Uncertainty in Metaphorical Reasoning

We present an approach and an associated computer program (ATT-Meta) which can interpret novel uses of familiar metaphors. ATT-Meta performs sophisticated reasoning with uncertainty of a kind that is required for reasoning about the content of metaphorical utterances. ATT-Meta’s handling of uncertainty is qualitative and handles potential conflicts between different lines of reasoning or arguments. It also uses a particular approach to specificity, which involves a complex examination of the complete argument structures supporting the conflicting hypotheses/arguments, as a powerful tool for comparing arguments.