We have already commented on processing metonymy, which is conventionally counted as a figure of speech—a word or phrase standing for something other than its literal meaning. However, while metonymy is essentially an abridging device, other figurative modes, such as metaphor, simile, idioms, irony, personification, or hyperbole (overstatement) convey meanings, especially connotative ones, not easily conveyed in other ways. We focus on metaphor here, as it is in a sense a more general form of several other tropes. Moreover, it has received the most attention from computational linguists, because the argument can be made that metaphor pervades language, with no sharp demarcation between literal and metaphorical usage (e.g., Wilks 1978; Carbonell 1980; Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Barnden 2006). For example, while “The temperature dropped” can be viewed as involving a sense of drop that is synonymous with decrease, it can also be viewed as a conventional metaphor comparing the decreasing temperature to a falling object. As a way of allowing for examples of this type, Wilks offered a processing paradigm in which selectional constraints (such as a physical-object constraint on the subject of drop) are treated as mere preferences rather than firm requirements.