Metaphor and Lexical Semantics

This paper shows that several sorts of expressions cannot be interpreted metaphorically, including determiners, tenses, etc. Generally, functional categories cannot be interpreted metaphorically, while lexical categories can. This reveals a semantic property of functional categories, and it shows that metaphor can be used as a probe for investigating them. It also reveals an important linguistic constraint on metaphor. The paper argues this constraint applies to the interface between the cognitive systems for language and metaphor. However, the constraint does not completely prevent structural elements of language from being available to the metaphor system. The paper shows that linguistic structure within the lexicon, specifically, aspectual structure, is available to the metaphor system. This paper takes as its starting point an observation about which sorts of expressions can receive metaphorical interpretations. Surprisingly, there are a number of expressions that cannot be interpreted metaphorically. Quantifier expressions (i.e. determiners) provide a good example. Consider a richly metaphorical sentence like: (1) Read o’er the volume of young Paris’ face, And find delight writ there with beauty’s pen; Examine every married lineament (Romeo and Juliet I.3). Metaphor and Lexical Semantics 2 In appreciating Shakespeare’s lovely use of language, writ and pen are obviously understood metaphorically, and married lineament must be too. (The meanings listed in the Oxford English Dictionary for lineament include diagram, portion of a body, and portion of the face viewed with respect to its outline.) In spite of all this rich metaphor, every means simply every, in its usual literal form. Indeed, we cannot think of what a metaphorical interpretation of every would be. As we will see, this is not an isolated case: while many expressions can be interpreted metaphorically, there is a broad and important group of expressions that cannot. Much of this paper will be devoted to exploring the significance of this observation. It shows us something about metaphor. In particular, it shows that there is a non-trivial linguistic constraint on metaphor. This is a somewhat surprising result, as one of the leading ideas in the theory of metaphor is that metaphor comprehension is an aspect of our more general cognitive abilities, and not tied to the specific structure of language. The constraint on metaphor also shows us something about linguistic meaning. We will see that the class of expressions that fail to have metaphorical interpretations is a linguistically important one. Linguistic items are often grouped into two classes: lexical categories, including nouns, verbs, etc., and functional categories, including determiners (quantifier expressions), tenses, etc. Generally, we will see that lexical categories can have metaphorical interpretations, while functional ones cannot. This reveals something about the kinds of semantic properties these expressions can have. It also shows that we can use the availability of metaphorical interpretation as a kind of probe, to help distinguish these sorts of categories. Functional categories are often described as ‘structural elements’ of language. They are the ‘linguistic glue’ that holds sentences together, and so, their expressions are described as being semantically ‘thin’. Our metaphor probe will give some substance to this (often very rough-andready) idea. But it raises the question of whether all such structural elements in language—anything we can describe as ‘linguistic glue’— are invisible when it comes to metaphorical interpretation. We will see that this is not so. In particular, we will see that linguistic structure that can be found within lexical items may be available to metaphorical interpretation. This paper will show specifically that so-called aspecVol. 3: A Figure of Speech