Multi-dimensional abstractness in cross-domain mappings

Jonathan Dunn

Abstract: Metaphor is a cognitive process that shapes abstract target concepts by mapping them to concrete source concepts. Thus, many computational approaches to metaphor make reference, directly or indirectly, to the abstractness of words and concepts. The property of abstractness, however, remains theoretically and empirically unexplored. This paper implements a multi-dimensional definition of abstractness and tests the usefulness of each dimension for detecting cross-domain mappings.