35 years of Cognitive Linguistics Session 5: Conceptual integration Martin Hilpert

35 years of Cognitive LinguisticsSession 5: Conceptual integration

Martin Hilpert

your questions

• How can we really know that every human being thinks in counterfactual ways? (Where is the evidence?) Does this not have to do with different personality types and different (pessimistic vs. optimistic) views on life?

• That is a tree I don't have.

.

....

..

.

That is a tree I don't have.

housedriveway

house

driveway

tree

• safe beach = non-compositional meaning• What about other parts of speech? In the

conceptual integration framework, is meaning ever compositional?

• toothbrush, hairbrush, paintbrush, airbrush

• emergent structure?

• emergent structure: meaning that is present in the blend but in none of the input spaces

• Laptop computers have been getting smaller, thinner, and more powerful.– input spaces: computers from different years– emergent structure: ‘slimming down’

A buddhist monk begins at dawn one day walking up a mountain, reaches the top at sunset, meditates at the top for several days, until one dawn when he begins to walk back to the foot of the mountain, where he reaches at sunset. Make no assumptions about his starting or stopping or about his pace during the trips.

Is there a place on the path that the monk occupies at the same hour of the day on the two separate journeys?

A buddhist monk begins at dawn one day walking up a mountain, reaches the top at sunset, meditates at the top for several days, until one dawn when he begins to walk back to the foot of the mountain, where he reaches at sunset. Make no assumptions about his starting or stopping or about his pace during the trips.

Is there a place on the path that the monk occupies at the same hour of the day on the two separate journeys?

Conceptual integration

• two or more input spaces (frames)• vital relations between input spaces• integration into a blended space• selective projection into the blended space• compression of vital relations• emergent structures in the blended space



like conceptual metaphor?



Space 1: upward journey Space 2: downward journey


Vital relations:identity of place, path,the monkdifference in time



A blend:two monks making the journey on the same day




Compression:separate days arecompressed into oneDecompression:two monks




Compression:separate days arecompressed into oneDecompression:two monks

Emergent structure:encounter scenario

Conceptual Integration Networks

Input 1 Input 2

. .. .

. ...

.. ...

Blend

Input spaces (frames)

German politicsUS politics

. ..

.

..

. .

.Germany with Obama as candidate

The Germans might not have elected Obama.

voters

Obama Merkelpresidency

chancellor-ship

voters

US politics Seafaring

.

...

..Clinton-ship stronger than the laws of physics

If Clinton had been the Titanic, the iceberg would have sunk.

Clinton Titanic

collisionscandal

sinkingiceberg.

iceberg.

Commercialair traffic

Computing . .. .

...

. .

.

Community-based air traffic

What if computer operating systems were airlines?UNIX: Each passenger brings a piece of the airplane and a box of

tools to the airport.

P U

Pl Spilots open

sourceattendants

hypotheticalexperience

. ..

..

blend of actual and hypothetical

I wonder if my brother and I would get along if he was still alive.

ego

actualexperience

ego

brother

Frames available as input spaces

• near-identical scenarios • myself with/without a brother• myself 5 minutes earlier / later• myself in your position

• conventional analogies• US politics, German politics

• creative metaphors• Clinton, Titanic• Computing, air traffic

Vital relations(correspondences across frames)

and their compression

What are vital relations?

• Time, Identity, Space, Role, Cause-Effect, among several others.

• Conceptual integration involves the compression of vital relations

• Different times, spaces, etc. are compressed into a single blended space.

Compression of different times

Compression of identities

Compression of different times and different identities

Compression of different times, spaces, and roles

Compression of cause and effect

Selective projection

What is selective projection?

• Not all elements of the input spaces have counterparts.

• Not all elements of the input spaces are projected into the blend.

• Titanic ~ Clinton• collision ~ scandal• journey ~ career• lifeboats ~ ???• ??? ~ impeachment

• Conceptual integration is a creative, non-deterministic cognitive process.

Selective projection: winners onlyNoah Ngeny

Selective projection: diet only

Emergent structure

What are emergent structures?

