time goes by - pirata

8/17/2019 Time goes by - Pirata

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The Way Time Goes by:

Conceptual Integration and the Poetics of Time

Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas

Institute for Culture and Society, University of Navarra, Spain

Anna Piata

Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland

Faculty of English Studies, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

1.

Space-time mappings

The understanding of time in spatial terms has long been identified as an example of the

metaphorical construction of an abstract concept (Guyau 1890). In recent research in cognitive

linguistics and psycholinguistics, space-time mappings have become a classic in the study of

projections across conceptual domains. Conceptual Metaphor Theory (Lakoff & Johnson 1980)

has used TIME IS SPACE as the paradigmatic case of projection from a concrete to an abstract

domain (Lakoff 1993). Time travels towards an observer (“Spring will arrive in two weeks”) or

vice versa (“We are approaching Sunday”), and this motion can also be observed independently

(Moore 2006), from an external viewpoint (“The lecture will be followed by a reception”).

More recently, within the framework of Conceptual Integration or Blending Theory

(Fauconnier & Turner 2002), a more fine-grained and complex view of space-time mappings –

and of mappings in general – has been proposed. Rather than a binary, unidirectional projection

between vast experiential domains, such as TIME and SPACE, the blending account proposes that

meaning emerges from selective projection and integration within a network of small conceptual

packets, or mental spaces (Fauconnier 1985; 1997). The conceptual blend for time as motion


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To appear in S. Csábi (ed.) Expressive Minds and Artistic Creations: Studies in Cognitive Poetics. OUP

along a path requires at least the following (Fauconnier & Turner 2008). At a first step we have a

blend of event structure with a more specific event of motion from A to B. This is what allows

us, independently of temporal notions, to conceptualize events as having a starting point, a

destination, and a path that the experiencers go through (“We went through the lecture”) or that

the events themselves go through (“The lecture went by”). This blend of events and A to B

motion becomes integrated with the social and cultural measurement of time, which renders

universal events (events taking place at the same time everywhere) such as days, hours, weeks,

years. These time measures result from blending the observation of recurrent events in nature,

such as the sun rising and setting, with a material (or immaterial) mechanism for registering and

measuring those regularities: a sundial, a clock, a calendar, observation of shadow-length, or any

other method. At this second step of integration, the blend between events + motion and cyclic

repetition + measuring mechanism allows us to think about time measures, or time in general, as

something that can pass by or that we can go through, just like any other event.

Here is a summary of the template:

1.

We have the following separate mental constructs: events, A→B motion, natural cycles,

and mechanisms for measuring or registering natural cycles. These are the inputs for the

first blending step.

2. We have a blend of events + A→B motion and a blend of natural cycles + mechanisms.

These two blends are separate mental constructs. They are the inputs for the second

blending step.

3. We blend events + A→B motion with natural cycles + mechanisms. Only now have we

time or units of time that move, or that constitute landmarks that experiencers can move

towards.


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and the Pleiades, it is

midnight, time is passing,

and I sleep alone.

Here Sappho works at all three different levels of the blending network. She starts with

the cyclic day, at the basis of the integration template. The first sentence is a conventional

expression of two regularities that are familiar to anyone used to watching the night sky in most

of the Northern Hemisphere. The mental configuration of the cyclic day is basic and presumably

shared by all human beings. No concept of time, no measuring mechanism, no technology, and

no socially constructed notion of temporal relations are needed. Only the expectations created by

the repetition of certain events in nature: the sun sets and rises, the moon sets and rises and also

goes through its phases, seasons recur, and stars have fixed positions in the sky at different times

of the night and the year. This first sentence in the poem is a mere observation of two of those

repetitions, indicating that it is quite late at night. Only the compression of many days into one

cyclic day (Fauconnier & Turner 2002, pp.195–198) is needed, so that the setting of the moon

and Pleiades is understood as a recurrent event that marks a moment in the cycle. We are still at a

conceptual level prior to the first blending step. Cyclic natural repetitions are one of the inputs

for this first integration.

The second sentence, “μέσαι δέ νύκτες” (it is midnight), goes a step further in the

network. Midnight is a more complex notion, which does require a socially constructed concept

of time, alongside certain techniques, even if very basic, for measuring time intervals. Night

being in the middle (μέσαι) implies that there is a universal event, the cyclic day, which is

simultaneously conceived as an object that can be divided into sections. In the mere observation

of stars in motion or in any other repetition of events, there is nothing that could be divided into


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fractions or be “in the middle.” It is the blend of a cycle of events and a measuring mechanism

(timeline, sundial, clock, etc.) that renders a discrete, spatial configuration, which can be divided.

