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Style as a Choice of Style as a Choice of Blending PrinciplesBlending Principles

Joseph Goguen

Fox Harrell

UCSD

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A New Approach to StyleA New Approach to Style

• Hypothesis: style = blending principles• Developed for language, but ok for other media• Intended applications:

- Computational multimedia narrative

- User-interface design

- Gaming

- Maybe database queries & integration

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What is Style?What is Style?

Style is not just statistics!

Style is fundamental to meaning:

- not just way to present “content”

- not separate from “content”

- not surface, deep inside meaning

Probably cannot be fully formalized, but can be better understood by using formalization

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Levels of LanguageLevels of Language

• Discourse• Sentence• Phrase (including metaphor)• WordOur system treats differently for pragmatic

reasons, but distinction is not strict & not reified.

Indeed, model building is not reality discovery.

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Supporting TheoriesSupporting Theories

• Narrative

• Metaphor & Blending (from cognitive linguistics & cognitive semantics)

• Algebraic Semiotics & Structural Blending

• Algebraic semantics (CS theory of abstract data types)

• A bit of category theory

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Labov Narrative StructureLabov Narrative Structure• Narrative of personal experience, William Labov,

refined by Charlotte Linde: • Optional orientation (time, place, characters, etc.)

• Sequence of narrative clauses describe events

• Narrative presupposition says occur in same order as given

• Narrative clauses interwoven with evaluative material, provide interpretation, evaluation

• Optional closing: gives summary or moral

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Labov Structure in BNFLabov Structure in BNF

<Narr> ::= <Open> (<Cls> <Eval>*)* [<Coda>]

<Open> ::= ((<Abs> + <Ornt>) <Eval>*)*

• Can use to structure story generation• Complex narratives, flashbacks &c, still have Labov

segments• Can also use other format specifications

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Algebraic SemioticsAlgebraic Semiotics

• Semiotic spaces have sorts, constants, operations, axioms, constants, with partial ordering on each, and a primary sort

• Semiotic morphisms are partial mappings between semiotic spaces

• “Algebraic semiotics” is ‘brand name’: not aligned with contemporary semiotics, though influenced by Peirce & Saussure

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Algebraic SemioticsAlgebraic Semiotics

• Builds on algebraic semantics (as in abstract data type theory)

• Incorporates insights from cognitive linguistics and conceptual blending

• Algebraic definition of blending: lax colimit in order enriched category (3/2 colimit in 3/2 category)

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Simple Conceptual BlendingSimple Conceptual Blending

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Blending Optimality PrinciplesBlending Optimality Principles

•Integration: Scenario in blend is integrated scene

•Web: Tight connections of blend & inputs (e.g., event in input

construed as corresponding event in blend)

•Unpacking: Easy to reconstruct inputs & connections from blend

•Topology: Elements in blend should participate in same kinds of

relations as counterparts in input spaces

•Good Reasoning: Elements blend should have meaning.

•Metonymic Tightening: Relationships between elements from

same input space should be as close as possible in blend.

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Formal Optimality PrinciplesFormal Optimality Principles

• Commutativity

• Type Casting

• Axiom Preservation

• Operation Preservation

• Ordering Relation Preservation

(for priorities & subsorts)

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Houseboat BlendHouseboat Blend

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Boathouse Space Boathouse Space (one of 48 blends)(one of 48 blends)

For “resident/boat” to “live-in” “house,” type of “boat”must be cast from “Object” to “Person.”

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Conceptual Blending AlgorithmConceptual Blending Algorithm

• Three node types are (left to right): relation nodes, sort nodes, constant nodes.

• Vertical edges connect nodes from different input spaces.• Horizontal edges from relation nodes to sort nodes indicate the sorts that the

relation is defined on.• Horizontal edges from sort nodes to constant nodes indicate the sorts of

constants.

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Structural BlendingStructural Blending

• For generative media, need to handle structure, not just concepts about structure (e.g., syntax and discourse)

• “Templates” act as constructors (which are functions)

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Active Poetry SystemActive Poetry System

Griot is active (generative) poetry system.In interactive mode, selection takes user input.

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Every night she wakes covered with snow- queen or cherub sweat.Melaninated, soul thoughts taunted her as a teen.It was no laughing matterfor the white or original-lady,until she awakens and begins a privilege or pride day anew.

The Girl with Skin of Haints and SeraphsThe Girl with Skin of Haints and Seraphs - spaces programmed by Fox Harrell- spaces programmed by Fox Harrell

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(every night she wakes covered with snow-queen or cherub sweat)(melaninated, soul thoughts taunted her as a teen)(it was no laughing matter)(for the white or original-lady)(until she awakens and begins a privilege or pride day anew)

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the beginning was quiet and simple - save for the ignorance contradictionshe dropped from her momma as skin angels caused hate-making, love making wakeful moments shimmied with desirea spectral tone pervadedharp mathematics no longer concerned her when she was elderlypale-skinned young-lady thoughts taunted her as a teenthe young lady would prevailevil privilege spawns and devours evil smugness and she is filled with passionshe could cry

serious times were here they would call her charcoal-girl, dusky-girl!The tormented european felt pain and entitlement in her mind)

the spectral tone pervadedshe could cry

until she awakens and begins a hate love day anewuntil she awakens and begins a love hate day anew

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Disoptimality PrinciplesDisoptimality Principles

Neruda: “I am withered, impervious, like a swan of felt navigating a water of beginning and ashes.”

Rilke: “cheap winter hats of fate”

These violate at least three of the optimality principles and require casting to quite remote types

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Future WorkFuture Work

• Computational narrative (improvisational & interactive multimedia narrative)

• Richer media

• More blending principles (more specific)

• Gaming

• Use values in semiotic spaces for blending

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ConclusionsConclusions

• Reasonably comprehensive notion of style• But formalization is modeling & implementation tool,

not privileged as ‘real’• Limited sense of history can reside in domains• One sense of evolution is iterative refinement of

optimality principles• Not interested in autonomy: not a goal to explicitly

encode personal & social history (“GOFAI”)• Adequate for reductionist notions of style, but

recognizes situated nature of style