The Literary Mind.pdf

86 THE LITERARY MIND
and what each is good for. None of them replaces another. Meanings, in this
way, are not mental objects bounded in conceptual places but rather complex
operations of projecting, blending, and integrating over multiple spaces.
GENERIC SPACES
We have often seen that an element in one input story can have a counterpart in
the other. The donkey and Shahrazad are counterparts. So are Great America II
and Northern Light, the two Buddhist monks, the two paths they travel, the rain
and the message, and the reaper and Death. It is not possible to blend two stories
without some counterpart connections between them to guide the blending.
Input stories have counterparts because they share abstract structure. Consider
the boat race. There is a frame for a voyage by boat. It contains a boat, a
path, a departure point, a destination, and so on. Each of the input stories for
the boat-race blend has this frame structure, which provides counterpart relations
between them. Different kinds of abstract structure can be shared by two
stories: category structure, frame structure, role structure, image-schematic structure,
and so on. Sometimes, two inputs will share abstract structure because a
conventional metaphor has established that shared structure. Sometimes, two
inputs will share more than one kind of abstract structure. For example, the inputs
for the riddle of the Buddhist monk share frame structure (a person walking along
a path) just as the inputs for the boat-race share frame structure (a boat voyage),
but there is also identity structure shared in both cases: The monk in one space
counts as "identical" to the monk in the other space, and San Francisco in one
space counts as "identical" to San Francisco in the other space.
Now consider the expression "If I were you, I would have done it," said by
a man to a woman who declined earlier to become pregnant. The two input spaces
share structure: In each there is a human being, with human intentionality, possibility,
and standard relations between intentionality and action. This shared
structure gives counterparts: The man and the woman are counterpart human
beings, even though they have different identities; their preferences are counterparts,
even though those preferences are not identical; their actions are counterparts,
even though their actions are not identical. In short, there is a frame structure
shared by the two input spaces, and it provides counterpart relations between
them.
I will say that the abstract structure shared by input spaces resides in a generic
space. The generic space indicates the counterpart connections between the
input spaces.
The central question is, is this generic space just a name for structure shared
by the input spaces, or does it have an actual conceptual existence of its own?
Can this abstract structure be manipulated and used in away that does not entail