Article outline

• 1.1Introduction
• 1.2Defining metaphor
  • Reference and sense
  • Modification
  • Assignment
• 1.3Problems of the literal-metaphorical distinction
• 1.4Clines of metaphor
  • 1.4.1Approximation and varieties of similarity
  • 1.4.2Contradictoriness
  • 1.4.3Explicitness and marking
  • 1.4.4Conventionality
• 1.5Conceptual metaphor and the experientialist hypothesis
• 1.6Lexicographical evidence to test Lakoff’s theory: The Thesaurus
• Note