Synopses & Reviews
Semantic Leaps explores how people combine knowledge from different domains in order to understand and express new ideas. Concentrating on dynamic aspects of on-line meaning construction, Coulson identifies two related sets of processes: frame-shifting and conceptual blending. By addressing linguistic phenomena often ignored in traditional meaning research, Coulson explains how processes of cross-domain mapping, frame-shifting, and conceptual blending enhance the explanatory adequacy of traditional frame-based systems for natural language processing. The focus is on how the constructive processes speakers use to assemble, link, and adapt simple cognitive models underlie a broad range of productive language behavior.
Synopsis
Semantic Leaps explores how people combine knowledge from different domains in order to understand and express new ideas. Concentrating on dynamic aspects of on-line meaning construction, Coulson identifies two related sets of processes: frame-shifting and conceptual blending. Frame-shifting is semantic reanalysis in which existing elements in the contextual representation are reorganized into a new frame. Conceptual blending is a set of cognitive operations for combining partial cognitive models.
Synopsis
Explores how people combine knowledge from different domains in order to understand and express new ideas.
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 283-296) and index.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments; 1. Semantic leaps; Part I. Frame-Shifting: 2. Frame-shifting and models of language processing; 3. Models of sentential integration; 4. Frame-shifting and the brain; Part II. Conceptual Blending: 5. Conceptual blending in modified noun phrases; 6. Conceptual blending in metaphor and analogy; 7. Counterfactual conditionals; Part III. Applications: Blending, Framing, and Blaming: 8. Framing in moral discourse; 9. Frame-shifting and scalar implicature; 10. The space structuring model; Bibliography; Index.