As a result of this, we come up with universal measures: days, years, hours… These measures

correspond to different positions in the mechanism that divides and subdivides the cycle. In our

everyday life, all this knowledge is taken for granted. However, it does take a certain cultural

development, and a considerable cognitive achievement, to go from “the moon has set” to “it is

midnight.”

This is still no metaphorical concept of time as motion in space. The moon and the stars

do move, but this is perceived motion. There can also be motion in the mechanism that gives us

access to notions such as midnight. This motion may be real; that is, a clock, a sundial or some

other measuring device may move or register physical motion, such as that of the sun in the sky

or the hands of the clock. Alternatively, we can imagine ourselves, a situation, or the whole

world as being all at a certain point of the mechanism (clock, sundial, calendar): we can be in

July or in 2015 or in the spring. But in all these cases time is not moving, and the observer is not

moving through time either: it is all a matter of relative positions. Now the next sentence in

Sappho’s poem takes us to that third step in the template: “πάρα δ' ἔρχετ' ὤρα,” time passes.

Only at this point have we a mapping between motion from A to B and the socially constructed

notion of time. Sappho has taken us to this mental configuration in three steps, by means of three

conventional expressions, one at each level of the generic integration template.

The juxtaposition of these expressions prompts for a meaning that can be re-created by

practically every person from every culture: somebody is showing her awareness of the passing

of time, of it being late at night, and, by repeatedly showing this awareness, this person is also

expressing anxiety, because she has some expectations or desires. Then we get to the fourth line,


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and we know what it is all about: the speaker did not want, or did not expect, to sleep alone

tonight. Lines 2-4 also carry the particle δέ, which indicates a relevant contrast or connection

with the μέν on line 1 and with the preceding δέ particles, thus increasing the effect. This simple

combination is extremely effective for creating a powerful, perhaps universal meaning, which

allows this small fragment to stand alone as a poetic achievement. To accomplish this, Sappho

did not need to specify, manipulate, or violate any basic elements or constraints of the network.

But she did need to rely on the reader’s ability to build the full generic template, to work at each

level of it separately, and to integrate it all into a coherent whole.

One may think that these assumptions are all basic and that no different levels should be

distinguished. A useful exercise for addressing that objection is to read the poem to a young

child. Within their second year, most infants are able to make perfect sense of language about the

moon or the sun (or any other object) moving and then being gone, or even rising and setting.

They may even understand that the event has temporal implications: the sun is gone, time to go

to bed. But it will take a child several years more to understand what it means to be in the middle

or at any other particular point of a short event such as a class or a game, let alone a day or a

year. It will take even more cognitive development to build the very abstract and complex

concept time, and then to think about it as something that passes by, relentlessly, at a regular

pace, and without turning back.

Of course, once we have interiorized it, we can work within the generic template quite

smoothly and effectively. Emily Dickinson, for instance, built this short poem on the re-assertion

that time passes:

Time does go on –

I tell it gay to those who suffer now –


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They shall survive –

There is a sun –

They don't believe it now –

The emphatic auxiliary does is used here for reassuring “those who suffer now” of

something that may seem obvious: time is not going to stand still, we will not remain frozen in

this situation. In Sappho’s text, there was a spontaneous ascertainment or confirmation of time

passing, and this told us that the speaker had negative feelings or anxiety about its passing. In

Dickinson’s poem the same ascertainment is again meaningful, but for opposite reasons: it is a

positive evaluation and it is resisted by those who suffer, because it would bring good things for

them in which now they cannot believe. Of course, it is not the belief that time itself will keep

running what the sufferers resist, but the idea that they will live to see positive events. They are

emotionally stuck in their now. It is this contrast of attitudes and viewpoints about the passing of

time that gives the conventional, proverbial language of the poem its aesthetic and emotional

value.

Dickinson, just like Sappho, takes for granted that the reader is able to build the full time-

motion network from minimal prompts, in this case, from those provided by the first line. From

the moment we start reading, we are immediately situated in the blended scene in which time

passes. We know that an important event has occurred, because there seems to have been a

pause, and now time needs to go on. Although this projects inferences that are contradictory with

the basics of our experience of time, time can indeed halt in the time-motion blend, even in the

most conventional renderings of the pattern. This emergent meaning, only possible in the blend,

allows us to represent experiences so intense that they seem to last for ever, thus reflecting an

important aspect of our subjective temporal perception (Fauconnier & Turner 2008). In this


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particular expression of the template, somebody is re-asserting that time will keep on moving.

