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metaphors returns to an analogical (and hence metaphorical) explanation of language and presumes an idealist doctrine of linguistic creativity. If, on the other hand, the explanation of the creativity of language (presupposed by the existence of metaphors) is based on metonymic chains based in turn on identifiable semantic structures, it is then possible to bring the problem of creativity back to a description of language which depends upon a model susceptible to translation in binary terms. In other words, it is possible (even though for experimental purposes and only for limited parts of the Global Semantic System) to construct an automaton capable of generating and understanding metaphors. |
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A last important qualification: this study is concerned not only with poetic metaphor but with metaphor in general. The majority of our messages, in everyday life or in academic philosophy, are lined with metaphors. The problem of the creativity of language emerges, not only in the privileged domain of poetic discourse, but each time that languagein order to designate something that culture has not yet assimilated (and this 'something' may be external or internal to the circle of semiosis)must invent combinatory possibilities or semantic couplings not anticipated by the code. |
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Metaphor, in this sense, appears as a new semantic coupling not preceded by any stipulation of the code (but which generates a new stipulation of the code). In this sense, as we shall see, it assumes a value in regard to communication and, indirectly, to knowledge. |
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What remains to be defined is the particular status of its cognitive function. |
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This study is centered, therefore, on the semantic aspect of metaphor. The semantic aspect does not explain how metaphor can also have an aesthetic function. The aesthetic nature of a given metaphor is also produced by contextual elements or by the articulation of supersegmental features. This means, then, that, if on the one hand our study considers metaphor capable of segmenting in different ways the substance of content to the point of transforming it into a new form of content, on the other hand it does not explain by what segmentations of the substance of expression a given metaphor can obtain aesthetic effect. In other words, one's interest lies in knowing in what sense the fact of saying that the eyes of Leopardi's Silvia are /fuggitivi/ (fugitive) increases (in legitimizing the operation) the adjectival possibilities of the Italian language. It is not my purpose in this text to establish how and why the position of /fuggitivi/ (fugitive) after /ridenti/ (laughing) or the use of /fuggitivi/ instead of /fuggenti/ (fleeing) or /fuggiaschi/ (runaway) imparts to Leopardi's metaphor the aesthetic impact with which it is generally credited. |
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Not by chance have I chosen Finnegans Wake (hereafter FW) as our field of inquiry: as a literary work it produces sufficiently violent metaphors without interruption or reservation; at the same time, in proposing |
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