broader phenomenon than generally conceived. The theory, referred to as Conceptual Metaphor Theory (henceforth CMT), treats metaphor as a conceptual rather than a purely linguistic entity which involves systematic projection between two mental representations (conceptual domains). Thus, CMT defines metaphor as a strictly directional phenomenon in which analyses are stated in terms of entrenched conceptual relationships. Here, the mechanism of zoosemy is viewed as one involving stable and systematic relationships between two conceptual domains in that particular elements of the source and target domains are highlighted through a combination of the source language used and the relevant conceptual metaphor, a mapping which prompts us how elements in the two domains line up with each other. An attempt will be made to show that the so-called Great Chain of Being Metaphor seems to provide some explanation of why and how in natural languages animal names are widely employed to designate human characteristics, and conversely, 24