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.