On the Literal Meaning of Proper Names

on the comparison of keyword and semantic-context methods of learning new vocabulary meaning

the rationale behind the present study is that particular learning strategies produce more effective results when applied together. the present study tried to investigate the efficiency of the semantic-context strategy alone with a technique called, keyword method. to clarify the point, the current study seeked to find answer to the following question: are the keyword and semantic-context metho...

Literal Meaning and re

Based on psychological studies which show that metaphors and other nonliteral constructions are comprehended in the same amount of time as comparable literal constructions, some researchers have concluded that literal meaning is not computed during metaphor comprehension. In this paper, we suggest that the empirical evidence does not rule out the possibility that literal meaning is constructed....

Defending Literal Meaning

The notion of literal meaning was once so unproblematic that it would easily fit Arnauld’s description: it was one of those notions that are “so clear that they cannot be explained through others, because there are none which are clearer and simpler than them.” But in our century, its fate has not been different from that of so many other notions previously presumed to be “fundamental ,” and it...

On the linguistic complexity of proper names

Understanding and Literal Meaning

The debate on literal meaning in theories of natural language processing has focused on two main issues: (1) Are there conditions by which the literal meaning of a sentence can be appropriately identified?; and (2) Is there some evaluation of literal meaning during the interpretation of natural language utterances? My article, “Literal meaning and psychological theory,” (Gibbs, 1984) attempted ...