Compound Figurative Language, Representative Metaphor, and Proverbs

1. The locus of compound figurative expression

In single-word figurative usage, an individual term moves beyond its assigned sense; “asad” used for a brave person is a familiar example. Compound figurative language concerns a different unit: the meaning conveyed by an entire utterance or construction, not merely a replacement for one noun.

“I see you putting one foot forward and drawing the other back” can describe physical movement. Applied to someone wavering over a decision, the complete scene conveys that person's indecision.

The first step in analysis is therefore not to isolate “foot” or “advance.” Identify what the whole sentence presents, then explain how that complete meaning is transferred to the new situation.

2. The definition and the scope of “expression”

فهو اللفظ المستعمل فيما شبه بمعناه الأصلي
It is an expression used for something resembling its original meaning.

Here “expression” can mean a complete construction, rather than one isolated word. Its original meaning is the state of affairs ordinarily conveyed by the whole expression; in another context the utterance may represent a similar state of affairs.

This formulation particularly suits representative metaphor (istiʿārah tamthīliyyah). A further question arises in the commentary: not every figurative use of a compound is based on resemblance, so a resemblance-based formulation cannot automatically exhaust the wider genus.

3. Single-word and compound transfer compared

FeatureSingle-word majāzCompound majāz
Transferred unitAn individual word's meaningThe entire utterance or scene
Example“Lion” for a brave personStepping forward and back for indecision
First analytic taskLiteral and transferred word sensesOriginal and new situations

Compound does not merely mean “containing several words.” A long sentence may contain a single metaphorical term while the rest remains literal. The question is whether the comparison concerns one word or a complete, jointly structured image.

4. Identifying an utterance’s original meaning

For a compound expression, the original sense is the complete situation it ordinarily describes, not simply a list of dictionary roots. One relevant scene is physically moving one foot forward and then pulling another back.

The picture combines impulses toward progress and withdrawal. When the utterance addresses a person unable to decide, the bodily scene becomes a representation of mental hesitation.

Not every physical feature of the original event must recur in the new setting. The transferable element is the recognizable arrangement or pattern formed by the elements together; that is why the type of resemblance is called representative or composite.

5. Resemblance between structured situations

In representative metaphor, the shared feature is often not one isolable quality; it is a pattern produced by several related elements. Advancing one foot and withdrawing another are separate actions, but their combined opposition provides a vivid model of indecision.

Original scene: opposed movements of bodily advance and retreat.
Intended scene: mental conflict between committing to a decision and holding back.
Shared pattern: instability caused by competing tendencies.

Analyzing each word as an independent trope loses the rhetorical force created by the entire construction.

6. Representative simile versus representative metaphor

A representative simile openly compares one whole situation with another, with the two scenes apparent in the wording. A representative metaphor borrows the verbal description of one situation to present another situation without explicitly spelling out the comparison.

“Your hesitation resembles someone moving one foot forward and the other backward” expresses the comparison. Directly telling a non-moving, indecisive person “You put one foot forward and draw the other back” may become representative metaphor.

Both depend on resemblance between structured situations. What changes is how the two situations are expressed, not the existence of a shared pattern.

7. Worked analysis of the book’s main example

إني أراك تقدم رجلاً وتؤخر أخرى
I see you setting one foot forward and drawing the other back.

Applied to an indecisive person, the description is not confined to actual leg movements. The source is a person exhibiting an alternating pattern of physical advance and retreat; the target is someone whose intention and decision are similarly divided.

The contextual clue is the person’s actual indecision, while the shared resemblance is the conflict of contrary tendencies within a single pattern of conduct. The sentence may be literally true in its original context; the figurative classification attaches to its new use.

8. Does every component become a separate metaphor?

In representative metaphor, the words for “foot,” “advance,” or “withdraw” need not each acquire separate figurative dictionary senses. The effect belongs to their coordinated relationship. The words build a literal picture, while that completed picture is borrowed for another context.

The arrangement matters as much as the components. Counting words is a different task from identifying the unit whose meaning has been transferred.

Accordingly, to say that the whole utterance is borrowed is not to claim that every constituent has become an independent single-word metaphor. The classification concerns the composite scene as a unit.

9. Contextual indication in compound metaphor

As in other metaphors, compound metaphor needs a clue showing that the original scene is not being asserted literally in the new setting. The surrounding discussion of choice and hesitation may establish that a person is not physically stepping forward and back.

Two uses of the same sentence:
1. Description of a walking person's actual steps — potentially literal.
2. Address to someone hesitating over a decision — potentially representative metaphor.

Neither the popularity of the phrase nor the presence of motion words alone proves figurative use. Context determines which situation the complete image is being applied to.

