The notion of seeing from a perspective, as formulated in the metaphor theory of M. Black (1979), is argued to underlie the process of giving meaning in the creation of metaphors. Conventional metaphors, which have systematic interpretation, are distinguished from living metaphors; it is hypothesized that the latter are interpreted by simultaneous processes applying to three layers of constraints on form, meaning, and context respectively. A notion of semantic creativity is proposed whereby new uses of lexical items can be learned; semantic creativity is characterized by a projection operation that institutes relevant relations of similarity between different events, with the result that one event can be seen from the perspective of the other. (Copyright 1998, Sociological Abstracts, Inc., all rights reserved.) (LLBA 1998, vol. 32, n. 2)