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Uneigentliches Sprechen: zur Pragmatik und Semantik von Metapher, Metonymie, Ironie, Litotes und rhetorischer Frage
54
Book reviews
Wolfgang Berg, Uneigentliches Sprechen: zur Pragmatik und Semantik yon Metapher, Metonymie, Ironic, Litotes und rketorischer Frage. 1978. Tt~bingen: TBL Verlag Gunter Narr. pp. 167. DM19.80. A fundamental concept of speech act theory has been the distinction between literal o: conventional meaning and nonliteral or intended meaning. Berg (henceforth B) s,!es in this distinction the basis for a theory of how figurative speech arises anff how the various figures of speech differ. Although B's effc,'ts are not without n erit, I think they fail in some substantial ways. The kinds of f~gurative speech with which B is concerned are RHETORICAL QUESTION~I (do you know what I like most about peanut butter? said to someone who obviously does not), IRONY (That's really swell that the cake ]'ell), LITOTES (A,,"thur isn't too smart to mean he's dumb), M E T A P H O R ( Fred is a sheep in wolf's clothing), METONYMY (Chomsky fills up three inches on my bookshelf ), HYPERBOLE ( You're the best morn "n the who& world!), and UNDERSTATEMENT (You've got a problem said to someone who has just been fired and evicted, and whose dog just died). B proposes that in using any one of these figures the speaker means something different from what he says ('spricht uneigentlich'), but that the hearer can reconstruct the intended meaning by following this INFERENCE SCHEME ('Folgerungszusammen-hang'): (!) The utterance of a sentence T constitutes a performance of an indicated speech act of type t with the indicated propositional content p. {2) Associated with I are sincerity conditions, relevant Gricean maxims, etc. {3) Fn~m the context of the utte:ance of T it is clear that the speaker does: not fulfill the conditions of (2). {4) But it is certain that the speaker is s~c,z~in~ co'2Fer_~tively. {5) The conflict of (3) and (4) is resolved by finding the intended speech act J a n d / o r the intended proposition q for the utterance of T which is consistent with the condition.~ of (2). For instance, if I say Albert is a giant and you know that 1 know that Albert is four feet tall, you can tell that i am violating sincerity conditions assocmted with declarative speech acts. If you assume that I am nevertheless speaking cooperatively, you will probably find the propositional content that Albert is somehow important or powerful as my intended meaning. B notes that the same factors which he claims to play a role in the interpretation of figurative speech also underlie the interpretation of indirect speech acts. If I ask can you pass me the salt? l am performing a speech act that has the sincerity condition which requires that I want to team if you ,:.an pass the salt. Since l certainly know if you can pass the salt already, I am violating that sincerk) condition. To resolve this conflict, you, as the hearer, will probably reinterpret my speech act as one of requesting.
Book reviews
55
B clainrls that redirect speech acts nevertheless differ fro a! f gurative .~peech in involving social expectations, nonas, a n d / o r consiCteratior~s of poli~.eness. Howev¢r, it: seems to me that irony often provides a way of :avoiding bluntness, and B hinltself points out that litotes often involves a sen~e c,f diplomacy. If these points are correct, then B should reconsider l~he importance of the distinction he tries to draw. B discusses the conditions referred to in ( 2 ) o f the inference scheme extensively. He argues that a large number of these principles can be subsumed under a general principle of U S E F U L N E S S ('Zweckrational.~tiW). For instance, Sea.rle associates the following sincerity conditions with the act of requesting A to do X: (a) The speaker wants A to do X. (b) The speaker assumes that A can do X. (c) The speaker assumes that A is willing to d~, X. (d) The speake~r assumes that A would not do X unles.q requested to do X. B points out that alll but (a) are componerts of the usefu!ness or point of the request. Similarly, the Gricean maxims of quantity and relation fa~l under the general principle of usefulness: if an utterance is not b:formative and relevant, the speaker wo~,ald have no point in making the utterance.. I'm not sure that B's principle of usefulnes,~ differs at all from ,~rice's cooperative principle. Howev,~.r, the observation taat many o:f Searle's sincerity conditions are rendered redundant by such a p:'iinciple is significant. Irlt fact, it should be no'icec~ that such conditions are no, applicable at all when tl'ley happen no~. to be necessary to ensure the usefulness of an utterance. B mentions the case of the examination question. Questioning is normally associated with a sincerity condition that the speaker wants to learn if' X, but in the exam situation this condition is usually violated, since the speaker already knows if X. If we take the sincerity condition at face value, we need some kind ~3 gpeciM rules that make the applicability of sincerity conditions