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It is clear that the metaphorical content depends on the context of utterance. Is it still possible to develop a semantic theory of metaphor? Hills was one proponent of such an approach. I discussed his view in Section 2.4, and rejected it based on an argument by Camp (2006a). The gist of the argument was this:

(...) if the original speaker’s utterance had genuinely ‘lodged’ a new metaphorical meaning in the words uttered, or even just had established a new, temporary use for them, then that meaning should necessarily be inherited by any later use of those same words in that same context which responds to the initial claim.”(Camp 2006a, p.297)

But this was not the case for metaphorical utterances.

Two other semantic approaches to metaphor are Stern’s and Leezenberg’s. Let us consider the following examples given in Stern (2011, p.290)19:

(19) Every lover remembers that first sun of his

(20) Every lover remembers that first sun whose bright light shined on him

Stern remarks that the italicised complex demonstratives in these examples receive different metaphorical interpretations in different contexts. For instance in one context lovers remember the ones without whom they cannot live, whereas in another they remember the ones who give them pain. The denotations of these complex demonstratives co-vary with the quantified variable. However, it is impossible to get co-varying interpretations of these complex demonstratives. For instance, in one of the examples above, we cannot get the interpretation where some lovers remember the ones without whom they cannot live, but some other remember the ones who give them pain. Stern claims that this is a semantic constraint on metaphorical interpretation and it cannot be explained pragmatically:

The Contextualists’ explanatory principles like loosening, broadening, or transfer do not bear on these kinds of constraints, showing that the inter- pretation of the metaphor cannot itself co-vary with the bound variable. Nor is it clear how we could tell a story employing Gricean conversational maxims, violations, and implicatures. (Stern 2011, p.291)

19_{Stern (2000) presents some arguments for why he thinks that metaphor should be explained}

semantically. See Camp (2005) for the discussion of these arguments, and see Stern (2006) for his responses.

Although I agree with Stern on his observation, I reject his diagnosis. There are purely pragmatic phenomena which behave as metaphors do in the scope of a quan- tifier. Imagine a scenario, in which someone enters a room where couples dance Scottish dance C`eilidh, but she mistakenly utters the following:

(21) Every girl loves her tango partner.

Here what the speaker means by using the complex demonstrative is different from the semantic meaning. What she means in this context isher C`eilidh partner. The denotation of this speaker’s meaning will co-vary with the quantified variable. An interpreter will seek for a C`eilidh partner for every girl in the domain to interpret the speaker’s meaning. In another context, for instance in which couples dance salsa, the interpretation of the complex demonstrative will be different. So, the interpretation of the speaker’s meaning depends on the context. However, drawing a parallel with Stern’s remark above, in the same context the interpretation of the speaker’s meaning will not co-vary with the quantified variable. The interpreter will not seek C`eilidh partners for some girls and salsa partners for others. This example and Stern’s example are parallel. Since it is clear that the speaker’s meaning in this example is a pragmatic phenomenon, and this pragmatic phenomenon can be explained exactly as Stern suggests for his metaphorical case, we can conclude that Stern’s argument is far from showing that the constraint in question supports a semantic approach to metaphor.

Leezenberg’s (2001) semantic approach to metaphor posits a parameter called “tematic dimension” in the Kaplanian context. This parameter originally suggested by the linguist R. Bartsch. On Bartsch’s view, many adjectives are not determinate in terms of which respect they are supposed to apply. For instance “good”, “sat- isfactory” and “strong” are this kind of adjective. They are called “dimensionally weakly determined” adjectives. The dimension of “good” in the following sentence depends on the context of utterance:

(22) This book is good.

For instance, if the tematic dimension is “style”, the truth-value of the sentence is evaluated with respect to this parameter (Leezenberg 2001, p.166).

In this theory, some expessions have internal thematic dimensions. The internal thematic dimensions are not easily overruled. For instance, the internal dimension of “mauve” is colour (Leezenberg 2001, p.166). Thematic dimensions are not asserted but contextually presupposed (Leezenberg 2001, p.167). They reduce the number of lexical items in our lexicon. We can express many different meanings in different contexts by using the same lexical item:

(...) most properties that can be captured in natural language are not named but expressed in discourse; that is, they are not necessarily de- fined once and for all in the model, but constructed by the application of thematic dimensions (Leezenberg 2001, pp.167-8)

According to Leezenberg, the notion of thematic dimension can explain meta- phors. Here is the gist of his approach:

(...) the basic idea is simply that a metaphorical interpretation arises from the application of a property expression in a new thematic dimen- sion dn. In metaphorical interpretation, the internal dimension of an

expression is overruled. To take a simple example: (32) This is a swine.

In isolation from a context, (32) does not yet express any specific propo- sitional content. The same sentence type may receive different literal and metaphorical interpetations, depending on both the referent of this and on the thematic dimension. By the very same (or at least a very similar) mechanism, contextual features determine both that this is interpreted as referring to, say, the extremely filthy person at whom the speaker is pointing, and that swine is interpreted in a thematic dimension other than a default dimension di of biological taxa. When interpreted in

di, (32) is just false (indeed, false in all circumstances, given a context

in which this refers to a human being); in dn, however, it denotes the

property of being filthy, and there, (32) is true if the person pointed at does in fact have that property. In other words, it is the thematic dimension that is the relevant contextual parameter in metaphorical in- terpretation: a property expression is interpreted in the contextually given dimension, which may, but need not, be at odds with its internal dimension. (Leezenberg 2001, pp.171-2)

Since the notion of thematic dimension is needed independently of metaphor in the semantic explanation of certain adjectives, according to Leezenberg, this is a good piece of evidence to show that metaphorical interpretation involves the general principles of semantic interpretation (Leezenberg 2001, p.172).

I think the analogy Leezenberg draws between the so-called dimensionally weakly determined adjectives and metaphors is problematic. As for the former, thematic dimensions just restrict the aspect of application. The adjective itself is still what is applied. For instance in (22), although “good” is applied in terms of style, it is still the same lexical item what is applied. In case of metaphor, however, it is not

the lexical item itself but a feature associated with it is what is applied. In (32),

being filthy seems more of a feature that is associated with swine than a thematic dimension. It seems unintuitive to claim that the aspect of application of “swine” is restricted in this example. To see this better we can consider different types of metaphors. Recall the following example given in Section4.1.6:

(18) I can’t believe you have Alexed the book.

Here, it is implausible to think that losing a library book or something like that is a thematic dimension in the application of the word “Alex”. It is clear that what happens here is not the restriction of the application of the propertyAlex, but rather the implication of a feature that is associated with Alex.

To conclude this section, I can say that Stern’s and Leezenberg’s approaches fail to show that metaphor is a semantic phenomenon. What seems to attract them to a semantic approach is the interaction of metaphor with the compositional machinery. In my phrasal implicature theory of metaphor, since the phrases imply metaphorical meanings, the implied metaphorical phrase meanings can compositionally interact with the rest of the clause they are embedded in. In this way, it is possible to show both the intuitive linguistic properties of metaphor and how it interacts with the compositional machinery in a pragmatic framework.