The Literary Mind.pdf

90 THE LITERARY MIND
case or evolution or computer activity or any of a vast range of other targets. We
can project it just as we project the generic spaces that arise out of "When the
cat's away, the mice will play" or "Look before you leap" or any other proverb
that mentions only a specific source story. We can project it not just to purposeful
behavior directed at a goal but indeed to any action performed by an intentional
agent. "Watch your step" can be said of any action that an agent is about
to perform, purposeful or not, intentional or not, consciously or not. The generic
space underlying "Watch your step" consists only of an agent, an action that the
agent is on the verge of performing, and a warning to pay attention.
A telling difference between a basic metaphor like LIFE IS A JOURNEY and
our generic interpretation of "The girl who can't dance says the band can't play"
is this: The generic space involved in LIFE IS A JOURNEY has a deeply entrenched
default projection onto a particular specific target space, the course of a life from
birth to death, while the generic space arising from "The girl who can't dance
says the band can't play" is not conventionally tied to a specific target space. It is
therefore easier to see the generic space in the second case, and to be aware of
our application of that generic space to this or that specific target space.
When we take our data exclusively from deeply entrenched projections like
LIFE IS A JOURNEY that have deeply entrenched vocabulary, the generic and
blended spaces are less easily noticed, and the projection looks as if it carries
positive meaning from one input space (the source) to another (the target). This
has lead to the customary model of the projection of meaning as direct, one-way,
and positive. This is a useful and parsimonious model, but it is adequate only in
limiting cases.
Generic spaces differ linguistically from specific input spaces and blended
spaces in one fundamental regard: They lack their own rich vocabulary. The
vocabulary of a generic space is largely shifted to it from an input space. This
vocabulary applies whenever we project the generic space onto a new space. For
example, we have no generic word that means "an instrument somebody uses so
constantly in his chosen work as to be regarded as defining the work." One such
instrument for one such worker is an axe. The relation of the worker to the axe—
manipulating it, trying to get it to do what he wants done—has an abstract structure,
and this structure can be projected to a generic space. That generic space
can then be projected to a target, such as playing a jazz instrument. In jazz,
someone's instrument is called his axe. A saxophone is an axe, but so is a flute, a
guitar, a drum set, a piano. The vocabulary of one space is shifted to the generic
space, and projected from there to whatever target the generic applies to—in this
case, jazz instruments. A new projection of the generic space onto a new kind of
instrument (a synthesizer, for example) will not look unusual even if it is entirely
novel: the vocabulary that has been shifted to the generic space is expected to