context-depe'ldent, so that infelicity is not predicted f.:r the exam situation. If we take the principle of usefulness itself as the reJevant operating condition then the felic~itousness of the exam question is explained in terms of some other goal. The specific sincerity condition is no more than a condition '.that most often, but not always, coincides with the usefulness of a question. There are similar examples involving Gricean maxims, as when l would violate the specific maxim "be iwFormative" by saying, .4s you knov~, I saw Fred last night, which might nevertheless by useful in bringiJag a particular situation to mind for lhe hearer on which I could go on to elaborate with informative information. B's point that many sinceiity conditions and Gricean maxims apply only ii~sofar as they happen to be cor/stitutive of usefulness, is well ~aken. B sees in the steps (1) through (5) a means of definirqg the figures of sgeech on the basis of (a) differences between the indicated and intended speeclt act types, (b) the types of conditions in (2) which are violate, d, and (c) the t'yp,es of knowledge i:wolved in reaching an intended interpretation in (5). B provides a
56
Book reviews
worthwhile g~neral discussion of the use of the various figures of speech in German, then suggests some explicit definitions in terms of these three criteria. Thus, rhetorical acts, irony, and htotes are distinguished from metaphor, metonymy, hyperbole, and understatement in B's definitions in that the indicated speech act type of the former is not the same as the intended speech act type. Litotes is distinguished from rhetorical acts in involving the indicated speech act of disputing. Irony is distinguished from rhetcrical acts in that its indicated speech act is tLe converse of its intended speech act. Metaphor, metonymy, and hyperbole are distinguished from understatement in that specific sincerity conditions are violated at step (3) in the former. Metaphor and metonymy are disti~fished from hyperbole in requiring reference to stereotypes for reaching the intended propositional content at step (5). A few other distinctions are drawn as well. Notice that the analysis B offers of litotes and irony depends on treating negation as indicating a specific speech act, that of disputing, which is taken to be the converse of asserting. For instance, the intended speech act in the use of irony is the converse of the indicated speech act. On the other hand, the indicated speech act in the use of litotes is that of disputing, but litotes asserts :he contrary of the indicated propositional content. He isn't very smart, therefigre, doesn't dispute that he is smart (as indicated), but rather asserts that he is stupid. The contrast between denying p and asserting the contrary of p is interesting. It would be nice, though, if B could relate litotes more closely to understatement: litotes seems to be no more than understatement with the syntactic form of the negative, but in term:; of B's criteria they have little io common. The kinds of criteria based on the conditions of step (2~ which are violated, which B invokes to define certain types of figurative speech, seem to be very problematic. B clairr s that metaphor, metonymy, and hyperbole involve violations of sincerity cor~dition~s which result from the speaker's belief that neither the indicated propos~ tional content, nor its negation is true. This claim entails, for instance, that the metaphorical reading of Sigmund is a pig arises only if the speaker believes neither that Sigmund is a real pig, nor ~hat Sigmund is not a real pig. The second assumption seems t o be clearly false; if the speaker believes that Sigmund is a human, then he believes that Sigmund is not a real pig. In other cases, the first assumption, that the speaker believes that the indic_ated propositional content is false, is also violated. Thus, I can say metaphorically I've had to c a r ~ a heavv load, even if quite literally ! have had to carry a heaw load, if the indicated propositional content leads to the violation of some other condition, such as informativeness or relevance. "lherefore, B has not correctly defined metaphor. The kinds of criteria based on the knowledge involved in finding the intended meaning at step (5), are likewise problematic. B claims that metaphor is interpreted on the basis of similarity (as defined by stereotypes), while
Book reviews
57