• Conceptual integration is not the mere addition of two input spaces.

• Instead, the integration of two inputs creates new meanings that were not present in either of the sources.– Buddhist Monk: encounter scenario– World record: prior record holders aware of running

against El Guerrouj, prior record holders lose out

Emergent structures

surgeon butcher. .. .

. .

..

. ..

.

incompetent, careless surgeon, danger

That surgeon is a butcher.

S

P

B

AScalpel

CleaverHealing

Severing

Emergent structures

1784 contemporaryphilosophy

. ..

. .

..

. ..

.

debate

I claim that reason is a self-developing capacity. Kant disagrees with me. He says it is innate, but I answer that is begging the question, to which he counters that only innate ideas have power. But I ask, what about neuronal group selection? And he has no answer.

Kant K‘

PIdeas

EnglishGerman

Ideas

Conceptual integration in grammar

Negation

“I see nobody on the road”, said Alice.“I only wish I had such eyes“, the King remarked,

in a fretful tone. “To be able to see Nobody. And at that distance, too!“

Modality

I would attend your talk, but I have a class to prepare.

They have to score one more goal to win.You may now kiss the bride.

Causation

Warning: Smoking causes impotence!My inner 3-year old made me do it.

Experiences, not possessions, lead to greater happiness.

Clause linkage

He speaks excellent French, even though he has never lived there.

You only won because you cheated.I will believe that when I see it.

Compounding

apple juiceboat housemoney problem

caffeine headache

caffeine headache

morningactivities . .

...

.

.

.

P P

alertness

coffee

headache

morningactivities

headache

no coffee

attributive constructions

a red applea likely candidate

a safe distancea guilty pleasure

an intellectual desert

Lexical items

There is a missing chair!I have a hole in my pocket.

I forgot my umbrella.That is a lie.

Interim summary• Conceptual integration is the fusion of several input

spaces into a new, blended space.• It involves compression of vital relations such as time,

space, identity, role, etc.• It creates emergent structures that are not present in

the input spaces.• Conceptual integration is not limited to counterfactual

conditional clauses, it extends over a multitude of grammatical domains.

Three differences between conceptual metaphor and conceptual integration

CMT: source and targetvs.

CI: several input spaces

six different races as inputs

• Bill’s girlfriends are getting younger and younger.

CMT: mappings from source to target

vs.CI: emergent structure

domain of WAR domain of ARGUMENTS

Participants in an argument

Raising objections

Maintaining one’s opinion

Giving up youropinion

Fighting parties

Attacking

Defending

Surrendering

source domain target domain

mappings

Conceptual Integration Networks

Input 1 Input 2

. .. .

. ...

.. ...

Blend

emergent structure: race of the winners

emergent structure

• That surgeon is a butcher.– Whence the idea of incompetence?

• The senator is a puppet of the oil industry.– Whence the idea of corruption?

CMT: the invariance principlevs.

CI: the topology constraint

the invariance principle• Metaphorical mappings preserve the cognitive

topology (that is, the image-schema structure) of the source domain, in a way consistent with the inherent structure of the target domain.

• Entire image-schemas are mapped from source to target– balance: entity 1, entity 2, comparison between them

the topology constraint

• the image-schematic structure of the input spaces is mapped into the blend, so as to create a ‘match’

the topology constraint

• the image-schematic structure of the input spaces is mapped into the blend, so as to create a ‘match’

• this ‘match’ may lead to the creation of a new image-schematic structure: ‘encounter’ is not present in either of the input spaces

Summing up


• like categorization, it is a domain-general cognitive ability

• closely related to conceptual metaphor• different in three respects– more than two input domains– emergent meanings– topology from input spaces is preserved, but the

result may differ considerably from either input space

Empirical research?

next time: frame semantics

That day, the crew stayed on the land.

That day, the crew stayed on the ground.

See you next time!

[email protected]

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35 years of Cognitive Linguistics Session 5: Conceptual integration Martin Hilpert