The Literary Mind.pdf

84 THE LITERARY MIND
In blending, we project partial structure from input stories and compose that
structure in a blended story. We are guided in doing so by counterpart connections
between the input spaces. For example, the riddle of the mountain-climbing
Buddhist monk has elaborate counterpart connections between the two input
spaces. Some of those counterparts, like the paths and the dates, are brought into
the blend and fused. Others, like the two monks, are brought into the blend as
separate entities.
In other blends, only one counterpart is brought into the blend, as in the
blend for "If I were you, I would have done it," which brings into the blend the
judgment of the man but not the counterpart judgment of the woman. Partial
composition provides a working space for further composition.
Completion provides additional structure not provided by composition. Given
a minimal composition of two boats on a course in the example from. Latitude 38,
we can complete the blend with a large amount of structure from our conceptual
frame of a race. Given a minimal composition of two monks traversing a path during
the same day starting from opposite ends, we can complete that structure by recognizing
it as an instance of a familiar frame that contains an encounter. Completion
provides the structure in the blend that gives us the solution to the riddle.
Elaboration develops the blend through imaginative mental simulation according
to the principles and internal logic of the blend. Some of these principles will
have been brought to the blend by completion. Continued dynamic completion can
recruit new principles and logic during elaboration. But new principles and logic
may also arise through elaboration itself. Blended spaces can become extremely
elaborated, as in literary fantasies.
Composition and completion often draw together conceptual structures previously
kept apart. As a consequence, the blend can reveal latent contradictions
and coherences between previously separated elements. It can show us problems
and lacunae in what we had previously taken for granted. It can equally show us
unrecognized strengths and complementarity. In this way, blends yield insight
into the conceptual structures from which they arise.