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Abstract:
The study of conceptual mappings, including metaphoric mappings, has produced great insights over the last several decades, not only for the study of language, but also for the study of such subjects as scientific discovery, design, mathematical thinking, and computer interfaces. This tradition of inquiry is fulfilling its promises, with new findings and new applications all the time. Looking for conceptual mappings and their properties proves to be a rich method for discovery. To the initial studies that focused on cross-domain mappings and their most visible products have now been added many additional dimensions. Detailed studies have been carried out on topics such as compression, integration networks, and the principles and constraints that govern them. This blooming field of research has as one consequence the rethinking of metaphor. We have a richer and deeper understanding of the processes underlying metaphor than we did previously. In this article, we will illustrate the central areas of theoretical advance by looking in some detail at the metaphor of TIME AS SPACE.

conceptual integration, cognitive science, metaphor, compression, time, space

Abstract:
In this article, we look at some aspects of polysemy which derive from the power of meaning potential. More specifically, we focus on aspects linked to the operation of conceptual blending, a major cognitive resource for creativity in many of its manifestations.

conceptual blending, conceptual integration, polysemy, linguistics

Abstract:
This is an expanded version of Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner. 1998. "Conceptual Integration Networks." Cognitive Science 22:2 (April-June 1998), 133-187. Conceptual integration - "blending" - is a general cognitive operation on a par with analogy, recursion, mental modeling, conceptual categorization, and framing. It serves a variety of cognitive purposes. It is dynamic, supple, and active in the moment of thinking. It yields products that frequently become entrenched in conceptual structure and grammar, and it often performs new work on its previously entrenched products as inputs. Blending is easy to detect in spectacular cases but it is for the most part a routine, workaday process that escapes detection except on technical analysis. It is not reserved for special purposes, and is not costly.

In blending, structure from input mental spaces is projected to a separate, blended mental space. The projection is selective. Through completion and elaboration, the blend develops structure not provided by the inputs. Inferences, arguments, and ideas developed in the blend can have effect in cognition, leading us to modify the initial inputs and to change our view of the corresponding situations.

Blending operates according to a set of uniform structural and dynamic principles. It additionally observes a set of optimality principles.

Conceptual Integration, Blending, Mental Space, Metaphor, Counterfactual, Analogy, Vital Relations, Compression

Abstract:
An investigation of the way in which the basic mental operation of conceptual integration ("blending") is central to grammar.

This is an expanded web version of Fauconnier and Turner, 1996 ("Blending as a Central Process of Grammar." in Conceptual Structure, Discourse, and Language. Edited by Adele Goldberg. Stanford: Center for the Study of Language and Information [CSLI] [distributed by Cambridge University Press]. Pages 113-129.) This expanded version consists of the original article, additional diagrams for the caused motion construction that were edited from the original article to save space, and an additional section on the ditransitive construction, which is excerpted from Turner and Fauconnier, 1999, "A Mechanism of Creativity," Poetics Today.

grammar, cognitive linguistics, conceptual integration, blending, constructions

Abstract:
Conceptual projection from one mental space to another always involves projection to "middle" spaces-abstract "generic" middle spaces or richer "blended" middle spaces. Projection to a middle space is a general cognitive process, operating uniformly at different levels of abstraction and under superficially divergent contextual circumstances. Middle spaces are indispensable sites for central mental and linguistic work. The process of blending is in particular a fundamental and general cognitive process, running over many (conceivably all) cognitive phenomena, including categorization, the making of hypotheses, inference, the origin and combining of grammatical constructions, analogy, metaphor, and narrative. Blending is not secondary to these phenomena but prerequisite, and its operation is not restricted to any one of these phenomena. We give evidence for blending from a wide range of data that includes everyday language, idioms, literary metaphor, non-verbal conceptualization of action, creative thought in mathematics, evolution of socio-cultural models, jokes, and advertising. Blending is in general invisible to consciousness and detectable only on analysis. Blended spaces are routinely necessary for constructing central meanings, inferences, and structures, and for motivating emotions. We show that the blending of highly schematic spaces yields the fusion of grammatical constructions and functional assemblies studied in Cognitive Grammar and Construction Grammar. Finally, recognizing the cognitive import of middle spaces allows us to propose a generalized four-space model of conceptual projection that subsumes a variety of previous models. We explore the consequences of this model for the theory of concept formation.

Introduction 3 I. The four space model 4 II. The phenomenon of blended spaces 5 1. Dante's Inferno 5 2. Regatta 7 3. The riddle of the Buddhist monk 8 4. Getting ahead of oneself 9 5. Tuning in, and other actions 11 6. Complex numbers 12 III. Prototypes of blending and mistaken reductions 14 IV. Further evidence for conceptual projection into a blended space 17 1. President Bush on third base 18 2. President Nixon in France 19 3. Personification 21 V. Category extension 22 VI. Generic spaces 24 VII. Parameters and subschemes 25 VIII. Blending and grammar 30 IX. The concept of a concept 33 Notes 35 References 38

blending, conceptual integration, metaphor, mental spaces, analogy, counterfactuals, inference, grammar

Abstract:
An analysis of the way in which conceptual integration, "blending," underlies human creativity, with examples from mathematics, language, literature, science, journalism, etc.

conceptual integration, blending, construction grammar, creativity

Abstract:
Compression is a phenomenon in conceptual integration that allows human beings simultaneously to control long diffuse chains of logical reasoning and to grasp the global meanings of such chains. Compression operates on a small set (under twenty) of relations rooted in fundamental human neurobiology as it applies to shared physical and socio-cultural human experience. So-called Vital Relations, including Cause-Effect, Change, Time, Identity, Intentionality, Representation, and Part-Whole, can apply across mental spaces, and also de®ne essential topology within mental spaces. In blending networks, a vital relation across inputs (outer-space vital relation) can be compressed into a vital relation within the blended space (inner-space vital relation). We show how one of the overarching goals of compression through blending is to achieve `human scale' in the blended space, where a great many of our conscious manipulations take place.

mental space, compression, conceptual integration, vital relation, blending

Abstract:
It is a great virtue of cognitive linguistics to have explored the central role of metaphor and metonymy in human conceptualization. Recent work has studied in depth the mappings, compressions, and integrations that yield a diversity of surface products, not just in language use, but also in religion, art, math, technology, and other human endeavors.

In the present talk, I discuss a range of phenomena, broadly classified as metonymy, but in fact quite different from each other in terms of mapping schemes, degrees of compression, and deferred reference. Typically, such phenomena also involve metaphoric compressions and covert parallel counterfactuals. In order to refine the analyses, linguistic tests will be proposed, based on the distribution of reflexives and substitution in causal chains.

The detailed examination of compression in meaning construction leads to a research program that seeks to understand metaphor and metonymy in terms of deeper regularities and a wide range of mapping possibilities.

Conceptual Integraton, Cognitive Linguistics, Metaphor, Meonymy, Mappings, Compression, Blending