LessonsDefinitions of Literal and Figurative Use and the Technical Divisions of MetaphorQuiz

الجواد لا يخيب سائله
A generous person does not disappoint the one who asks him.

“Jawād” denotes someone characterized by generosity. The sentence predicates a further feature of the person under that description. Such predication does not itself create an entirely new figurative dictionary assignment.

We must distinguish a restriction relevant to the judgment from the expression's established lexical meaning. A sentence may use an attribute to identify its subject while retaining the ordinary conventional sense of the word describing that subject.

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Predication through an attribute and the definition of literalness

Definitions of Literal and Figurative Use and the Technical Divisions of Metaphor

الجواد لا يخيب سائله
A generous person does not disappoint the one who asks him.

“Jawād” denotes someone characterized by generosity. The sentence predicates a further feature of the person under that description. Such predication does not itself create an entirely new figurative dictionary assignment.

We must distinguish a restriction relevant to the judgment from the expression's established lexical meaning. A sentence may use an attribute to identify its subject while retaining the ordinary conventional sense of the word describing that subject.