Rebecca Orton
Cognitive Linguistics Final Paper
Sarah Taub
Spring 2000
Mental Spaces Analysis of An American Indian Poem
Ts'its'tsi'nako, Thought-Woman,
is sitting in her room
and whatever she thinks about
appears.
She thought of her sisters,
Nau'ts'ity'i and I'tcts'ity'i,
and together they created the Universe
this world
and the four worlds below.
Thought-Woman, the spider,
named things and
as she named them
they appeared.
She is sitting in her room
thinking of a story now
I'm telling you the story
she is thinking
(Silko, 1977, p. 1).
In the book "Ceremony", Leslie Marmon Silko, an American
Indian, writes this poem on the first page. This poem is
very complex in terms of the mental spaces it invokes. The
first mental space to discuss is the speaker's reality. The
speaker is the author and it is her perceived reality as she
writes the poem that is the speaker's reality. However,
there is another kind of mental space that is the speaker's
reality at a moment of time other than the current moment as
the speaker writes. I call this particular moment the
speaker's perception of reality at the time. The speaker
can look back in time and describe her perceived reality
before a change, during a change, and after a change within
the reality. All minds change with changing realities. No
mind is a steady state machine.
The speaker's reality normally contains the speaker's
perception at the time within it, if any exist. There is
also an assumed audience in the speaker's reality. The poem
was written for an audience, even if the audience may only
be for the author herself. It is possible to entertain only
yourself by taking flights of fancy and then later recalling
how those daydreams changed your perception of reality.
Reality doesn't have to be tangible, physical, solid three-
dimensional objects, like life in the real world. Reality
could be a holographic projection, like those portrayed in
Star Trek's holosuites. Reality could be reduced to two-
dimensional cinematic projections, like movies. It is not
an impossible stretch to see how a mental projection, like
daydreams, could be a reality with no physical dimensions.
The reality that we all know, with all of its physical and
metaphysical dimensions could be a projection of a macro,
para-universal mind. Such a person with a macro, para-
universal mind may be called Thought-Woman as mentioned in
the poem. The first section is repeated below.
Ts'its'tsi'nako, Thought-Woman,
is sitting in her room
and whatever she thinks about
appears.
Later in the poem, the author explains how things appear.
Thought-Woman, the spider,
named things and
as she named them
they appeared.
The naming of things is vague enough to imagine different
ways how this could be done. Clearly, the speaker has to be
able to perceive the act of naming things by Thought-Woman,
otherwise she could not report on it. Three methods
immediately came to mind: saying a word-name, signing a
sign-name, or telepathically projecting an idea-name. These
three methods utilize the capacities of the mind to
communicate. These methods could be considered internal
tools. It is also possible to use external tools to name
things, for example, writing a word-name with a pen, drawing
a picture-name with a pencil, typing a word-name with a
keyboard attached to a computer, or by clicking on a icon-
name with the mouse and the pointer on the computer screen.
The speaker can perceive Thought-Woman's naming acts
indirectly by looking at how she uses the external tools, if
Thought-Woman is not inclined to communicate with the
speaker directly. For now, I'm assuming that the speaker
and Thought-Woman are in communication with each other. It
also isn't necessary that the speaker be present in Thought-
Woman's company for them to communicate with each other.
They could be using a phone, bi-directional videos, or
telepathy for telecommunications. The naming acts of
Thought-Woman are being reported to the audience however the
speaker perceives them.
In the speaker's reality, Thought-Woman exists and her room
exists. Thought-Woman is perceived to be sitting in her
room. The speaker perceives the naming acts of Thought-
Woman as a sequence of realities, much like states in a non-
steady state machine. The speaker perceives a change of
prior perceived reality into a different perceived reality.
The speaker also perceives a match between the change of
reality and the naming acts of Thought-Woman. There are
three reality states. One state is the prior, old reality.
The second state is the changing reality. The third state
is the new changed reality. This speaker's reality,
including the three sub-realities, is represented in Diagram
A. The legend explains that the speaker's reality is
denoted by a "R" with a vertical slash through it and that
the speaker's perception at the time is denoted by a "P"
with a vertical slash through it. Not included in the
legend are several other symbols used to diagram mental
spaces. The fork represents how a state spawns another
state. The arrows represent interactions between entities.
The dot-to-dot connector represents the same entity even if
it evolves into something else and its identity changes.
Diagram B and C represents two interpretations of
"She thought of her sisters,
Nau'ts'ity'i and I'tcts'ity'I".
The first interpretation represented in Diagram B is that
Thought-Woman named her two sisters and they came into
existence as a result. The second interpretation
represented in Diagram C is that Thought-Woman's sisters
already exist and she merely thought of them, not created
them. Because sisters are part of a family where parents
spawn children, Thought-Woman and her two sisters may be
spawn from the same source.
There is no mention in the poem of whether the speaker is
spawned from the same source as the three sisters. Because
of what the author wrote in a section of the poem,
"and together they created the Universe
this world
and the four worlds below"
the speaker was there at the creation of the universe, this
world, and the four worlds below. I'm inclined to think
that the speaker is a separate intellectual being, unrelated
to the three sisters. Since the speaker was there at the
creation, it is doubtful that the Thought-Woman named the
speaker into existence. What is clear is that the starting
point of creation of the universe, this world and the four
worlds below is after the three sisters started to work
together.
