Inanimations are Milton Model statements that assign feelings or actions to things that cannot have any. Technically these are called Selectional Restriction Violations. A sofa cannot think, a plant cannot talk, but sentences can be constructed that sound that way and because our minds are specially tuned to metaphor, this type of suggestion will be accepted by the unconscious.
| ‘That chair knows the secrets of many people’. | |
| ‘The part of you that makes you smoke is ashamed and wants to change.‘ | |
| ‘Listen to the wind in the trees and learn from its wisdom’. |
Selectional restrictions are always a form of metaphor .