Metaphor and Minimalism

old_uid4452
titleMetaphor and Minimalism
start_date2008/03/28
schedule11h-13h
onlineno
location_infoesc. B, 4e étage, salle W
summaryIn the first half of this paper, I argue, contrary to what one would expect given Capellen and Lepore's [C&L] (2005) treatment of other kinds of so-called non-literal interpretations, (1) that metaphorical interpretations pass their tests for semantic context sensitivity and (2) that the semantic content, or what we minimally understand by a metaphor like 'Juliet is the sun' cannot be that Juliet is the sun, full stop. In the second half of the paper, I propose that, rather than radically revise their account, C&L can accommodate metaphor by treating it, following Stern (2000, 2004), as a semantically context- dependent expression on the same model as classical Kaplanian indexicals and demonstratives. After sketching the proposal, I apply it to the meta-linguistic operators 'Metaphorically (speaking)' and 'Literally (speaking)' and offer a new solution to an outstanding problem concerning the character of metaphorical-literal dependence.
responsiblesStojanovic