Therefore, this means that someone has undergone an intense experience that has “stopped” time

in the blend, and then this person needs to be told that, despite everything, the motion is

relentless and will continue. If we are to make sense of the rest of the poem, we need to have all

this knowledge active by the end of the first line. We would not be able to do it if we were

unfamiliar not only with the basic mappings and integrations of the template, but also with some

of its major possibilities for variation, such as the conventional manipulation of speed.

Lakoff and Turner (1989, pp.67–72) identified the questioning of conventional mappings

as one of the major strategies of poetic metaphor. Indeed, poetic texts very often prompt us to

rethink standard conceptualizations. Here, on the other hand, we seem to have the opposite

strategy: reinforcement. Dickinson’s emphatic does reinforces the standard phrase “time goes

on,” which is conventionally used in everyday life. In this case, a deep truth is offered alongside

the idiomatic consolation. With this reinforcement, the speaker is trying to make the sufferers

believe that the phrase has a deep meaning beyond the formulaic, that “time goes on” is more

than just a commonplace. The reader is left to choose whether this is actually a confirmation or

in fact a questioning of the standard consolation as futile: “they don’t believe it now.”

As we see, very powerful effects can be achieved by remaining within a standard version

of the generic integration template. Let us look at a final example. In this passage contemporary

poet and lyrics writer Dimitris Christodoulou uses the same integration template as Sappho,

almost twenty-six centuries later:

Δεν είναι επειδή μέσα μου τρέμει ένας νεκρός

ούτε που φεύγουν οι στιγμές και φρίττω.

It is not because inside me a dead man trembles


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The spatial schema that emerges here is containment : the dead man is inside the present

man. There is no containment in any of the inputs if they are considered separately: nobody is

inside anybody in our typical conception of a present or a dead self. The blend now

opportunistically recruits what we could call the Matryoshka Doll template for causation and

succession. Other standard mappings such as CAUSATION IS PROGENERATION (Turner 1987) may

be derived from this compression pattern. The template is based on a familiar image schema:

there is something inside a container that will eventually come out, maybe that strives to come

out, is ambushed and will eventually come out as a surprise, is being blocked from coming out,

and other such possibilities. Combining this schema with time compression, we create a

productive way of connecting present and future or possible selves, as in sentences such as

“nobody saw the killer in him” or “there is a great poet in her.” In this conventional pattern, we

know, without being told, that there is an identity connection between the inputs: she and the

great poet are the same person. It is redundant to make this identity connection explicit: *“there

is a great poet inside her, and she herself is that poet.” Christodoulou benefits from this generic

template and its patterns of verbal expression. He does not need to tell us that μου (first person

pronoun in the genitive) and νεκρός (dead ) refer to the same person, because we already know,

thanks to the Matryoshka Doll template. This allows him to take the identity for granted and to

concentrate on the spatial features, the containment and the trembling: μέσα μου τρέμει ένας

νεκρός (inside me a dead man trembles). The compression patterns are guiding the poet’s

stylistic choices.

A further emergent structure in this poem is a dead man that trembles. In the input of the

dead self, dead men do not tremble, of course. In the blend, both the living and the dead man

tremble (τρέμει trembles, φρίττω shudder), or one trembles and the other is very afraid – φρίττω


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requires fear or horror, and may refer to the feeling itself and not necessarily to the shuddering,

while for τρέμω it is the emotion that is optional, and not the trembling. We can understand the

dead man’s trembling as fear, shared with his now-contemporary living self. This gives us a dead

man who is afraid to die, a paradoxical meaning that is most certainly not available from any

input. We can also choose to interpret the trembling as a feeling of imminence: the dead man is

in a flutter because he knows that he will be coming out soon. This results in another very

complex, and no less paradoxical meaning: a dead man with anticipatory knowledge and with a

feeling of imminence inside a living man who is also aware of this imminence, and consequently

feels fear too. None of these meanings requires time-motion, although they can be compatible

with it. Again quite conventionally, the poet could have said “I carry a dead man trembling

inside me,” and then the containment schema and the temporal compression would have

combined with the ego moving through time.

3. Manipulating path-trajectory: Line and circle

One of the basic parameters of motion in this conceptual network is the type of path or

trajectory that the ego or time travel through. The straight line seems to be the standard spatial

configuration for the time-motion blend in Western languages and literatures. One of the major

reasons for preferring the straight line is probably because it favors the perception of causal

relations (Turner 1987, pp.162–163). As we saw, the blend of event structure, motion, and cycle-

mechanism selects a very particular case of motion from A to B, and produces a mental

configuration with numerous constraints that do not belong to our normal spatial experience, but

that rather emerge from the blend. When working with this template, the standard option – at

least for the languages we examine here – is linear, unidirectional motion at a regular pace and

along a regular, straight path, whenever the shape of the path is specified at all.


