Metaphorical reference often consists in the referential use of a definite description, which pragmatically gives rise to the referential attribution that the speaker's intended referent resembles the semantic referent. This referential attribution is the main component of metaphorical meaning, for which a general theory can be given on the basis of a generalization of the referential/attributive distinction. According to this referential view of metaphor, metaphorical utterances belong to a more general class of acts of communication, in which a thing of one sort is deliberately treated (verbally or otherwise) as a thing of another sort.