NATURE IN MAORI METAPHOR

Metaphor is known to occur in all languages of the world and its appearance in speech is stimulated by factors inherent in the so-called problem situations, in the activity known as problem solution. Therefore we can distinguish poetic and cognitive metaphors. A predomi-nantly cognitive basis, for example, gives birth to metaphors in the speech of children, in ter-minology (especially at the forefront of science) and in the early phases of the existence of pidgins. Here we have to do with lexical metaphors that on the whole serve practical pur-poses of communication and their basis is chiefly cognitive, perhaps with the exception of stylistically marked expressions where emotional factors are in the foreground. The poetic metaphor is largely dominated by emotional factors and may be described as a manifestation of additional linguistic creativity, that is creativity that exceeds or transcends the standard level of creativity hidden perhaps behind most if not all utterances (if speech activity is defined as generating utterances from a ready-made inventory of units by means of the application of a set of rules that are given in advance). Poetry is an ideal medium for extra creativity the level of which may gradu