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We must not forget that there is nothing unusual in other types of motion that are not

linear, in the sense of being bound to a recognizable path from A to B. When standing at a

reception or dancing, people combine lateral, forward, and even backward motion, and usually

lack a particular destination; an infant learning to walk or an insect flying can be good examples

of random motion. But, for thinking about time or about sequential processes, it is generally

more adequate for human beings to represent time as a unidimensional experience, because we

experience events as single and non-revertible, rather than as multiple and with simultaneous

alternatives – as is the case with spatial relations. If a building is no longer there, we do not

suppose that it may have never been built, but rather that it has been demolished. When

something is happening, we do not conceive it – at least in our everyday experience – as

happening in many different ways in a variety of alternative universes. Therefore, it is

appropriate in cognitive terms that time should move along a single, distinct path.

In the blend, cognition prefers to operate with structures that are as simple and familiar as

possible, that offer good possibilities for projecting meaningful inferences back to the inputs, that

create an autonomous mental configuration, and that generally serve the purposes of the situation

at hand (Fauconnier & Turner 2002, chap.16). These are usually competing principles, but in this

case linear motion satisfies them all quite well, except for autonomy. Linear motion is discrete

and familiar, and it allows us to project inferences from unidimensional space that are productive

for temporal experience, without complicating the process with additional dimensions or with

more complex types of motion that may present further features. On the other hand, the motion

event emerging from the blend turns out to be quite peculiar, and certainly much more

constrained than the vast majority of linear motion events that we can experience. It does not

stand on its own as a conceptual structure: it needs the connections to the rest of the network


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(events + A→B motion with natural cycles + mechanisms) if it is to make sense at all.

One of the advantages of keeping within linear motion along a regular path is that the

blend can retain most of the connections to the inputs, as well as the major mappings and the

main emergent elements that constitute the basis of the template. For instance, a straight line is

better for diachrony and sequence, but if I shift to a circular path I can still keep the alignment of

objects/landmarks and their relative positions for mapping onto sequential order. I can also keep

the grouping of observers/travelers for viewpoint, the mappings between distance and duration,

the integrations of objects and distances with universal measures in the cycle-mechanism notion

of time, and many other central aspects of the pattern. It would be hard to keep those features if

random motion or waltz dancing were used to structure the blend, or if the ocean or the desert

were used for its general layout.

In their analysis of the relation between speed and subjective time, Fauconnier and

Turner (2008) use a literary example that also enhances linear motion along a straight path:

Perhaps time is flowing faster up there in the attic. Perhaps the accumulated mass of the

past gathered there is pulling time out of the future faster, like a weight on a line. Or perhaps,

more mundanely, it is only that I am getting older every year and that it is the accumulated

weight of time behind me that is unreeling the years with ever-increasing speed.

Ian McDonald, “Emily’s Diary, November 5, 1913,” in King of Morning, Queen of Day

(1991), pages 82-83.

As Fauconnier and Turner explain, “time has a variable speed and now a new blend is


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constructed according to which that motion is induced by standard physics. Weight is pulling the

timeline along. Interestingly, this still preserves the registration of the timepieces.” The straight

line makes it easier to preserve the time pieces or units, by providing a material anchor

(Hutchins 2005) that allows for an easy and straightforward grounding of the time measures,

alongside their relations and durations – or, in spatial terms, extensions. Thanks to material

anchors such as the timeline or the dial, conceptual structure becomes perceptual structure; in

this case, temporal relations become spatial relations, which can be perceived directly. Hutchins

uses, among other examples, that of the cue, which allows us to “see” who is first, second, and so

forth directly, by looking at the relative position of people in the cue. On a straight timeline, we

see diachrony at a glance, and this allows us to think about sequences and durations with great

ease. With no further instructions, we immediately know what it means for the weight to pull

elements from the upper to the lower part of the line. We instantly know what it means to be at

the end, middle, or beginning of the line in temporal terms.

