Eckhard Bick - VISL

Moving beyond the translational level, I would like to hold that even such
metaphorical usage can be detected and decoded, to a certain degree, within the
suggested framework of my parser’s semantics. One of the main tools for semantic
disambiguation, as described above, have been rules trying to “mismatch” semantic
prototype or atomic feature tags (on nouns, e.g. , ) with the semantic context
established by verbs (semantic valency, e.g. , , V-MOVE) and
adjectives (as modifiers, e.g. , ). Now, such semantic mismatches have been
introduced as tools, but could - in the spirit of progressive level parsing - be interpreted
as “primary” information themselves. Then, with semantic mismatches becoming part of
the system of analysis proper, there would be a certain trade-off between (interpretable)
semantic mismatches and semantic disambiguation: Either, discarding some tag
readings out of a polysemic range of tags will resolve the mismatch (and yield the
correct analysis and translation), or - if there is no polysemy stated in the lexicon - a
given semantic mismatch can be interpreted. Simply, in the context of a semantic CGparser,
non-lexical metaphors should be defined as those semantic mismatches that
survive semantic disambiguation. Better still, a classification of metaphors could be
based on combining the semantic type (tag) expected by the lexicon with the reading
forced by the mismatching constituent slot, with metaphoric transfer moving from the
latter to the former.
Thus, verbs (verbs unambiguously asking for +HUM subjects), if used with
an unambiguously -HUM subject, will lead to a (nominal) metaphor built on nonhuman->human
transfer. One could say that the verb projects a +HUM reading onto any
filler of its subject valency slot, the semantic properties of the slot being stronger than
those of the filler. Consider the following example:
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