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Portuguese Conference on Artificial Intelligence

EPIA 1999: Progress in Artificial Intelligence pp 133–147Cite as

On the Formal Distinction between Literal and Figurative Language

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 1695))

Abstract

The distinction between literal and figurative language (metonymies, metaphors, etc.) is often not made formally explicit, or, if formal criteria exist, insufficient. This poses problems for an adequate computational treatment of these phenomena. The basic criterion for delineating literal from figurative speech we propose is centered around the notion of categorization conflicts that follow from the context of the utterance. In addition, we consider the problem of granularity, which is posed by the dependence of our approach on the underlying ontology.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Text Understanding Lab, Freiburg University, D-79085, Freiburg, Germany

    Udo Hahn

  2. Language Technology Group HCRC, Edinburgh University, Edinburgh, EH8 9LW, UK

    Katja Markert

Authors
  1. Udo Hahn
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  2. Katja Markert
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Informática, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Quinta da Torre, P-2825-114, Caparica, Portugal

    Pedro Barahona

  2. Departamento de Matemática, Universidade de Évora, R. Romão Ramalho 59, P-7000, Évora, Portugal

    José J. Alferes

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© 1999 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Hahn, U., Markert, K. (1999). On the Formal Distinction between Literal and Figurative Language. In: Barahona, P., Alferes, J.J. (eds) Progress in Artificial Intelligence. EPIA 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 1695. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48159-1_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-48159-1_10

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-66548-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-48159-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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