As shown by Coulson and Pagán Cánovas, “one does not always need to interact

physically with the material anchors of blends. If the material structure is widely shared and

simple to operate – as many such structures are – they can be virtually manipulated by imagining

them, representing them, remembering them, talking about them” (2013: 212-213). In the

example used by Coulson and Pagán Cánovas, one does not need to be looking at a clock, or to

visualize a rich image of one for that matter, in order to make sense of a complex metaphor such

as the following:“In their anxiety to be scientific, students of psychology have often imitated the

latest forms of sciences with a long history, while ignoring the steps these sciences took when

they were young. They have, for example, striven to emulate the quantitative exactness of natural

sciences without asking whether their own subject matter is always ripe for such treatment,


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failing to realize that one does not advance time by moving the hands of the clock .”

As a unidimensional object that can easily be imaged or seen with the mind’s eye (just

like the clock), the timeline provides many opportunities for meaningful compressions that create

emotional effects in poetic texts, by prompting the reader to visualize and navigate the material

anchor. Kavafis’ Candles is a masterful example of it:

Του μέλλοντος η μέρες στέκοντ’ εμπροστά μας

σα μια σειρά κεράκια αναμένα –

χρυσά, ζεστά, και ζωηρά κεράκια.

Η περασμένες μέρες πίσω μένουν,

μια θλιβερή γραμμή κεριών σβυσμένων·

τα πιο κοντά βγάζουν καπνόν ακόμη,

κρύα κεριά, λυωμένα, και κυρτά.

Δεν θέλω να τα βλέπω· με λυπεί η μορφή των,

και με λυπεί το πρώτο φως των να θυμούμαι.

Εμπρός κυττάζω τ' αναμένα μου κεριά.

Δε θέλω να γυρίσω να μη διω και φρίξω

τι γρήγορα που η σκοτεινή γραμμή μακραίνει

τι γρήγορα που τα σβυστά κεριά πληθαίνουν.

Konstantinos P. Kavafis, Κεριά [“Candles”]

The days of the future stand in front of us,


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like a row of burning little candles –

golden, warm, and vivid little candles.

Days past lie behind,

a grim line of extinguished candles;

the nearest are still smoking,

cold candles, melted, and bent.

I don't want to see them: their shape saddens me,

and it saddens me to remember their original light.

I look ahead at my burning candles.

I don't want to turn and see, terrified,

how quickly the dark line gets longer,

how quickly the burnt out candles multiply.

In this poem, the speaker is navigating a row of candles that stands for the duration of a

whole human life. The default shape associated to the word σειρά (row, cue, alignment of various

elements) is the straight line. Although, in principle, it is not absolutely compulsory, the

reasonable expectation is that we will choose that shape to picture the image suggested by the

text. The speaker is oriented in relation to a timeline made of candles, which map onto the days

of his life. The future is ahead and the past behind. Future candles are lit and past candles are

extinguished. These two contrasts, ahead-behind and light-darkness, dominate the poem, which


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is in fact an extended simile that repeatedly maps between spatial relations on the row of candles,

the candles being lit or extinguished, and the duration of life. The poem prompts the reader to

construct powerful affective implications: fear of death, the feeling of life being short, negative

emotions when past days are remembered, excitement about days to come, or the willingness to

concentrate on the future and not think about the past. None of these meanings is available from

any of the inputs separately (events, A→B motion, natural cycles or mechanisms) or from their

separate blends at the first step of the network.

There are interesting compressions in this text (see Pagán Cánovas & Jensen 2013 and

Piata 2013 for a more detailed analysis of this and other poetic timeline examples). A significant

emergent meaning is the candle row itself. Although the conventional mapping of the birthday

candles applies, a row of thousands of candles – one for every day of a person’s life – is not

something that we encounter in experience, but an ad-hoc image devised to provide a material

anchor for the blend, in order to serve the purposes of the poem. As in the previous example of

the weight on the line, speed is connected to events/landmarks on the timeline. But this poem is

not about the subjective perception of a particular experience, but rather about the speaker’s

general perception of time as passing fast, of the brevity of his whole life, without distinguishing

between periods or events. For this effect to be achieved, he needs a compressed perception, an

overall perspective of his whole existence. This perspective is provided by his interaction with

the timeline and his positioning at a particular point of it.

With the timeline operative, simple spatial meanings – such as moving along the path or

considering the stretches that lie ahead and behind – create strong emotional and poetic effects,

by projecting inferences back to the input with the duration of a human life. These emergent

“timeline” meanings also define elements in the running of the mental simulation, such as the


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state of the candles that constitute the timeline – lit or extinguished, plus other adjectives related

to feelings about time that do not typically apply to candles, but that are meaningful here. There

are many meaningful constraints, further rules and implications that are not mentioned, and that

do not need to be mentioned, because they constitute standard inferences within the blending

template. It is not possible to go back and replace an extinguished candle with a lit one. It is not

possible to add even one more lit candle to the row ahead. Soon there will only be a few candles

burning ahead, and then we will reach the end of the row, and the darkness will be complete. We

also know, again with no words indicating it in the text, that the only light available is the light

of the row of candles. Adding sunlight or any other source of light would block the inferences

about the duration of life that arise from the light-shadow contrast in the blend.

