conceptual blending

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Conceptual blending is the combination of mappings and inference structures through which more complex conceptual organization can arise. RB2 uses it for primary metaphors composing richer metaphors and for journey-related structures entering an account of love. The proposal retains this bounded use and Fauconnier–Turner provenance without reducing every blend to one source–target mapping or importing a full formal architecture absent from the local exposition.

Explanation

The first defining witness says accumulated primary metaphors can combine into complex metaphors through blending. This supplies a compositional explanatory role rather than a synonym for any unusual phrase. The native reference connects the discussion to Fauconnier and Turner, while the local prose also retains Lakoff and Johnson’s contribution.

The neural-mind illustration links a journey schema, travelers and goals with a relationship frame. It describes inference structures combining, but its circuit account remains a proposed bridge to possible implementation. Conceptual composition is therefore not evidence that every suggested neural connection has been anatomically mapped or independently confirmed.

RB3’s reflexive grammar uses mapping, selective projection, blending and compression to describe cognitive organization. That is a broader authorial application with its own limits; cognition does not thereby create physical law. The entry preserves the local sense without adding an unreviewed universal algorithm or identifying successful blending with the truth of every resulting idea.

Scope and attribution

Retain bounded local use and bibliographic lineage without inventing a full formal blending model.

RB1 — The Real Book, Volume I: The Possible Is Real

Source-verified occurrence; see the printed-page references below.

Occurrence locators: 233.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

Metaphoric and inferential composition retains Fauconnier–Turner provenance and proposed neural scope.

Occurrence locators: 97, 101, 102.

RB3 — The Real Book, Volume III: Murmurations

Reflexive cognitive blending does not create the constraints it recognizes.

Occurrence locators: 130, 338.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Blending requires composition rather than a single asymmetric mapping or a source citation alone.