MetaBank: A Knowledge-Base of Metaphoric Language Conventions

The frequent and conventional use of non{literal language has been a major stumbling block for natural language processing systems since the early machine translation e orts. Metaphor, metonymy and indirect speech acts are among the most troublesome phenomena. Recent computational e orts addressing these problems have taken an approach that emphasizes the use of systematic knowledge about non{literal language conventions. We are currently engaged in an e ort to supply this knowledge in the case of conventional metaphor. We are constructing MetaBank: an empirically derived and theoretically motivated knowledge{base of English metaphorical conventions. This article describes our three{part approach to the construction of MetaBank: the collection of on{line textual resources and databases of linguistic generalizations, the development of a methodology for analyzing these resources, and the construction of a knowledge{base based on the preceding analyses.