10. Multiple details and one composite resemblance

The preceding discussion of simile distinguished a list of several attributes from one composite configuration made by their arrangement. This distinction is central to compound metaphor.

Moving ahead, withdrawing, and failing to commit combine into one intelligible image of hesitation. Merely describing a person as “tall, fast, and brave,” by contrast, supplies separate predicates; it does not automatically yield a representative metaphor.

Ask whether the features together establish one distinct scene, and whether that very scene has been redeployed for another situation.

11. Why “tamthīl” sometimes names the metaphor

The term tamthīl is also used for compound metaphor because the resemblance often lies in a pattern comprising multiple components rather than in a single property.

Yet the word does not always signal precisely the same rhetorical construction. It can denote a representative simile, where two scenes are compared overtly, or representative metaphor, where the wording of one scene stands in for a different one.

Determine the construction from its actual use: is the second scene named in an open comparison, or have the words of the first scene been borrowed to depict the second?

12. When simile should not be relabeled metaphor

Where both compared situations remain openly expressed and related as a comparison, the primary classification is simile, even if the resemblance itself is highly complex.

Open comparison: “His indecision is like someone setting one foot forward and another back.”
Representative metaphor: “You set one foot forward and another back,” said of a person whose actual problem is indecision rather than physical movement.

A composite resemblance does not by itself establish metaphor. One must also determine whether the utterance names the two situations in a comparison or borrows one situation’s wording for the other.

13. The entire expression is used by correspondence

In compound figurative usage, correspondence means that the sense of the utterance as a whole is deployed in relation to another complete situation. One need not establish a separate figurative sense for each constituent word.

Original image: a person moves toward a goal but also draws back.
Second image: a person attempts to decide but is restrained by uncertainty or apprehension.

The words continue to present the first coherent picture, yet their communicative application concerns the second. What is transferred is a whole meaningful configuration, not a sequence of unconnected lexical replacements.

14. A declarative sentence need not serve only to report

A sentence may be grammatically declarative yet not be uttered merely to give neutral information. Its form may be used to express regret, longing, grief, complaint, or some other communicative purpose.

A poet who says that his longing traveled with a departing caravan is not necessarily concerned with reporting a literal journey of a measurable object. The utterance conveys attachment and the pain of separation.

This observation underlies an objection to narrow definitions of compound figurative language. Not every departure from ordinary reporting must consist of resemblance between two scenes; sometimes the rhetorical shift concerns what the whole speech act is meant to do.

15. The caravan and the poet’s longing

هواي مع الركب اليمانيين مصعد
My longing is ascending with the Yemen-bound caravan.

In a scene of separation, the statement can convey affection and attachment more than geographical information. The speaker remains behind while his desire is imagined as accompanying those who depart.

Two analytical levels should be distinguished: the expression may contain a figurative image internally, while the whole declarative utterance can serve the larger purpose of lament or longing. The first concerns its semantic imagery, the second its use in a communicative situation. They are related but not identical inquiries.

16. The objection to an exclusively metaphorical definition

If compound figurative expression is defined solely as speech transferred by a relation of resemblance, it may exclude cases where an entire declarative construction is deployed for complaint, prayer, regret, or another purpose rather than ordinary reporting.

The objection is that nonliteral uses of a sentence need not all be metaphors, since their governing connection may arise from pragmatic setting and communicative intent rather than likeness between two pictured situations.

It is therefore useful to distinguish compound majāz as a broad category from representative metaphor as its resemblance-based form. The distinction prevents one from assigning the same semantic relation to every altered use of a complete utterance.

17. Individual words and constructions as patterns

المفردات موضوعة بحسب الشخص فالمركبات موضوعة بحسب النوع
Individual words are assigned according to their particular forms, while constructions are established through general patterns.

The point is not that every possible complete sentence was assigned a separate conventional name. Grammatical structures, such as subject–predicate or verb–subject combinations, enable speakers to produce indefinitely many meaningful sentences by a rule.

A newly formed sentence need not have been individually pronounced before to be legitimate. Yet grammatical composability and the interpretation of a figurative communicative use remain distinct questions. The latter requires attention to the original use, intended use, and relevant relation.

18. Two dimensions: represented situation and speech purpose

DimensionFocusQuestion
Representative metaphorResemblance of complete situationsWhy does the original scene suit the new one?
Non-reporting use of a declarativeWhat the whole utterance accomplishesIs the speaker informing, lamenting or complaining?

These dimensions may coexist in one passage. A rhetorical image should therefore not be confused with the speech act or purpose served by the complete sentence. Literary utterances can contain internal tropes while simultaneously conveying an emotional purpose that goes beyond plain assertion.

19. How a saying becomes a proverb

A striking statement first spoken on a particular occasion may, through repeated application to similar occasions, become a proverb (mathal). The original event supplies a memorable whole situation that speakers later invoke to characterize another situation.