These effects could not be created through other means, alternative to the candle row.

The meaning of reaching the end of the row, or of the dark line rapidly getting longer, cannot be

built without referring to the timeline object. Words referring to feelings about past, future, and

the brevity of life would not provide the same immediacy, because they are signs and therefore

can have an arbitrary connection with their meanings. The timeline is not exactly a sign, but a

material anchor: it is designed in a particular way that matches certain essential features of the

blending template, in order to afford direct perceptual access to the temporal meanings that

emerge from the network. The path and landmarks imported from linear motion provide an

opportunity to create an anchor for the blend, and the mind often seizes that opportunity. That

way temporal relations can be “seen” with the mind’s eye.

We do not absolutely need the timeline to construct powerful meanings about past,

future, or duration, but it is a very useful and deeply entrenched pattern, and we will probably

use it if we have the opportunity to do so. For this to happen, the language does not have to be


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conventional, as in Kavafis’ Candles. Not even the indication that a timeline should be built is

absolutely necessary. An experiment by Pagán Cánovas, Valenzuela and Santiago (2015)

showed that readers tend to picture the snake in the following simile, which opens Octavio Paz’s

poem Beyond Love, as much less curvy, much closer to a straight line, than the default mental

image of a snake:

Todo nos amenaza:

el tiempo, que en vivientes fragmentos divide

al que fui

del que seré,

como el machete a la culebra

Everything threatens us:

time, which into living fragments divides

the one I was

from the one I will be,

like the machete the snake

Octavio Paz, “Más allá del amor” [“Beyond Love”].

This “straightening” of the snake was directly related to the temporal reading of the

poem. Readers who failed to establish the temporal mappings between the machete-snake and

time dividing the self drew significantly curvier snakes. The timeline habit, independently from

the poem, was conditioning them to impose a straight linear shape on the snake-temporal self,

thus opportunistically performing a further blend that is not suggested by the words. This was

confirmed by a follow-up experiment that primed for either temporal sequences or typical snake

scenes. Bringing the snake closer to a straight line clashes with our typical knowledge of snakes,


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Karen Russell, Vampires in the Lemon Grove

The images of time as a black magnifying glass and a circle of night do not intend to

situate the reader within a duration. There are no landmarks, no beginning or end. Instead, the

choice of a circular shape recruits a schema of enclosure or encirclement. The motion of the

trapped insect could be either circular or random. In either case, the simulation in the blend

presents an experiencer that is actually not going anywhere. Motion is in fact halted: the insect

may move, but it will not change location.

Encirclement, imprisonment, and the feeling of being trapped are not available from any

input in the time-motion network, even if we choose a circular shape for the time-motion path.

As we write this paragraph on a Monday morning, we can find numerous messages on Twitter

with expressions such as "Monday morning has come around too quickly" or "good old Monday

morning has come back around." These are examples of a circular path used to represent the

cyclic week. The recurrent universal events or time units, such as Monday morning, go around

and eventually "come back" to the fixed location of the observer. Monday morning has special

connotations attached, which come from the frame of the working week in Western culture.

These feelings are expressed in the blend through the conventional manipulation of speed, or

through the adjectivation "good old," which salutes the event as if it were a familiar agent with

which one has a long acquaintance, because it has "come back" many times. But these circular

paths need not suggest a feeling of being trapped. After all, we are in the time-moving

perspective of the template, and therefore the observer(s) is/are not supposed to move anyway.

Imprisonment can only arise when you have someone who wants to leave a location and

cannot. For that, the observer needs to change his position with respect to the path: instead of

being at a particular location on the circular path, now he needs to be out of the path and inside


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the circle created by the circular shape. Going from circular motion to encirclement is a creative

exploitation of an opportunity emerging in the blended simulation, motivated by the new

inferences that it can create within the network. This requires a shift to a two-dimensional space,

which clashes with the standard one-dimensionality of temporal representation. Now there is not

only linear sequence along the path, but also an inside and an outside. The interplay between

these two dimensions is what produces the emergent feeling of purposelessness, of being stuck in

the cyclic repetition of temporal landmarks. This simple spatial structure is meant to help us

conceive an extremely unusual temporal concept: immortality as experienced by a lonely

vampire.

