Tra metaforizzazione e nominazione. Una ipotesi di ricerca

It is assumed the hypothesis that the noun ‘metaphor’ is already the result of a metaphoric transfer. Thus every noun which designates something, even when it does so in a ‘literal’ manner, will be the result of such a sense transfer from one place of signification to another place of signification. This does not mean that nouns are only floating. In fact every noun not only has a "connotative" function, whereby it provides us with information on this or that ‘property’ of the designatum, but also a denotative function, whereby it fixes the reference of the designatum. This twofold function is attributed not merely to so-called ‘common’ nouns, but to ‘proper’ nouns too. Both ‘common’ nouns and ‘proper’ nouns not only conserve the traces of that metaphoric transfer, but they also show twofold features: epistemic and contingent (‘connotative function’) as well as identitary and necessary (‘denotative function’).