  We present some general approach to emergent gauge theories and consider in
significant detail the emergent tensor field gravity case. In essence, an
arbitrary local theory of a symmetric two-tensor field $H_{\mu \nu}$ in
Minkowski spacetime is considered, in which the equations of motion are
required to be compatible with a nonlinear $\sigma $ model type length-fixing
constraint $H_{\mu \nu}^{2}=\pm M^{2}$ leading to spontaneous Lorentz
invariance violation, SLIV ($M$ is the proposed scale for SLIV). Allowing the
parameters in the Lagrangian to be adjusted so as to be consistent with this
constraint, the theory turns out to correspond to linearized general relativity
in the weak field approximation, while some of the massless tensor Goldstone
modes appearing through SLIV are naturally collected in the physical graviton.
The underlying diffeomophism invariance emerges as a necessary condition for
the tensor field $H_{\mu \nu}$ not to be superfluously restricted in degrees of
freedom, apart from the constraint due to which the true vacuum in the theory
is chosen by SLIV. The emergent theory appears essentially nonlinear, when
expressed in terms of the pure Goldstone tensor modes and contains a plethora
of new Lorentz and $CPT$ violating couplings. However, these couplings do not
lead to physical Lorentz violation once this tensor field gravity is properly
extended to conventional general relativity.