First occasion: the utterance refers to a particular person or incident.
Later occasions: its remembered pattern is applied to situations with a relevant similarity.

The hearer recognizes the established expression and understands the general lesson conveyed by its original scene. A proverb is not defined merely by short length; it is a conventional utterance whose application has spread beyond its initial setting.

20. The proverb about lost milk

بالصيف ضيعت اللبن
You wasted the milk in summer.

The well-known proverb is used of someone who let a useful opportunity pass at the appropriate time and later seeks what is no longer available. Its rhetorical force lies in summoning a remembered complete incident through a compact phrase.

In later applications, “milk” need not refer to actual milk, yet the point is not merely substituting a different word for the noun. The whole saying represents a recurring situation: voluntarily losing an opportunity and regretting it after the fact.

21. Why the proverb keeps its established wording

الاستعارة لا تغير الأمثال
Metaphorical application does not change the established wording of proverbs.

The familiar version of “bi-l-ṣayfi ḍayyaʿti al-laban” addresses a woman, using a feminine verbal form. Even if the saying is later used to rebuke a man or a different person, one need not remodel its conventional wording to match the new addressee.

The proverb is recognized through its inherited verbal form; a new circumstance is interpreted through that remembered form. Rewriting its pronouns and inflections on every occasion would weaken the recognizable reference on which the proverb depends.

22. Original grammar versus a new addressee

A feminine form in a proverb does not prove that every later addressee is a woman. Nor must the inherited tense of the saying describe the precise chronology of every later event. Such linguistic forms preserve the wording of the original occasion.

Original expression: “bi-l-ṣayfi ḍayyaʿti al-laban,” retaining its familiar address and grammar.
Later application: warning a person about the consequences of having missed an opportunity.

Keep two tasks distinct: analyze the Arabic forms grammatically, and then explain the proverb’s representative significance for its present audience and occasion.

23. A worked transfer between situations

Suppose a student neglects the period available for preparing for an important examination, then complains after the results that there was insufficient time. Applying “bi-l-ṣayfi ḍayyaʿti al-laban” does not claim that the student wasted actual milk in a particular season.

Original pattern: failing to preserve a benefit when the chance existed.
New pattern: neglecting preparation and wishing for its benefits after the opportunity passes.
Resemblance: allowing a time-sensitive opportunity to disappear and then regretting its loss.

This illustrates transfer of a complete pattern without rewriting the proverb's words to mention students, examinations, or preparation.

24. Representative metaphor and proverb are related, not identical

Not every representative metaphor is a well-known proverb. A writer may use a complete image for a new situation for the first time, creating representative metaphor without the expression becoming customary among speakers.

Criterion of representative metaphor: a whole pictured situation is applied to another on the basis of resemblance.
Additional property of a proverb: the utterance becomes conventional and readily recognizable in subsequent contexts.

Thus the stepping-forward example is primarily explained through composite likeness, while the “milk in summer” example also illustrates established proverbial form and its preservation.

25. Four forms distinguished through one framework

FormDistinguishing featureIllustration
Single-word majāzTransfer of a word“Lion” for a brave man
Representative simileOpen comparison of two scenesIndecision is like opposite foot movements
Representative metaphorWords of one entire scene used for another“You advance one foot and withdraw another”
Established proverbConventional saying applied anew“You wasted the milk in summer”

These are not four mutually exclusive classes at the same logical level. A proverb may also function as a representative metaphor. The table compares the questions each expression raises and the criteria by which it is understood.

26. A method for classifying complete expressions

When examining a complete utterance, first establish its ordinary original meaning. Then ask whether that literal meaning is intended in the current situation, or whether the speaker is using it to represent another situation or accomplish a different speech purpose.

Analytic sequence:
1. State the utterance’s original complete sense.
2. Identify its present application or communicative aim.
3. If resemblance is involved, describe the shared composite pattern; otherwise identify the relevant other relation.
4. Locate the contextual indication.
5. If the expression is a proverb, preserve its recognized verbal form.

This sequence avoids treating every simile, representative metaphor, proverb, or non-reporting utterance as if all had one identical structure.

27. Conclusions: compound majāz

Compound majāz concerns the application of an entire construction beyond its ordinary setting. Its important resemblance-based form is representative metaphor, where the pattern of one complete scene describes another. “You advance one foot and draw the other back” represents indecision by this mechanism.

The category also raises a broader issue: a formally declarative utterance can express longing or another non-reporting purpose, and such use need not always be reduced to simile-based metaphor.

The established saying “You wasted the milk in summer” illustrates how a proverb retains recognizable wording while being applied to new circumstances. The following independent chapter concerns metaphor by implication and imaginative metaphor.