We propose a new computational model for the resolution of metonymies, a particular type of figurative language. Typically, metonymies are considered as a violation of semantic constraints (e.g., those expressed by selectional restrictions) that require some repair mechanism (e.g., type coercion) for proper interpretation. We reject this view, arguing that it misses out on the interpretation of...

Pragmatic and cognitive accounts of figurative language posit a difference between metaphor and metonymy in terms of underlying conceptual operations. Recently, other pragmatic uses of words have been accounted for in the Relevance Theory framework, such as approximation, described in terms of conceptual adjustment that varies in degree and direction with respect to the case of metaphor. Despit...

for Concrete 6.9% 4/4 4/4 TOTAL 100% 37/59 = 62.7% 59/59 = 100% Table 9A. Metonymy Training Results on Data Set 1 (Static Weight Assignment) Data Set 1 (Collected examples) % of Total # Correct: Manual Weights # Correct: Trained Weights

bination of anaphoric and metonymic inferences is chosen. Another problem with Norvig' s approach relates to the fact that insufficient results from the inference processes do not trigger additional computations in order to try yet another, perhaps not so obvious analysis. If, e.g., for reasons whatsoever no anaphoric inference is found for a definite noun phrase, Norvig' s system does not atte...

The aim of the book is a semantic theory of metonymy and metaphor, called "collative semantics," and its implementation in the meta5 program. Before entering the core of the topic, Fass gives the reader definitions for some tropes (figures of speech), most, if not all of them, related to metaphor and metonymy (Chapter 2). The tropes are classified according to their nature: comparison, contigui...