Introduzione o prefazione

- Thought Through an apparently uniform development starting from Aristotle's argumentation theory, more or less strong versions of the cognitive import of metaphor have been advanced. A first turning point can be summarized as the move from external to internal representation (17th and 18th centuries), when metaphor came to be seen, not as an optional linguistic device, but as a necessary modality of categorization, a form of conceptualization complementary to abstraction and, as such, as a primary principle of lexical semantics. A second turning point is still under way. Post-Chomskyan semantic theories have extended the power of metaphor to the formation of basic categories, such as space, time, causation, force etc., that is, to forms rather than the content of knowledge. This opens a still unexplored, or partly explored, perspective in the philosophy of grammar and the analysis of grammatical categories in natural languages. Keywords: Analogy, Categorization, Grammatical categories, Lexical semantics, Metaphor, Philosophy of Grammar