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����Mental space theorists have discussed a variety of mental operations in-volving the��mapping��or��projection�� of material across mental spaces��Fauconnier 1997��. These operations include particularly��conceptualblending�� or��conceptual integration��, which is described as a basic andfundamental cognitive process whereby material from two or more������input�� mental spaces is projected into a separate space, the��blend��. Thisblended space inherits structure from the input spaces and also developsits own��emergent�� structure ��Fauconnier and Turner 2002��. One of Fau-connier and Turner��s ��2002�� examples is a humorous counterfactual state-ment that apparently circulated in Washington D.C. in 1998, a year after the release of the blockbuster film Titanic, and in the early stages of a new sexual scandal involving the US President Bill Clinton:��If Clinton were the Titanic, the iceberg would sink��. This counterfactual statement clearly compares the US President to the ship that famously sank in 1912����after colliding with an iceberg, but suggests that Clinton��s presidency will����survive the sexual scandals ��which indeed it did��. Fauconnier and Turner use the notion of blending to explain how we make sense of this state-ment:The counterfactual blend has two input mental spaces - one with the Titanic and the other with President Clinton. There is partial cross-space mapping be-tween these inputs: Clinton is the counterpart of the Titanic and the scandal is the counterpart of the iceberg. There is a blended space in which Clinton is the����Titanic and the scandalis the iceberg. This blend is double-scope. It takes much ofits organizing frame structure from the Titanic input space - it has a voyage by a ship towards a destination and it has the ship��s running into something enormous in the water - but it takes crucial causal structure from the Clinton����scenario: Clinton is not ruined but instead survives. [...] There is a generic space whose structure is taken as applying to both inputs: One entity involved in an activity motivated by some purpose encounters another entity that poses a����threat to that activity. In the generic space, the outcome of that encounter is not specified. ��Fauconnier and Turner 2002: 221-22��Fauconnier and Turner ��2002: 4�� argue that, at the neural level,��mental spaces are��co-activation bindings of a certain kind��. While the authors��optimistic claims about the psychological validity of the model in its cur-rent form has received some criticism ��e.g. Gibbs 2000; Ritchie 2004��, the theory does have considerable explanatory power. Fauconnier and Turner ��2002�� use it to explain a wide range of phenomena, including not only counterfactuals, but also metaphor, a variety of grammatical construc-tions, higher-level reasoning, mathematical thinking, and so on. More generally, they explain the phenomenon of human creativity in terms of the basic ability to bring together material from different mental spaces in order to arrive at new meaning. Indeed, blending theory is increasingly being applied to the analysis ofliterature and fiction, ��e.g. the papers in Language and Literature, 15, 1, 2006��, and has been used particularly to account for texts that bring together and merge different��stories�� or situ-ations ��e.g. Freeman 2000; Semino 2006; Turner 2003��. ��������