There are three interpretations as to how the three sisters
worked together. The first interpretation, represented in
Diagram D, is that all three sisters are capable of naming
the universe, this world, and the four worlds below into
existence. The second interpretation, represented in
Diagram E, is that only Thought-Woman is capable of naming
the universe, this world, and the four worlds below into
existence. The two sisters can only assist Thought-Woman by
feeding her ideas, giving her tips on what to create, etc.
The three sisters directly interact with each other. In the
third interpretation, Thought-Woman and her two sisters do
not directly interact with each other. Instead, the two
sisters manipulate the raw material that Thought-Woman named
into existence already or at their request. This
interpretation is represented in Diagram F. It is not clear
from the poem why the two sisters are not mentioned as
having the ability to name things into existence, even
though they seem to be from the same family. For the sake
of simplicity in the rest of the diagrams (except the last
one), I will assume the first interpretation for now.
In analyzing the syntax of this same section, there are no
definite demarcations between the universe, this world, and
the four worlds below. If I were to use Government and
Binding Theory's convention of indexing the noun phrases,
the universe, this world, and the four worlds below, with
indexes i, j, and k, I would come up with the following
references to meaning:
1. the universe(i), this world(i), and the four worlds(i)
below
2. the universe(i), this world(i), and the four worlds(j)
below
3. * the universe(i), this world(j), and the four
worlds(i) below
4. * the universe(i), this world(j), and the four
worlds(j) below
5. * the universe(i), this world(j), and the four
worlds(k) below
Number one above means that the universe, this world, and
the four worlds below are within the same reality. Number
two above means that the universe and this world are within
the same reality, but not the four worlds below. Number
three above means that the universe and the four worlds
below are within the same reality, but not this world.
Number four above means that the universe is separate from
this world and the four worlds below. This world and the
four worlds below are together in a separate reality,
perhaps a dimension understood to be on a spiritual plane.
Number five above means that the universe, this world, and
the four worlds below each have a separate reality. For
example, the universe could be the physical reality out
there, this world could be the perceived mental reality in
our minds, and the four worlds below could be the spiritual
reality of religion and magic. In any case, numbers three
through five above conflict with the prototypical
understanding cognitively that this world is within the
universe, no matter what the nature of those realities may
be. Number one above is represented in Diagram G. Number
two above is represented in Diagram H. Diagrams G and H are
more complex because the speaker's perceived reality at the
time is being expanded by the act of creation around her.
For Diagram G, in the old perceived reality, the speaker
perceived only the three sisters, the room and herself.
Everything else was null and void. The speaker perceives
her reality changing around her as the three sisters named
the universe, this world and the four worlds into existence.
The speaker's new perceived reality now includes the
universe, this world, and the four worlds below, as well as
the three sisters, the room and herself. Her perceptions
have expanded and as a result, her awareness has expanded.
In the overall speaker's reality, as she is telling the
audience in this world what is happening, she is perceiving
herself, the universe, this world, the four worlds below and
the audience.
The difference between Diagram G and H is that the four
worlds below are not directly perceived in the speaker's
reality. The speaker is aware of the four worlds below only
because she witnessed, loosely speaking, the act of naming
the four worlds into existence by the three sisters. The
four worlds are separated from the speaker's perceived
realities at the time they are created, but are still
connected because they were spawned from the same act of
naming by the three sisters. These connections are
represented by the spawning forks to the separate
unperceived realities of the four worlds below in Diagram H.
The four worlds below would not be part of the overall
speaker's reality as she is telling the audience what is
happening. In the speaker's reality, she is only perceiving
herself, the universe, this world and the audience.
But what if all this is in the speaker's mind? What if the
audience is none other than herself? She can still
entertain herself by telling herself what happened to her
perceived realities as she took a flight of fancy, similar
to what happened to Helen Keller when she discovered her
first word, water. Her perceived reality changed, but there
was always a constant, her self. Her self is changing, but
her self is always there. Diagram I reflects this by
placing the self outside of the first perceived realities
into another second perceived realities enclosing the first
perceived realities. The first perceived realities included
the three sisters and the room at first, and then later
expanded to include the universe, this world, and the four
worlds below after the three sisters named them. The
second perceived realities include the first perceived
realities as a whole plus the self. The self is represented
as old, changing and new by a connector to these
characteristics within the second perceived realities.
These second enclosing perceived realities are within in the
speaker's overall reality. As the speaker entertains
herself, she is perceiving the universe, this world and the
four worlds below.
The reason why I am using the present participle throughout
the paper is because of this last section of the poem:
"She is sitting in her room
thinking of a story now
I'm telling you the story
she is thinking"
It is possible that this creation story is still occurring
even now in the speaker's reality. In other words, an
endless cycle of thinking, naming, perceiving and telling
exists in the speaker's reality. Linear time as we know it,
becomes meaningless. Instead, time is when one focuses on
one perceived reality or another perceived reality within
the cycle.
In one perceived reality, Thought-Woman is naming the story
as she goes along. The two sisters are assisting Thought-
Woman with her story. In another perceived reality, the
speaker herself is perceiving and telling the audience the
story in this world which is being spawn. The universe,
this world, and the four worlds below are being spawned as
the story is playing out. This endless cycle is represented
in Diagram J.
The End.
Reference:
Silko, Leslie M. 1977. Ceremony. Pg. 1. New York: The
Viking Press.
