Unparalleled Creativityin Metaphor(and Analogy)

Take-Home Message re Handling Creativity within Metaphorical Expression

Creative metaphorical wording, going beyond existing mappings, can often be processed

without creating new source/target mappings to handle the unmapped elements,

even when it is crucial for the meaning of the utterance.

This is a liberating point, easing the task of accounting for creativity within metaphorical wording.

Similarly: Take-Home Message re Analogy Some creative parts of analogical sources do not have creative parallels in the target,

but instead serve to (creatively) control how other parts of the analogy fit with the target.

Take-Home Message re Non-(Grand-)Creativity in the View of the Target

So, the creativity in the wording is often not paralelled in the target and

creative metaphorical wording often DOESN’T give grandly creative new view of the target.

Instead, it can exert fine and subtle control over what is transferred by already-known mappings

and can express unusual (rather than “creative”) situations in the target domain.

(The resulting message may be much more difficult to express without the metaphor.)

… including the case of non-verbal, e.g. pictorial, metaphorEases the task of accounting for, e.g.,

creative pictorial metaphor.

John Barnden,

School of Computer Science,

University of Birmingham, UK

NON-PARALLELED but CRUCIAL CREATIVITY in wording: example 1

“I don’t think strings are attached. If there are any they’re made of nylon—I can’t see them.”

source elements PARALLELED:The strings

Their attachmentPhysical seeing

DIFFICULTY (of seeing)

THEIR PARALLELS IN TARGET:Behaviour-affecting constraintsThe application of those constraintsAbstract noticingDIFFICULTY (of abstract noticing)

source elements NOT PARALLELED:The nylon.

Being made of.Translucency.

But the non-paralleled nylon and translucency derived from it

are still CRUCIAL through implying the DIFFICULTY.

NON-PARALLELED but CRUCIAL CREATIVITY: example 2

“[w]hen Jackie expressed doubts about [Phil], I had to nurture those doubts as if they were tiny, sickly kittens, until eventually they became sturdy, healthy grievances, with their own cat-flaps which allowed them to wander in and out of our conversation at will.”

source elements NOT PARALLELED:The cat-ness of the doubts and grievances.Their tininess, sickliness, sturdiness, healthiness [ask me: complex point]The cat-flaps.The deliberateness of the cats’ wandering.

One DERIVED source element that IS paralleled:

The NON-deliberateness of the wandering on the speaker’s part.

This non-deliberateness is a rich inference from the nature of cats and cat-flaps, and ALTGHOUGH NOT PARALLELED still has a CRUCIAL EFFECT on the meaning.

ATT-Meta Approach to

Metaphor Understanding

Direct Meaning of Utterance (lexico-compositional)

Something Inferred using (largely) source-domain knowledge

Something about the target scenario

Something Inferred using (largely) source-domain knowledge

Something Inferred using (largely) source-domain knowledge

Something Inferred using (largely) source-domain knowledge

Something about the target scenario

Something about the target scenario

rich inference

Transfer actions

rich inference

Other creativity-supporting aspects of ATT-Meta:

Transfer steps as just one type of reasoning step:arbitrary intertwining

View-Neutral Mapping Adjuncts [see paper]

Metaphor Compounding

No actual reliance on “domains”

Reverse Transfer (target-to-source):Escapes from assuming per-sentence understanding