Going nowhere or being stuck only make sense if the conventional time-motion template

is in the background. Thus here encirclement also comes alongside the implicit knowledge of the

timeline. We do not merely have encirclement: we have encirclement where we know that we

should have progress along a path, where we know, using Emily Dickinson's words, that the

motion should go on. The second time metaphor in the text takes us back to the unidimensional

path where motion is always forward and there is a direct link between one moment and the next.

This spatial configuration, as opposed to the previous circular shape, is felt as purposeful. The

causal relation is enhanced by the choice of the "neat chain" to instantiate the linear path. In this

chain moments are slots to be filled, which enhances the sense of time as having a purpose.

Clyde fills those moments with Magreb, and vice versa. The "other" is recruited as an object that

completes what would otherwise be a gap on the timeline. The shift from magnifying glass to

chain, from enclosing circle to forward path, signifies the transition from the absurdity and

despair of lonely eternity to a meaningful shared existence.

The shift between a linear, often straight, and a circular path can be found in many texts.


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The comparison between two different types of path can offer an overall perspective, allowing

for the contrast of two different conceptions of human life as a whole. But that is only one of the

possibilities. There are many other possible goals. Some of these desired effects can be achieved

not by a full contrast of the two shapes, but by their combination. When this happens, the most

common option seems to be the integration of circular motion into the straight line or linear,

underspecified path from A to B. An example of this is a scene in which motion along the

timeline reaches a landmark or comes to an end, and then circular motion starts. In these shifts

from A→B motion to A↺A motion, we can expect again the feeling of being stuck, stopped by

an obstacle. Besides, as we have just seen, circular motion offers the possibility of expanding to

two-dimensional space. This allows for the identification of the location around which the

circular motion takes place with a significant element on the timeline. In such cases, the

anchoring properties of the straight path can be kept. Direct perception of conceptual relations is

then facilitated, as opposed to Karen Russel's flightless insect trapped into a circle. One of the

results can be an emergent sense of imminence and strong associated emotions: the landmark or

destination is at hand, and the attention is focused on it. Once more, this meaning is unavailable

from any input, but can be constructed in the blend as a result of the repetition of the circular

motion around the same object or destination in view, or as a result of the enclosure produced by

the circular shape, both in combination with the preceding A→B motion.

Here is an example of A to B plus circle, from Spanish Baroque poet Francisco de

Quevedo, in his poem “El reloj de arena” (“The Hourglass”), where he claims that love:

no sólo me apresura

la muerte, pero abréviame el camino;

pues, con pie doloroso,


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as compression patterns for bringing together elements that belong in different moments. The

analysis of any of these other patterns in terms of blending is, at best, in its early infancy (see

Pagán Cánovas & Teuscher 2012, for preliminary work on the commoditization of time).

For this chapter, we chose the time-motion template because it is particularly

conventional, and has been established as a universal or quasi universal phenomenon; also

because the spatial parameters related to time-motion, such as speed or path, are relatively

unproblematic for their study, and can be observed in a text without resorting to complex

interpretations. In the section about the uses and manipulation of path-trajectory, we saw that

instantiating the path as a straight line simplifies the construction of meaning within the blended

simulation. All things being equal, all observers/travelers stay/move together along a linear,

straight path, and the moving objects/fixed landmarks that represent time units or events are

aligned along this straight line, and can thus be more easily visualized, either through mental

imagery or through actual material anchors, such as appropriate graphical representations or

objects (Coulson & Pagán Cánovas 2013). Regular speed and irreversible forward motion are

also default options. When other spatial parameters are manipulated, such as speed for subjective

time perception, it is still preferable, on most occasions, to keep the straight line (or an

underspecified path), because in this way we do not add extra modifications, and can concentrate

on the inferences related to any other parameter that we may be manipulating. In general,

manipulating only one parameter and keeping the rest of the spatial configuration

“conventional,” seems to be the most usual strategy, even for extremely creative, unconventional

examples of figurative language. But this needs to be confirmed by further empirical research on

poetic corpora.

We saw that certain meanings, such as feelings about duration or sequence, can arise


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more easily when a straight line is used for the path. The straight timeline is a deeply entrenched

template, and empirical evidence, though still scarce, is already showing that it can be activated

even by extremely non-conventional texts. Giving the timeline a circular shape produces a

variety of effects that cannot be achieved through the straight path. Many of these effects are

motivated by the fact that circular motion can more easily facilitate the expansion from one to

two-dimensional space. Comparing a straight path with a circular one can enhance progress or

purposefulness as opposed to enclosure and meaningless repetition, of “getting nowhere.” By

turning the straight timeline into a circular path at a particular point of the trajectory, imminence

or even fear can be added to encirclement and lack of progress. Expressions such as circling the

sepulture are made possible by this contrast of forward and circular trajectories.

