Conceptual combination

  The formation of concepts is a long studied issue in cognitive psychology, as is the reasoning which occurs about these concepts. One aspect of this research occurs in psychology and linguistics and concerns the understanding of novel concepts represented through conceptual combination. For instance, consider the concept of stream--a small waterway. Now, consider the concept of mountain--a large geographic rise of rock. If a reasoner sees these two terms in combination, i.e., mountain stream, how should this new concept be interpreted? Of course, most reasoners will already have an understanding of mountain streams, but the concern is a valid one. In this case, ``mountain'' acts as a locative modifier describing where the stream is. But, consider a syntactically identical phrase mountain magazine. In this case, the term ``mountain'' is still acting as a modifier, only now it is describing the topic of the magazine. ``Mountain'' acts as a noun modifier in both situations but in decidedly different manners. In many ways, one can argue that such phrases require the process which I am calling creative understanding.

  Shoben (concept:shoben-1993) is one of best known researchers approaching this issue. Much of what he has said about the process relates to how the various elements of the concepts being combined can be ``intermixed'' to create new but allowable concepts. Whether a specific interpretation is allowable cannot be determined solely by looking at the two concepts individually; for example, consider the combined concepts of wooden spoon and wooden soldier. Do the wooden forms of the basic concepts (spoon and soldier) tend to be larger or smaller than those basic concepts? Wooden spoons tend to be larger than non-wooden ones; wooden soldiers tend to be smaller than non-wooden ones. It is impossible to determine the correct interpretation until one considers the various possibilities and determines which are more likely. A similar process is performed in the creative reading theory when handling novel concepts. Known concepts related to the novel ones are reasoned about (if possible) in order to judge the reasonableness of various understandings of the novel concepts in question. On the other hand, approaches such as that of Shoben, rely too much on linguistic knowledge. Often, conceptual combination theories are actually theories which describe how novel combinations of words may be understood. The ISAAC approach is concerned with the conceptual level; this allows it to use more than the immediate sentential scope of a combination in order to derive an understanding.