Given a specific discourse, which discourse properties trigger the use of metaphorical language, rather than using literal alternatives? For example, what drives people to say "grasp the meaning" rather than "understand the meaning" within a specific context? Many NLP approaches to metaphorical language rely on cognitive and (psycho-)linguistic insights and have successfully defined models of discourse coherence, abstractness and affect. In this work, we build five simple models relying on established cognitive and linguistic properties -- frequency, abstractness, affect, discourse coherence and contextualized word representations -- to predict the use of a metaphorical vs. synonymous literal expression in context. By comparing the models' outputs to human judgments, our study indicates that our selected properties are not sufficient to systematically explain metaphorical vs. literal language choices.

翻译：具体论述中, 哪些话语属性触发了隐喻语言的使用, 而不是使用字面上的替代语言? 比如, 是什么驱动人们在特定背景下说“ 区分含义” 而不是“ 理解含义 ”? 许多隐喻语言的NLP方法依赖于认知和(心理)语言洞察力, 并成功地定义了对话的一致性、 抽象性和影响模式。 在这项工作中, 我们根据既定的认知和语言特性( 频率、 抽象性、 影响、 对话的一致性和背景化的表达方式) 构建了五个简单模型, 来预测隐喻与字面表达方式的使用。 通过比较模型的输出与人类的判断, 我们的研究显示, 我们所选择的特性不足以系统地解释隐喻与字面语言的选择 。