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))
denotes the set of corpus-attested compounds that can describe a stereotype S , while
compounds
(
(
be harvested from the Google 2-grams. It follows that compounds
typical
S
denotes the set of compound descriptors that might be
used in a poem about T to suggest the poetic conceit TisM . Since these compounds
will fuse atomic elements from the stereotypical representations of both T and M ,
compounds
(
salient
(
T
,
M
))
can be said to sample from the blend of T and M .As
described in [ 7 ], and computationally modeled in various ways in [ 17 , 19 , 22 ], a
blend ” is a tight conceptual integration of two or more mental spaces. This integra-
tion yields more than a mixture of representational atoms: a conceptual blend often
creates emergent elements—new molecules of meaning—that are present in neither
of the input representations but which only arise from this fusion of inputs.
How might the representations discussed here give rise to emergent elements?
We cannot expect new descriptive atoms to be created by a poetic blend, but we can
expect new compounds to emerge from the re-combination of descriptive atoms in
the compound descriptors of T and M . Just as we can expect the set of stereotypes
compounds
(
salient
(
T
,
M
))
(
typical
(
T
)
typical
(
M
))
to suggest a wider range of descriptive pos-
sibilities than compounds
, the emergent
compound descriptions that arise from the blend of T and M are those that could
not have emerged from the properties of T alone, or from M alone, but could only
emerge from the fusion of T and M together. Thus,
(
typical
(
T
))
compounds
(
typical
(
M
))
(
9
)
emergent
(
T
,
M
) =
compounds
(
salient
(
T
,
M
)) \
(
(
))
(
(
))
compounds
typical
T
compounds
typical
M
Consider the poetic conceit love is the grave . The resulting blend—as captured
by compounds
—contains a wide variety of compound descriptors.
Some of these compounds emerge solely from the concept grave , such as sacred
gloom, dreary chill and blessed stillness . Many others emerge only from a fusion
of love and grave , such as romantic stillness , sweet silence , tender darkness , cold
embrace , quiet passion and consecrated devotion . So a poem that uses these phrases
to construct an emotional worldview will not only demonstrate an understanding
of its topic and its conceit, but will also demonstrate some measure of insight into
how one can complement and resonate with the other (e.g., that darkness can be
tender, passion can be quiet and silence can be sweet). While the system builds on
second-hand insights, insofar as these are ultimately derived fromWeb corpora, such
insights are fragmentary and low-level. It still falls to the system to stitch these into
its own emotionally coherent patchwork of poetry. What use is poetry if we or our
machines cannot learn from it the wild possibilities of language and life?
(
salient
(
T
,
M
))
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