"COGNITIVE CONSTRAINTS ON DIRECTIONALITY IN THE SEMANTIC STRUCTURE OF POETIC VS. NON-POETIC METAPHORS"

The present paper focuses on the issue of directionality in the semantic structure of poetic vs. non-poetic metaphors. Assuming that the mapping of properties is structured in a principled way, the question is: What are the constraints on mapping in the case of non-poetic metaphors (i.e., conventional metaphors, and\or artificial metaphors invented specifically for psychological tests). This question will be discussed in section 1, which introduces two major constraints which non-poetic metaphors conform to, viz. their directionality. The second question, pertains to poetic metaphor: do poetic metaphors equally respect the above constraints? The importance of this issue stems from the widely held belief among students of literature and related disciplines, that poetic language deviates from the rules underlying standard, non-poetic language. The present paper suggests, on the basis of a large scale analysis of literary metaphorical comparisons, that, surprisingly enough, poetic metaphors do respect the above constraints, similar to their non-poetic counterparts. An account is proposed, bearing on the idea of the Gestaltian "Cognitive reference point " is proposed and discussed in some detail