A grammatical construction (1) specialised for prompting for conceptual integration studied in detail by Mark Turner. Some examples of this construction include the following:

1. Money is the root of all evil
2. Vanity is the quicksand of beauty
3. Necessity is the mother of invention
4. Death is the mother of beauty
5. Children are the riches of poor men These examples all share a form first noted by Aristotle in the Poetics. The form consists of three elements, x, y and z. These are all noun phrases. Two of the elements, y and z, form a possessive construction (bracketed) connected by the preposition 'of'. The purpose of the construction is to propose a particular perspective according to which x should be viewed, as indicated below:
6. Children are ( the riches of poor men) x y z In (6), we are asked to view children as the riches of poor men, which results in a number of positive inferences relating to the 'value' of children. In addition to the elements x, y and z, the construction prompts for a fourth element, w. In order to understand children (x) in terms of riches (y) we are prompted to construct a conceptual relation between children (x) and poor men (z) and a parallel relation holding between riches (y) and those who possess riches, namely rich men.

This is the missing element (w), which is a necessary component to the interpretation of this construction: in the absence of a y–w (riches–rich men) relationship parallel to the x–z (children–poor men) relationship, there is no basis for viewing children (x) and riches (y) as counterparts. This idea is illustrated in (7).

1. (a) children ↔poor men x z (b) riches ↔rich men y w According to blending theory, 'children/poor men' and 'riches/rich men' each inhabit distinct input spaces. The XYZ construction prompts for conceptual integration which serves to give rise to the analogy in terms of which children are conceptualised in terms of the riches of poor men. This is the emergent structure.