metonymy is interpreted on the basis of contiguity (in a very wide sense). For instance, Sigm~,,md is a pig attributes ~o Sigmund simillarity to pigs,, and is therefo.~:e metaphorical. Peter is readinj Handke or the twentieth centuey is free from the plague says something about entities which are. contiguous with the indic,~ted referents, i.e., about books by Handke or people living in the twentieth century, and is therefore metonynaous. However, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) argue that contiguity plays an important role in metaphor. For instance, the me~taphorical sense of up or high to mean happy does not seem to be based on a .,;imiiarity, but rather on the contiguity between an ,erect vs. drooping po.,~ture, and a happy vs. sad :state of mind. The~efore, it seems that metaphor and metonymy cannot be distinguished on the basis of a contrast between similarity ~:nd contiguity. B further propo,.,es, however, that metaphor involves a difference between an indicated and an intended predication, while metonymy involves a difference between ar_ indicated and an intended reference. For instance, pig i~ Sigmund is a pig functions as a predicate which is intewreted differently on the literal and metaphorical readings. Handke ir~ Peter is reading l-landke fianctions as a referring term which is interpreted diffe,rently on the literal and metonymous readings~ Ek wever, I don't believe metaphor and me~onymy are always distinguished in this way. The b,oss is coming could be used metaphorically to refer to someone who is not in a position of authority, but acts as ~f he were. In this case, the reference of the the boss would differ f:rona the indicated reference. The car is fast is used metonymously to predicate the capacity to move fast of the car. In thi,; case, the preclication of fast differs from the indicated meaning. Therefore, B's, second criterion for distinguishing metaphor and metonymy seems to break down as weltl. l,a more general terms, I find the account B offers of how figurative inlerpretations ark,;e both deficient and misleading m several respeclts. I am ~n full agreement tl'mt potential violations of sinceri*y conditions or Gricean maxims play a fundamental role in selecting and rejecting possible i,aterpretations of utterances. But B says nothing of significance beyond this about how figurative senses are reached. In particular, I would challenge the significance of the neat dichotomy between more basic literal or conventiona~" meanings and derived non-literal or unconventional meanings implied by the proposed inference scheme. First, notice that the same factors at work in the inference scheme allow one to make a choice between two literal senses of an ambiguous e:~pressic,n when there is no question of one sense being more basic than the other. If I say 1 slipped on the bank you can infer that I am referring to the ,,;hore of a river rather than to a financial institution, because if you assumed the latter interpretation I would be violating ~ sincerity condition of declarati:.ve speech acts by saying something I probably could not believe. Therefore, lhe dichotomy between basic and derived meanings implied by the inference s,zheme is not crucial to the process it represents.
5~
Book reviews
Second, many figurative senses are established by convention. For instance, alongside new metaphors like the trees lifted their ears, we laave frozen metaphors like Fred is a fox. B says nothing about the role of convention in the interpretation of figurative speech, freely citing examples of conventionalized alongside novel figures in his discussion. Although there is minimally an historical dependence of a frozen metaphor on a literal meaning, an,J probably a synchronic conceptual dependence in most cases, I would be disinclined to suppose that this dependence has something to do with the derivation of a figuratiw.• sense from a more basic literal sense on a particular occasion as implied by the inference scheme. The actual process of selecting an interpretation for a frozen metaphor on a particular occasion is probably most often similar to tl,d: of selecting the appropriate sense (,f an ambiguous expression like t,ank. Third. even in the case of novel figurative speed.: - for which the process of selecting an interpretation must involve reference to some more basic convention?| meaning if it is to be possible at all - the irfference scheme (l) through (5) cannot be assumed to reflect the actual temporal ordering of the process of selc~mg an interpretation. Psychological evidence indicates that conventional meanln~ are probably not worked out before intended meanings. Instead, possible intended meanings are first anticipated on the basis of conceptual scherr~ata used to account for the situation b~:ing described, and only afterwards are conventional meanings considered for selecting a possible intended meaning on the basis of "closeness" to a conventional meaning (Rumelhart 1979~. In .,:~mmar)', that aspect of the problem of how figuratiw,~ interpretations arise tha~ B treats is probably best seen in terms of a more general process of se[ectir~g amon~g the various possible interpretations of linguistic expressions, w~hether these interpretations are conventional, non-conventional, literal, figurative, or represent normal ambiguity. A second and more interesting aspect of the problem of how figurative interpretations arise is what makes a particular unconventional interpretation possible at all. l hope that B will have more to say about this in future work. John Dinsmore University of California, Berkeley USA
References LakofL George arm Mark Johnson. 1980. M,;taphors we live by. Chicago: Universityof Chicago. Pre~. gume|harto Dav:d. |979. 'Someproblems with the notion of literal meanings'. In: A. Ortony (ed.), Metliphe,~"and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Book reviews
