I think to understand what emergent gameplay is, it will be helpful to consider emergent behaviors in other systems.
The classic example is nest building ants. You have 1000s of agents carrying out simple behaviors (foraging, carrying, depositing) without any overall plan, or understanding of how their actions is contributing to the whole. Yet from the simple interactions you get an emergent nest building behavior. Think also, flocking birds, and the behavior of human crowds.
So an example of this in a game would be the economy in EVE. This is a fundamental part of the game, established by the interactions of 1000s of players, which hasn't been 'planned' by the game designers.
The opposite would be a typical mmo boss mob encounter, where the ability of the mob and the players is strictly defined by the game creators, who have planned the correct way to win from the start.
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