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Re-representation and creative analogy: A lexico-semantic perspective

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Abstract

Analogy is a powerful boundary-transcending process that exploits a conceptual system’s ability to perform controlled generalization in one domain and re-specialization into another. The result of this semantic leap is the transference of meaning from one concept to another from which metaphor derives its name (literally: to carry over). Such generalization and re-specialization can be achieved using a variety of re-representation techniques, most notably abstraction via a taxonomic backbone, or selective projection via structure-mapping over propositional content. In this paper we explore both the extent to which a bilingual lexical ontology for English and Chinese, called HowNet, can support each technique, and the extent to which both are, ultimately, variations of the same process of creative rerepresentation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science and Informatics, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland

    Tony Veale

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  1. Tony Veale
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Correspondence to Tony Veale.

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Tony Veale, Ph.D.: He is a lecturer in the School of Computer Science in University College Dublin and the School of Software Engineering at Fudan University, Shanghai. He obtained his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Trinity College Dublin in 1996, on the topic of Computational Models of Metaphor Processing. At UCD he continues to research the computational treatment of metaphor, analogy and humour.

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Veale, T. Re-representation and creative analogy: A lexico-semantic perspective. New Gener Comput 24, 223–240 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03037333

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03037333

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