The Literary Mind.pdf

68 THE LITERARY MIND
But now we see something quite new. Input spaces to the blend do not have
to be related as source and target. Consider the boat race. Clearly this is conceptual
projection from input stories, which I will call 1853 and 1993. In each story,
there is only one boat, no race, and no chance of a "lead." Projecting structure
from 1853 and 1993 to a blend helps us create a blended story of a boat race,
where there are two boats, one with a "lead" over the other. That blended story
helps us understand the relationship between the inputs. It gives us a way to
integrate the entire situation into one blended story, without erasing what we
know of its independent inputs. But 1853 is not a source for 1993; 1993 is not a
source for 1853. Neither is a target for the other; neither is conceived by projection
from the other. For example, we do not understand the catamaran by projection
from the clipper ship the way we understand Death-in-general by projection
from an agent who enforces departure or the way we understand a cause by
metaphoric projection from a mother. Hereafter, I will speak of input spaces and
blended spaces. When the input spaces are related as source and target, I will call
them the source input space and the target input space, or, where there is no possibility
of confusion, just source and target.
In parabolic blending, the input spaces are often rhetorically unequal. For
example, in the boat race, it is 1993 that the reporter cares about and talks about.
It is 1993 that he wants to understand and report fully. I will say that 1993 is the
topic space of the parabolic projection. A topic space is not necessarily a target
space. Ninteen ninety-three is a topic space but not a target space with 1853 as
its source. It is possible, as we will see later, for there to be more than one topic
space. It is also possible for the topic space to shift: If we are descendants of the
captain of Northern Light, it may be 1853 that we care about understanding. It is
even possible, as Seana Coulson has shown, for the source input space to be the
topic space.
The blended space includes an imaginary race; inferences can be made in
that blended space and projected to the topic space of 1993: Great America II is
doing well, is moving fast enough, is accomplishing its goal. The blended space
does not merely compare positions of two ships; it calls up the conceptual frame
of a race. The blend therefore contains structure not contained in either of the
two input spaces. This frame provides emotions and intentions of the crew and
of fans, which can be transferred to the space of 1993. A victory party, with all
the standard rituals and conventional photographs, was held for the crew of Great
America II and reported in the customary fashion in Latitude 38. The blended
space made a profound mark on the feelings and actions of everyone involved.
The blended space left its trace on reality.
In the cases of Bertran de Born and the messenger in King Johny impossible
conjunctions were exploited inferentially—for example, we were able to draw an