La saturazione dei concetti: un criterio per distinguere la metafora dalla metonimia

Abstract

This essay discusses how the distinction between saturated and unsaturated concepts is of great help in view of a sharp distinction between metaphor and metonymy. Metonymy connects heterogeneous concepts, whereas metaphor transfers concepts into strange domains. Whereas connection requires saturated terms, transfer is compatible with both saturated and unsaturated concepts. This accounts for both the distributional restrictions on metonymy and the ubiquity of metaphor in sentence structure.