Wolfgang Berg, Uneigentliches Sprechen: zur Pragmatik und Semantik yon Metapher, Metonymie, Ironic, Litotes und rketorischer Frage. 1978. Tt~bingen: TBL Verlag Gunter Narr. pp. 167. DM19.80. A fundamental concept of speech act theory has been the distinction between literal o: conventional meaning and nonliteral or intended meaning. Berg (henceforth B) s,!es in this distinction the basis for a theory of how figurative speech arises anff how the various figures of speech differ. Although B's effc,'ts are not without n erit, I think they fail in some substantial ways. The kinds of f~gurative speech with which B is concerned are RHETORICAL QUESTION~I (do you know what I like most about peanut butter? said to someone who obviously does not), IRONY (That's really swell that the cake ]'ell), LITOTES (A,,"thur isn't too smart to mean he's dumb), M E T A P H O R ( Fred is a sheep in wolf's clothing), METONYMY (Chomsky fills up three inches on my bookshelf ), HYPERBOLE ( You're the best morn "n the who& world!), and UNDERSTATEMENT (You've got a problem said to someone who has just been fired and evicted, and whose dog just died). B proposes that in using any one of these figures the speaker means something different from what he says ('spricht uneigentlich'), but that the hearer can reconstruct the intended meaning by following this INFERENCE SCHEME ('Folgerungszusammen-hang'): (!) The utterance of a sentence T constitutes a performance of an indicated speech act of type t with the indicated propositional content p. {2) Associated with I are sincerity conditions, relevant Gricean maxims, etc. {3) Fn~m the context of the utte:ance of T it is clear that the speaker does: not fulfill the conditions of (2). {4) But it is certain that the speaker is s~c,z~in~ co'2Fer_~tively. {5) The conflict of (3) and (4) is resolved by finding the intended speech act J a n d / o r the intended proposition q for the utterance of T which is consistent with the condition.~ of (2). For instance, if I say Albert is a giant and you know that 1 know that Albert is four feet tall, you can tell that i am violating sincerity conditions assocmted with declarative speech acts. If you assume that I am nevertheless speaking cooperatively, you will probably find the propositional content that Albert is somehow important or powerful as my intended meaning. B notes that the same factors which he claims to play a role in the interpretation of figurative speech also underlie the interpretation of indirect speech acts. If I ask can you pass me the salt? l am performing a speech act that has the sincerity condition which requires that I want to team if you ,:.an pass the salt. Since l certainly know if you can pass the salt already, I am violating that sincerk) condition. To resolve this conflict, you, as the hearer, will probably reinterpret my speech act as one of requesting.
Book reviews
55
B clainrls that redirect speech acts nevertheless differ fro a! f gurative .~peech in involving social expectations, nonas, a n d / o r consiCteratior~s of poli~.eness. Howev¢r, it: seems to me that irony often provides a way of :avoiding bluntness, and B hinltself points out that litotes often involves a sen~e c,f diplomacy. If these points are correct, then B should reconsider l~he importance of the distinction he tries to draw. B discusses the conditions referred to in ( 2 ) o f the inference scheme extensively. He argues that a large number of these principles can be subsumed under a general principle of U S E F U L N E S S ('Zweckrational.~tiW). For instance, Sea.rle associates the following sincerity conditions with the act of requesting A to do X: (a) The speaker wants A to do X. (b) The speaker assumes that A can do X. (c) The speaker assumes that A is willing to d~, X. (d) The speake~r assumes that A would not do X unles.q requested to do X. B points out that alll but (a) are componerts of the usefu!ness or point of the request. Similarly, the Gricean maxims of quantity and relation fa~l under the general principle of usefulness: if an utterance is not b:formative and relevant, the speaker wo~,ald have no point in making the utterance.. I'm not sure that B's principle of usefulnes,~ differs at all from ,~rice's cooperative principle. Howev,~.r, the observation taat many o:f Searle's sincerity conditions are rendered redundant by such a p:'iinciple is significant. Irlt fact, it should be no'icec~ that such conditions are no, applicable at all when tl'ley happen no~. to be necessary to ensure the usefulness of an utterance. B mentions the case of the examination question. Questioning is normally associated with a sincerity condition that the speaker wants to learn if' X, but in the exam situation this condition is usually violated, since the speaker already knows if X. If we take the sincerity condition at face value, we need some kind ~3 gpeciM rules that make the applicability of sincerity conditions context-depe'ldent, so that infelicity is not predicted f.:r the exam