meanings at another. You may also treat it as a property of usage, saying: “Using this expression in this sense is literal, whereas using it in that sense is figurative.”

It may then be said: These people have no consistent criterion. Some regard using an expression for part of its meaning as literal; others regard it as figurative; and still others regard it as both literal and figurative, as he has mentioned in discussing generality and a command intended to convey recommendation. This demonstrates the inconsistency of this principle.

It may further be said: Granted that this is a property of expressions, it is nevertheless a property of an expression as actually used to convey its intended meaning. Your statement, “It is an attribute of expressions, not of contextual indicators relating to meaning, so being literal cannot be an attribute of the combination,” is therefore false for several reasons.

First, an expression has never conveyed meaning without contextual indicators relating to meaning: the speaker is rational, habitually uses that expression in that sense, and is speaking in accordance with his customary usage, while the listener knows this. All these are contextual indicators relating to meaning, apprehended through reason, and the expression conveys meaning only in conjunction with them. The claim that an expression conveys meaning while stripped of all rational contextual indicators is therefore mistaken.

Second, it may be said: You have not distinguished between contextual indicators relating to meaning and verbal contextual indicators; for