mike%brandeis.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa (04/05/84)
From: Michael Listman <mike%brandeis.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
I am interested in finding information on the extent of
natural language research and expectations.
In particular, I would like to find out if any research
has been done on comprehension of metaphors. I realize that
this would present problems such as what to do upon
encountering a metaphor that one (or a system) has never
before encountered.
Take as an example,
"Man is a wolf"
- although it seems obvious to a human, how does one know
which aspects of wolf to apply to man?
As another example, how do we know that
"Man is a Bic pen"
is a bad metaphor? Do we exhaust all the features of each ( man
and Bic pen) and decide that not enough of them are similar enough
for a reasonable comparison? This seems plausible, but I could
imagine a situation in a discourse where this or a similar metaphor
would make perfect sense (please don't ask me to).
I believe that in pursuing research in this direction, we
will eventually attain the knowledge to build a psychologically real
natural language understander, which I believe is the only way we
will ever attain a system that can approximate human comprehension.
If anyone can point me toward research in this area, or
references, or simply guess as to where research like this will lead
in the near future (or ever) please respond as soon as possible.
--- Michael Listmanaaw@pyuxss.UUCP (Aaron Werman) (04/17/84)
[audi alteram partem]
For some interesting study on understanding of metaphors of the type you
refer to, look into Silvano Arieti (psychiatrist/NYU) work on
schizophrenic misuse of metaphors. It has some deep insights on the
relationship between metaphor and logic.
{harpo,houxm,ihnp4}!pyuxss!aaw
Aaron Wermanmmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (04/18/84)
There is a very large literature on metaphor. As a start, try
A. Ortony (Ed.) Metaphor and Thought. New York: Cambridge U Press, 1979.
A new journal called "Metaphor" is being started up with first issue
probably in Jan 1985. Sorry, I don't have ordering information.
In AI, check out the work of Carbonell.
Once you start getting a few leads, you will be overwhelmed by studies.
--
Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,uw-beaver,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmtmarcel@uiucdcs.UUCP (04/18/84)
#R:sri-arpa:-1221400:uiucdcs:32300025:000:1294
uiucdcs!marcel Apr 18 11:22:00 1984
You might like to think about partial matching as a step toward analogical
or metaphorical reasoning. Try the following:
Fox, MS and Mostow, DJ Maximal consistent interpretations of errorful data in
hierarchically modelled domains. IJCAI-77, 165ff.
Kline, PJ The superiority of relative criteria in partial matching and
generalization. IJCAI-81, 296ff
Perhaps also check the growing literature on abductive reasoning, hypothesis
formation, disambiguation, categorization, diagnosis, etc. Some papers I found
most interesting:
Carbonell, JR and Collins, AM Natural semantics in Artificial Intelligence.
IJCAI-73, 344ff. { the SCHOLAR system }
Collins, A et al Reasoning from incomplete knowledge. In BOBROW & COLLINS's
book "Representation and Understanding", Academic Press, NY (1975).
{ more on SCHOLAR }
Pople, HE On the mechanization of abductive logic. IJCAI-73, 147ff
In NL research the role of expectations has become important to expedite
disambiguation. Includes use of attention focusing. Some very well-known work
at Yale on this. See eg papers by Riesbeck and Schank in the book by Waterman
& Hayes-Roth ('78), and by Schank & DeJong in Machine Intelligence 9. Lots of
other work too. Happy wading!
