This type of representation seems to work for verbs but poses some problems for nouns. How can an Agent, an Object, or an Instrument, in fact, be found for such linguistic entities as house, sea, tree? One possible suggestion would be to understand all substantives as ‘reified’ verbs or actions: not house, then, but to build a house. But there is one type of representation that seems to substitute for this difficult translation of substantives into verbs, which permits seeing the object expressed by the substantive as the result of a productive action entailing an agent or Cause, a Material to be manipulated, a Form to be imposed, and a Goal or Purpose to direct the object toward. It is a representation based on nothing other than the four Aristotelian causes (efficient, formal, mate-rial, and final), it being clear that these are assumed in merely opera-tional terms and without metaphysical connotations.
Here, in the meantime, is the representation of a noun /x/, which might take the following format:
/x/ э F Perceptual
aspect of x
A
Who or what produces x
M
What x is made of
P
What x is supposed
to do or to serve for
Such a representation takes into account only encyclopedic properties, without distinguishing between Σ and Π properties. We shall see in 3.11.3 how these properties, potentially infinite, must be selected ac-cording to co-textual clues.
Each property can, however, be ‘appointed’ as a Σ property. Suppose that /x/ is to be considered from the point of view of its Purpose: it will be seen as belonging to the class of all the entities having the same Purpose or function. In this case, one of the P properties will become the genus of which the sememe «x» is a species; that is, one of the P properties will become the upper node of a possible Porphyrian tree (Figure 3.7).
The same operation can be implemented upon F, M, or A properties. A property’s assumption of the Σ mode thus depends on a contextual decision on the part of the interpreter (or the producer) of the metaphor, who is interested in singling out a given property as the one from whose point of view a. generalizing or particularizing synecdoche in Σ can be set
Σ Π
Ρ
/χ/ F. A, M…
FIGURE3.7
forth. Thus /x/ will name all the «P», or /P/ will name «я». Supposing that /x/ corresponds to /house/ and that it is represented, for the sake of economy, as
/house/ F
With roof
A M Culture Bricks
P Shelter
If one decides to consider a house from the point of view of its function, the property of being a shelter becomes a Σ property, and it will then be possible to name a house as a shelter, or every shelter as a house. The same would happen if the house were described from the point of view of its shape: one can name a house as one’s own roof, a house being a species of the genus ‘artifacts with a roof.
It is worth noticing that house for shelter (and vice versa) traditionally has been considered a case of metonymy (object for function, and vice versa), while house for roof, or vice versa, has been traditionally consid-ered a case of synecdoche (pars pro toto, a synecdoche in П).
This difference, between metonymy and synecdoche in П, becomes absolutely irrelevant in the present framework. The only case of synec-dochic movement seems to be in the Σ mode, produced by a co-textual decision, and consisting in the transformation of a property into a genus. All the other cases of substitution of a sememe with a seme, and vice versa, can be called metonymy. Naturally, in our framework the difference between synecdoche and metonymy has nothing to do with the concrete relations between a ‘thing’ and its parts or other contiguous ‘things’: the difference lies purely within formal bases.
As a matter of fact, the traditional rhetoric has never satisfactorily ex-plained why a substitution genus/species (Σ) and a substitution pars/шит (П) are both synecdoches, whereas all the other kinds of sub-stitution (object/purpose, container/content, cause/effect, mate-rial/object, and so on) are called metonymies. In the present framework, both a pars pro toto and a cause/effect substitution can work on П properties.
The explanation of this ambiguity in the tradition must be made in historical and phenomenological terms. According to many time-honored theories of knowledge, things are first perceived and recognized according to their formal (morphologic) characteristics: a body is round or heavy, a sound is loud or deep, a tactile sensation is hot or rough, and so on.
These morphological properties in our model are recorded under F. Instead, always according to traditional theories of knowledge, to estab-lish that a thing has a cause A, that it is made of a certain material M, or that it has a function P seems to depend on further inferences — by a sort of shifting from a simple act of apprehension to an act of judgment. It is evident, then, why F properties enjoyed a privileged status and were ranked as synecdoches along with the X relations (genus/species). To perceive and to recognize the formal characteristics of a thing meant to grasp its ‘universal’ essence, to recognize that thing as the individual of a species related to a genus.
Obviously, such an assumption does not capture the complexity of a perceptual experience, where frequently an object, to be recognized and classified, requires a complex inferential labor, dealing with its func-tional, material, and causal aspects, as well. Our model eliminates the effects of all these implicit philosophical assumptions. All properties must be considered encyclopedic and must allow for metonymical substitution — except when a property is transformed into a genus (sub-stitution in Σ) because for co-textual reasons a given semantic item has to be considerd under a certain ‘generic’ description (see also Eco 1979, 8.5.2).
3.11.3. ‘Topic’, ‘frames’, isotopies
Naturally, an encyclopedic representation is potentially infinite. In a given culture, a cup’s functions can be many, and, of these, holding liquid is only one. (One has only to think of the liturgical functions of a chalice, or of cups in sports.) What, then, are the interpretants that will have to be registered under the aspect P (purpose or function) of the cup? And which will be those grouped under F, A, M? If they are not infinite, they are at least indefinte. As I have written elsewhere, “a semiotics of the code is an operational device in the service of a semiotics of sign production, A semiotics of the code can be established if only Partially when the existence of a message postulates it as an explanatory condition. Semiotics must proceed to isolate structures as if г definitive general structure existed; but to be able to do this one must assume that this global structure is a simply regulative hypothesis . . .” (1976: 28- 29). In other words, the universe of the encyclopedia is so vast (if the hypothesis of infinite interpretation from sign to sign and thus of unhmited semiosis is valid) that, in the instance (and under the pressure) of a certain co-text, a given portion of the encyclopedia is activated and proposed to explain the metonymical substitutions and their metaphorical results (see Eco 1979, 2.6).
Where does this contextual pressure come from? Either (a) from the identification of a theme or topic and, consequently, from the selection of a path of interpretation or isotopy; or (b) from the reference to frames which permit us to establish not only what is being talked about, but also under what profile, to what ends, and with what in view, it is being talked about (see Eco 1979, 0.6.3).
3.11.4. Trivial metaphors and Open’ metaphors
Let us consider two elementary, even crude, examples of Icelandic rid-dles (kenningar) mentioned by Borges (1953): /The tree for sitting/ for «bench» and /The house of the birds/ for «the sky». In the former example, the first term (/tree/) contains no ambiguity. Let us construct a componential spectrum:
/Tree/ F A
Trunk Nature Branches
(Vertical)
M Р NaturalFruits
wood . . .
As is clear in this first stage, we do not yet know which are the semes that must be kept in mind contextually. The encyclopedia (a potential reserve of information) would permit filling in this representation inde-finitely. But the context gives as well the indication for sitting. The ex-pression as a whole is ambiguous. One does not sit on trees, or, alterna-tively, one can sit on every branch of every tree, but then it is hard to understand why the definite article the is used (which, according to Brooke-Rose, is an indicator of metaphorical usage). This tree, then, is not a tree. Something must be found that has some of a tree’s properties, but not others, requiring the tree to have properties that it does not have (normally).
We are faced with a task of abduction (a kenning is a riddle based on a ‘difficult’ metaphor). A series of hypotheses leads us to single out in the tree trunk the element of ‘verticality’, so as to look for some-thing that is also wooden but ‘horizontal’. We try a representation of to sit. We look among those Objects on which an Agent sits
