Similarity and Emergence in Conceptual Combination

Abstract

The influence of similarity on emergence in interpretations of conceptual combinations was assessed. Participants wrote two definitions for each of eight similar and eight dissimilar word pairs and then listed the important features of each definition. Those features were compared with the features collected from a different group of participants who listed the characteristic properties of the parent concepts presented individually. Features listed for the combinations but not for the parent concepts separately were considered emergent. Similar pairs led to fewer emergent features than dissimilar pairs, and first attempts at defining the combinations produced fewer emergent features than second attempts. Definitions of similar pairs more often assigned a property of one concept to the other, whereas definitions of dissimilar pairs more often identified a thematic relation between the concepts. Similar pairs and first attempts also had higher proportions of features from within the structural alignments of the combinations' parent concepts. The results are consistent with the influence of structural alignment on conceptual combination and with a “quick fix” hypothesis. Members of similar pairs, which could easily be aligned, facilitated the identification of a property of the modifier to project onto the head noun, and their compatible structures required little emergent modification to incorporate the projected property. Dissimilar pairs, whose structures were less readily alignable, provided fewer projectible properties, required more emergent modification to incorporate them, and more often required participants to go beyond the alignable properties of the parent concepts to achieve coherent interpretations. On second definitions, participants may have pursued less satisfactory secondary alignments that led to less property projection more emergent features.