We have only showcased a very small part of the possibilities of non-manipulation and

manipulation of the template. There are many other ways in which the underspecified passing of

time can be approached creatively, depending on which other elements in the text can be

combined with it, as well as on the pragmatics and semantics of the conventional time

expressions involved. There are also many other ways in which the path can be manipulated:

there are circular paths that are not contrasted with the straight timeline and appear

independently of it, there are alternative paths, irregular paths, and perhaps even some examples

of non-linear motion. Besides, there are a variety of possible interactions or interventions on the

path: there may be obstacles or gaps, somebody can cut the path, we may lose it... And of course

there are several other spatial parameters that are important in the network, and that can be

manipulated to produce significant inferences: speed, directionality, manner of motion,

viewpoint, among others.

The options are many, but not anything goes: choices are governed by the functioning


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and constraints of the template. We have mainly focused on the spatial properties themselves, but

these also need to be studied in relation with the different non-spatial concepts that may be

blended with them, such as old age or death, and the emergent meanings sought, such as

acceptance, denial, fear, reflection. And then there are other major templates for time, such as

commoditization or compression patterns. And these templates can blend between themselves or

with other patterns, such as the personification of abstract causes or other conceptual networks

related to agency or purpose.

Identifying sets of recurrent projections between domains, such as those from space to

time, was crucial for developing the field of conceptual mappings. Shifting from binary

projections to a network model that accounts for novel meanings and complex inferences has

been a major breakthrough, which has opened the path towards the study of more complex

patterns, constituted by networks of projections and integrations. But establishing the skeleton of

a template is just the beginning. If we are to grasp the intricacies of cognitive and verbal

creativity, we need more insight into the “fleshing out” of the pattern. For this, we must put to

use, and if possible increase, all our knowledge about mappings and blending, about the

optimality and governing principles of the processes involved, and, crucially, about the relation

between the cognitive operations and the context and goals of communication, thought, or action.

We have a chemistry: now we need a formulation. We cannot understand the mapping and

integration of concepts without a deep understanding of the recurrent patterns of blending.

Researchers in cognition and poetics have a lot of work to do, on time-space mappings or on any

other conceptual patterns recurring across languages and literatures.


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References

Coulson, S. & Pagán Cánovas, C., 2013. Understanding timelines. Journal of Cognitive

Semiotics, 5 (1-2), pp.198–219.

Fauconnier, G., 1997. Mappings in Thought and Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press.

Fauconnier, G., 1985. Mental Spaces: Aspects of Meaning Construction in Natural Language,

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fauconnier, G. & Turner, M., 2008. Rethinking metaphor. In R. W. Gibbs, ed. The Cambridge

handbook of metaphor and thought . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 57–66.

Fauconnier, G. & Turner, M., 2002. The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s

Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books.

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Pouthas , & J. L Jackson (Ed.), Guyau and the idea of time. Amsterdam: North-Holland .

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pp.1555–1577.

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Pagán Cánovas, C. & Jensen, M.F., 2013. Anchoring time-space mappings and their emotions:

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Pagán Cánovas, C., Valenzuela, J. & Santiago, J., 2015. Like the Machete the Snake: Integration

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Abstract

Conceptual Metaphor Theory has used TIME IS SPACE as the paradigmatic case of

projection from a concrete to an abstract domain. More recently, within the framework of

Conceptual Integration or Blending Theory, a more complex view of time-space mappings – and

of mappings in general – has been proposed. Rather than a binary, unidirectional projection

between the vast experiential domains of TIME and SPACE, the blending account proposes that

meanings combining time and motion emerge from successive integrations within a network of

relatively small conceptual packets, including event structure, motion from A to B, and a cultural

mechanism for measuring duration. We examine how poetic effects can be created by using the

conventional opportunities provided by this conceptual template, as well as by manipulating the

path (with a linear or circular shape), one of the basic spatial features in this representation. We

analyze examples in Greek, English, and Spanish.1

keywords

poetic imagery; blending; metaphor; time as space; path schema

1 This research was completed thanks to a Swiss Government Excellence Fellowship awarded to Anna Piata for the

academic year 2015-16 and to a Fundación BBVA Award for Early Career Researchers for the year 2015, awarded

to Cristóbal Pagán Cánovas.

time goes by - pirata

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