Marcel Schoppers
{ ihnp4 | pur-ee } ! uiucdcs ! marceldinitz@uicsl.UUCP (04/19/84)
#R:sri-arpa:-1221400:uicsl:15500032:000:2406 uicsl!dinitz Apr 19 08:53:00 1984 Here are some sources for metaphor: 1. A book edited by Andrew Ortony. The title is Metaphor and Thought. There are several good articles in this book, and I recommend it as a good place to start, but not as the last word. 2. The Psychology Dept. at University of Tennessee has been sporadically putting out a mimeo entitled: The Metaphor Research Newsletter. The latest edition (which arrived today) indicates that as of January 1985 it will become a full fledged journal called Metaphor, published by Erlbaum. 3. Dedre Gentner (of BBN) has been doing assorted work on metaphor. 4. Metaphors We Live By, by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, is fun to read. They have some good ideas, but they do tend to make too big a deal out of them. I think its worth reading. As far as your claim that "man is a BIC pen" is a "bad" metaphor, I tend to shy away from such a coarse grained term. For me, metaphors may be more and less apt, more and less informative, more and less novel, more and less easily understood, etc. In this particular example human beings are so complex that there is almost no object that they cannot be compared to -- however strained the interpretation may be. BIC pens are well known (thanks to simple construction and a good advertising agency) for their reliability and being able to withstand unreasonable punishment (like being strapped to the heel of an Olympic figure skater). Similarly, humankind throughout the ages has successfully held up under all kinds of evolutionary torture, yet we continue (as a species) to function. Now this interpretation may seem a little bizarre to you, but to me it seemed to come almost instantaneously and quite naturally. Can you truly say it is "bad?" Even an example as silly sounding (at first) as "telephones are like grapefruits" yields to the great creative power of the human mind. Despite their simple outer appearance, they both conceal a more complex inner structure (which as a youngster, I delighted to dissect). Both are "machines" for reproducing something -- the telephone reproduces sounds, while the grapefruit reproduces grapefruits (this one admittedly took a few seconds more to think of). So what's a "bad" metaphor? I would love to continue this discussion with interested parties privately, so as not to take up space in the notesfile. USENET mail can reach me at ...!uiucdcs!uicsl!dinitz -Rick Dinitz
dinitz@uicsl.UUCP (04/19/84)
#R:sri-arpa:-1221400:uicsl:15500033:000:209 uicsl!dinitz Apr 19 09:20:00 1984 Correction: The Metaphor Research Newsletter is published by the Psych Dept at Adelphi University, NOT U. Tenn. My confusion stems from the quirky fact that Adelphi uses U. Tenn. envelopes to send them out.
wmartin@brl-vgr.ARPA (Will Martin ) (05/01/84)
"Telephones are like grapefruits" is a SIMILE, not a metaphor. To be a metaphor, it would be "Telephones are grapefruits", and would be harder to interpret... Will
merlyn@sequent.UUCP (05/02/84)
> "Telephones are like grapefruits" is a SIMILE, not a metaphor. To be > a metaphor, it would be "Telephones are grapefruits", and would be harder > to interpret... > > Will Ahh, but "Telephones are lemons" is fairly easy to interpret. It just depends on the type of fruit. :-} Randal L. ("life is like a banana") Schwartz, esq. (merlyn@sequent.UUCP) (Official legendary sorcerer of the 1984 Summer Olympics) Sequent Computer Systems, Inc. (503)626-5700 (sequent = 1/quosine) UUCP: ...!XXX!sequent!merlyn where XXX is one of: decwrl nsc ogcvax pur-ee rocks34 shell teneron unisoft vax135 verdix P.S. I never metaphor I didn't like. (on a zero to four scale)
henrya@eros.UUCP (05/02/84)
Still harder than the explicit "Grapefruit are telephones." is the epiphoric "Grapefruit, telephones, ..." in which no relation is stated, and in which all semantic weight is conveyed by the act of juxtaposition. Henry Alward Logic Design Systems Tektronix
dinitz@uicsl.UUCP (05/07/84)
#R:brl-vgr:-119200:uicsl:15500034:000:578 uicsl!dinitz May 7 13:02:00 1984 FLAME ON Your complaint that a comparison using "like" is a simile (and not a metaphor) is technically correct. But it shows that you're not following the research. Metaphor or simile (or juxtaposition, etc.), these figures of speech raise the same problems and questions of how analogical reasoning works, how comparisons convey menaning, how do people dream them up, and how do other people understand them. For this reason the word metaphor is used to refer collectively to the whole lot of them. Pretending you're a high school English teacher doesn't help. FLAME OFF