In this paper, we discuss Lepore and Stone’s account of metaphor which is based on three of Davidson’s proposals: (i) the rejection of metaphorical meanings; (ii) the rejection of metaphors as conveying metaphorical propositional contents; and (iii) the defence of analogy as the key mechanism for understanding metaphors. Lepore and Stone defend these proposals because the non-sceptic strategy on metaphorical meanings, characterized in general by the negation of (i) and (ii), fails to come to grips with neither the power of (...) metaphor nor the explanatory resources of traditional pragmatic theories. In this paper we show not only how our non-sceptic account of metaphorical meaning as a variety of ad hoc concept eliminates these diffi culties but also how it can solve two related difficulties that appear in Lepore and Stone’s account. One of them is that Lepore and Stone’s account involves the possibility of interpreting all metaphorical utterances literally (metaphors only have one meaning, the ordinary meaning) as a criterion of metaphorical identification; the other is that their proposal is not suited for explaining how speakers can agree or disagree when they use metaphorical utterances. (shrink)

In this paper, we will revise Bach’s classification of contents in what is directly meant. That catalogue was introduced to reach an exhaustive characterization of the contents that may appear in what the speaker means; something that cannot be done just with Grice’s division between what is said and what is implied. However, Bach’s distinction among different types of direct inexplicit contents presents some theoretical problems which we think can be avoided if at least the following is considered. First, within (...) what he calls “local completion”, a more fine grained distinction between lexical specializationand local completion proper should be established. We suggest that this can be done by resorting to different senses in which a mandatory demand of pragmatic information may be triggered. Cases of lexical specialization will depend on context-sensitive expressions and will require a new notion for explicit contents: expliciture. Second, we argue that metonymy should be considered as an impliciture rather than as a case of figurative content, taking into account that supplementation rather than transfer is the pragmatic strategy involved in the interpretation of metonymic utterances. Third, we defend that in metonymic utterances, the impliciture is based on completion rather than expansion and this entails a refi nement of the notion of propositional radical. In this way, our reform leads to a more exhaustive classification, and provides the criteria underlying this catalogue of the ways in which what is directly communicated in an utterance can go beyond sentence meaning. (shrink)

In most of the proposals about metonymy it is argued that it is a figure of signification or trope that exploits a figurative or transferred meaning. These proposals lose sight of what the examples that we normally consider metonymy have in common, to wit, that they are understood if we complete the metonymic noun phrase and not if we substitute it by another. It is in this sense that we understand that referential metonymy is a case of ellipsis and, thus, (...) a figure of language or scheme whose mechanism of interpretation is intimately related to the mechanism of retrieval of expressions. (shrink)

It is a fact that novel metaphorical utterances appear in natural language argumentation. It seems, moreover, that these put forward metaphorical propositions that can have different roles (data, warrants or claims) in argument structure. There can even be good argumentation which is indispensably metaphorical. However, not all metaphor theories provide an explanation of metaphorical meaning compatible with these claims. In this article, we explain the three main views on metaphorical meaning and show, analysing some examples, their consequences for metaphorical argumentation. (...) Our analysis shows that only the cognitive view can explain that there are arguments which can only be generated using novel metaphors. (shrink)

It is a fact that novel metaphorical utterances appear in natural language argumentation. It seems, moreover, that these put forward metaphorical propositions that can have different roles (data, warrants or claims) in argument structure. There can even be good argumentation which is indispensably metaphorical. However, not all metaphor theories provide an explanation of metaphorical meaning compatible with these claims. In this article, we explain the three main views on metaphorical meaning and show, analysing some examples, their consequences for metaphorical argumentation. (...) Our analysis shows that only the cognitive view can explain that there are arguments which can only be generated using novel metaphors. (shrink)

In his forthcoming book, Overlooking Conventions: The Trouble with Linguistic Pragmatism, Michael Devitt raises, once again, the debate between minimalism and pragmatism to defend the former. He claims that, by taking some overlooked conventions into account, a semantic notion of what is said is possible. In this paper, we claim that a semantic notion of what is said is not possible, especially if some overlooked compositional conventions are considered. If, as Devitt defends, verbal activity is more linguistically constrained, compositional linguistic (...) rules should be included in his catalogue of overlooked conventions and this entails an important challenge to the minimalist claim that the semantic view of what is said can handle all context relative phenomena. In this paper, we argue that, when conventions concerning compositionality are not overlooked, modulation should be added to the two qualifications (disambiguation and saturation) accepted by Devitt in the constitution of what is said. Thus, what is said is not always literally said and the traditional semantic view of what is said cannot be saved. (shrink)

In this paper, we discuss contextualism, a philosophical position that some pragmatists have endorsed as a result of the philosophical reflection on pragmatics as a science. In particular, we challenge, from the results on phrasal pragmatics, the contextualist approach on incomplete definite descriptions and referential metonymy according to which optional pragmatic processes of interpretation are required (an optional pragmatic process of recovering unarticulated constituents for incompleteness and an optional pragmatic process of transfer for metonymy). By contrast, we argue from the (...) standpoint of phrasal pragmatics that what is descriptively referred to depends, in both cases, on truth-conditionally mandatory pragmatic processes of recovery of unarticulated constituents. (shrink)

In B. Soria and E. Romero, Explicit Communication: Essays on Robyn Carston’s Pragmatics, Palgrave Studies in Pragmatics, Language and Cognition. London.