A phenomenon exhibited in a radial category between distinct senses (or lexical concepts ) associated with a given word. Chaining relates to the situation whereby new senses emerge that are intermediate with respect to the prototype (or ideal meaning ) and the peripheral senses. Chaining is therefore the phenomenon whereby the central and peripheral senses are connected by virtue of intermediate senses. The range of mechanisms that have been proposed within the cognitive lexical semantics literature as giving rise to chaining include metaphor, metonymy, image schema transformation and pragmatic strengthening.