Logical and cognitive aspects of the metaphor

The category "Metaphor" exhibits uncertain boundaries, intersecting with other figures of speech such as simile, analogy, synecdoche, metonymy; therefore, it is not easy to give a precise definition of what a metaphor is, or is not, as shown by the wide literature on the subject. In this paper we will argue for a unitary formal theory of metaphor, both from the linguistic and the cognitive point of view, in the light of the interactive-perspective, developed from the well-known suggestions of Richards and Black, and particularly investigated in the field of cognitive science. An inference driven approach to the interactive theory of metaphor is proposed based on the dynamic type hierarchies developed in recent works of E.C. Way and B. Indurkhya.