situation. If we take the principle of usefulness itself as the reJevant operating condition then the felic~itousness of the exam question is explained in terms of some other goal. The specific sincerity condition is no more than a condition '.that most often, but not always, coincides with the usefulness of a question. There are similar examples involving Gricean maxims, as when l would violate the specific maxim "be iwFormative" by saying, .4s you knov~, I saw Fred last night, which might nevertheless by useful in bringiJag a particular situation to mind for lhe hearer on which I could go on to elaborate with informative information. B's point that many sinceiity conditions and Gricean maxims apply only ii~sofar as they happen to be cor/stitutive of usefulness, is well ~aken. B sees in the steps (1) through (5) a means of definirqg the figures of sgeech on the basis of (a) differences between the indicated and intended speeclt act types, (b) the types of conditions in (2) which are violate, d, and (c) the t'yp,es of knowledge i:wolved in reaching an intended interpretation in (5). B provides a
56
Book reviews
worthwhile g~neral discussion of the use of the various figures of speech in German, then suggests some explicit definitions in terms of these three criteria. Thus, rhetorical acts, irony, and htotes are distinguished from metaphor, metonymy, hyperbole, and understatement in B's definitions in that the indicated speech act type of the former is not the same as the intended speech act type. Litotes is distinguished from rhetorical acts in involving the indicated speech act of disputing. Irony is distinguished from rhetcrical acts in that its indicated speech act is tLe converse of its intended speech act. Metaphor, metonymy, and hyperbole are distinguished from understatement in that specific sincerity conditions are violated at step (3) in the former. Metaphor and metonymy are disti~fished from hyperbole in requiring reference to stereotypes for reaching the intended propositional content at step (5). A few other distinctions are drawn as well. Notice that the analysis B offers of litotes and irony depends on treating negation as indicating a specific speech act, that of disputing, which is taken to be the converse of asserting. For instance, the intended speech act in the use of irony is the converse of the indicated speech act. On the other hand, the indicated speech act in the use of litotes is that of disputing, but litotes asserts :he contrary of the indicated propositional content. He isn't very smart, therefigre, doesn't dispute that he is smart (as indicated), but rather asserts that he is stupid. The contrast between denying p and asserting the contrary of p is interesting. It would be nice, though, if B could relate litotes more closely to understatement: litotes seems to be no more than understatement with the syntactic form of the negative, but in term:; of B's criteria they have little io common. The kinds of criteria based on the conditions of step (2~ which are violated, which B invokes to define certain types of figurative speech, seem to be very problematic. B clairr s that metaphor, metonymy, and hyperbole involve violations of sincerity cor~dition~s which result from the speaker's belief that neither the indicated propos~ tional content, nor its negation is true. This claim entails, for instance, that the metaphorical reading of Sigmund is a pig arises only if the speaker believes neither that Sigmund is a real pig, nor ~hat Sigmund is not a real pig. The second assumption seems t o be clearly false; if the speaker believes that Sigmund is a human, then he believes that Sigmund is not a real pig. In other cases, the first assumption, that the speaker believes that the indic_ated propositional content is false, is also violated. Thus, I can say metaphorically I've had to c a r ~ a heavv load, even if quite literally ! have had to carry a heaw load, if the indicated propositional content leads to the violation of some other condition, such as informativeness or relevance. "lherefore, B has not correctly defined metaphor. The kinds of criteria based on the knowledge involved in finding the intended meaning at step (5), are likewise problematic. B claims that metaphor is interpreted on the basis of similarity (as defined by stereotypes), while
Book reviews
57
