By a propositional ICM, I mean one that does not use imaginative devices, i.e. metaphor, metonymy, or mental imagery. Each ICM has an ontology and a structure. [...] Propositional models have an objectivist flavor to them, since they contain entities, with their properties and the relations holding among them. It must be recalled, however, that they are cognitive models, not slices of reality. The “entities” are mental entities, not real things. I believe that the common tendency to view the world in objectivist terms comes from the fact that many of our cognitive models are objectivist in this limited respect. [...] The simple proposition itself is an example of what we are calling “propositional ICMs”. A simple proposition consists of an ontology of elements (the “arguments”) and a basic predicate that holds of those arguments. The overall structure of the proposition is thus characterized by a part-whole schema, where the proposition= the whole, the predicate= a part, and the arguments= the other parts.
- Lakoff (1987), a pag.285