I'll bring the seaweed; you bring the rice.
The hearer is expected to recognize the parallelism of the two clauses and
their content.
Clinton changed his mind about taxes. He also decided to
continue sending Haitian boat people back to Haiti.
Here the similarity, signaled by also, is more abstract.
The hearer must see that the two sentences are both about
broken campaign promises.
But he did try to convince the military to accept gays.
The but indicates that a contrast is made, here between
broken and unbroken campaign promises.
Caitlin called Coleen a Republican, and then SHE insulted HER.
With a particular intonation/stress pattern on she and her,
the sentence means that the two women insulted each other.
The gist of the prosodic pattern in this sentence is that everything
is the same
in the two clauses except that the two arguments are exchanged.
If this sentence were in German, it would contain a fallacy.
In counterfactual sentences, the hearer is expected to make a
comparison between
the real situation and the one set up in the if-clause.
You could never get Fred to eat shrimp, let alone Carla squid. Let alone sentences set up one or more dimensions along which
two entities are compared.
Charlotte spilled the beans.
In idioms, an analogy is set up between two situations, here the
spilling of some
beans and the revealing of some confidential information.
Looking back on what he said, nothing struck him as particularly
offensive.
Metaphorical expressions such as looking back and struck in the
sentence involving setting up analogies between more concrete and more
abstract situations.
Is the Pope Catholic? Does a chicken have lips?
These expression make an analogy between two situations in which
obvious questions are asked.
Cuomo decided against pardoning the prisoner, thereby de-Hortonizing
himself for 1992.
Here there are four situations which are related to each other:
the real situation in the previous election in which Dukakis furloughed Horton
and lost the election; the real situation in 1991 when Cuomo did not pardon
the prisoner, possibly winning the election in 1992; the hypothetical situation
in the previous election in which Dukakis did not furlough Horton and won
the election; and the hypothetical situation in 1991 in which Cuomo does
pardon the prisoner and then goes on to lose the election in 1992.
Mental Spaces (Fauconnier): a Framework for Dealing with Analogy in Language
ID Principle: If 2 objects are linked by a "pragmatic function",
a description of one may be used to identify its counterpart.
The mushroom omelet left without paying.
Plato is on the top shelf. It is bound in leather. You'll find that
he is a very interesting author.
Mental space: set with elements and relations holding
between them such that new elements can be added and new relations
established between the elements
Space builders: expressions which establish new spaces, e.g.,
in Len's picture, in John's mind, in the movie,
John believes, John wants,
Mary claims, in 1929, possibly, if A then;
spaces can also be pragmatically established
Space connectors: from "reality" to beliefs,
from "reality" to hypothetical situation, from models to pictures,
from actors in a drama to characters, from the present to the
past (or future), etc.; relate counterparts in different spaces
An indefinite NP sets up a new element in some space
A definite NP points to an element already in some space
ID Principle on spaces
Given two spaces M, M', linked by a connector F and an NP N introducing
or pointing to an element x in M,
if x has a counterpart x' (x = F(x')) in M', N may identify x'
if x has no established counterpart in M', N may set up and identify a
new element x' in M' such that x' = F(x).
Examples
Lisa has been depressed for months, but in the picture she is
smiling.
Lisa saw herself in Len's picture.
In Len's picture, the girl with blue eyes has green eyes.
In this painting, the house is acrylic, but the girl is oil.
In Len's mind, the girl with blue eyes has green eyes.
Len wants the girl with blue eyes to have green eyes.
Henry's girlfriend Annette is Swedish, but Len believes that
she's his wife, that her name is Lisa, and that she's Spanish.
Here is a picture of the European heads of state. In the picture,
Margaret Thatcher is completely hidden behind Helmut Kohl.
In that movie, a former quarterback adopts needy children.
John Paul hopes that a former quarterback will adopt needy
children.
Margaret is looking for a mouse.
Today that young woman is an old woman with gray hair.
In 1929 the president was a baby.
In Canadian football, the 50-yard line is 55 yards away.
If you were a good painter, the girl with blue eyes would have
green eyes.
If you were a good painter, the girl with green eyes would have
green eyes.
Too bad you were never baptized. Your godfather could take
care of you.
Hitchcock saw himself in that movie.
Luke thinks Dracula lives in Transylvania.
Luke thinks his new neighbor makes too much noise.
Luke thinks Dracula makes too much noise.
Luke thinks his new neighbor lives in Transylvania.
If Mary had been born twins, they would have hated each other.
The president changes every four years.
Your apartment keeps getting bigger and bigger.
The winner is blonde, but George thinks she's a redhead.
Oedipus believes he will marry his mother.
Ursula wants to marry a millionaire
, but she thinks he's a pauper.
, but he's really a con man.
; she heard of this guy, but he doesn't exist.
, but she won't find one.
Sometimes he's a Brazilian yachtsman, and sometimes he's a Russian
polo player.