Publications

Publication details [#4609]

Fisher, Harwood. 1998. Metonymy, metaphor, and category: Logic versus semantics. Semiótica 121 (1-2) : 41–87. 47 pp.

Abstract

It is argued that logic precedes semantics because logical forms originate meanings. Metonymy, metaphor, and analogy are examined as protological and paralogical forms and "groupings" progressing in the direction of logical categories. In the process of originating categories, metaphor is a precategorial grouping, metonymy a step logically prior to metaphor, and analogy, as a complex categorizing, is a step logically later than metaphoric grouping. Through its paralogical limitations and the incomplete strategic value of its immature form, metonymy motivates further categorial denouement and schema articulation, leading to metaphor and analogy. Thus, logical form set in motion by subjective values creates meanings in ecological adaptations. The self is the source of values, and because it is categorial, its unfolding forms play a causal role in meaning construction. (Z. Dubiel in LLBA 1999, vol. 33, n. 4)