metonymy is interpreted on the basis of contiguity (in a very wide sense). For instance, Sigm~,,md is a pig attributes ~o Sigmund simillarity to pigs,, and is therefo.~:e metaphorical. Peter is readinj Handke or the twentieth centuey is free from the plague says something about entities which are. contiguous with the indic,~ted referents, i.e., about books by Handke or people living in the twentieth century, and is therefore metonynaous. However, Lakoff and Johnson (1980) argue that contiguity plays an important role in metaphor. For instance, the me~taphorical sense of up or high to mean happy does not seem to be based on a .,;imiiarity, but rather on the contiguity between an ,erect vs. drooping po.,~ture, and a happy vs. sad :state of mind. The~efore, it seems that metaphor and metonymy cannot be distinguished on the basis of a contrast between similarity ~:nd contiguity. B further propo,.,es, however, that metaphor involves a difference between an indicated and an intended predication, while metonymy involves a difference between ar_ indicated and an intended reference. For instance, pig i~ Sigmund is a pig functions as a predicate which is intewreted differently on the literal and metaphorical readings. Handke ir~ Peter is reading l-landke fianctions as a referring term which is interpreted diffe,rently on the literal and metonymous readings~ Ek wever, I don't believe metaphor and me~onymy are always distinguished in this way. The b,oss is coming could be used metaphorically to refer to someone who is not in a position of authority, but acts as ~f he were. In this case, the reference of the the boss would differ f:rona the indicated reference. The car is fast is used metonymously to predicate the capacity to move fast of the car. In thi,; case, the preclication of fast differs from the indicated meaning. Therefore, B's, second criterion for distinguishing metaphor and metonymy seems to break down as weltl. l,a more general terms, I find the account B offers of how figurative inlerpretations ark,;e both deficient and misleading m several respeclts. I am ~n full agreement tl'mt potential violations of sinceri*y conditions or Gricean maxims play a fundamental role in selecting and rejecting possible i,aterpretations of utterances. But B says nothing of significance beyond this about how figurative senses are reached. In particular, I would challenge the significance of the neat dichotomy between more basic literal or conventiona~" meanings and derived non-literal or unconventional meanings implied by the proposed inference scheme. First, notice that the same factors at work in the inference scheme allow one to make a choice between two literal senses of an ambiguous e:~pressic,n when there is no question of one sense being more basic than the other. If I say 1 slipped on the bank you can infer that I am referring to the ,,;hore of a river rather than to a financial institution, because if you assumed the latter interpretation I would be violating ~ sincerity condition of declarati:.ve speech acts by saying something I probably could not believe. Therefore, lhe dichotomy between basic and derived meanings implied by the inference s,zheme is not crucial to the process it represents.
5~
Book reviews
Second, many figurative senses are established by convention. For instance, alongside new metaphors like the trees lifted their ears, we laave frozen metaphors like Fred is a fox. B says nothing about the role of convention in the interpretation of figurative speech, freely citing examples of conventionalized alongside novel figures in his discussion. Although there is minimally an historical dependence of a frozen metaphor on a literal meaning, an,J probably a synchronic conceptual dependence in most cases, I would be disinclined to suppose that this dependence has something to do with the derivation of a figuratiw.• sense from a more basic literal sense on a particular occasion as implied by the inference scheme. The actual process of selecting an interpretation for a frozen metaphor on a particular occasion is probably most often similar to tl,d: of selecting the appropriate sense (,f an ambiguous expression like t,ank. Third. even in the case of novel figurative speed.: - for which the process of selecting an interpretation must involve reference to some more basic convention?| meaning if it is to be possible at all - the irfference scheme (l) through (5) cannot be assumed to reflect the actual temporal ordering of the process of selc~mg an interpretation. Psychological evidence indicates that conventional meanln~ are probably not worked out before intended meanings. Instead, possible intended meanings are first anticipated on the basis of conceptual scherr~ata used to account for the situation b~:ing described, and only afterwards are conventional meanings considered for selecting a possible intended meaning on the basis of "closeness" to a conventional meaning (Rumelhart 1979~. In .,:~mmar)', that aspect of the problem of how figuratiw,~ interpretations arise tha~ B treats is probably best seen in terms of a more general process of se[ectir~g amon~g the various possible interpretations of linguistic expressions, w~hether these interpretations are conventional, non-conventional, literal, figurative, or represent normal ambiguity. A second and more interesting aspect of the problem of how figurative interpretations arise is what makes a particular unconventional interpretation possible at all. l hope that B will have more to say about this in future work. John Dinsmore University of California, Berkeley USA
References LakofL George arm Mark Johnson. 1980. M,;taphors we live by. Chicago: Universityof Chicago. Pre~. gume|harto Dav:d. |979. 'Someproblems with the notion of literal meanings'. In: A. Ortony (ed.), Metliphe,~"and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.