Mental Spaces in Grammar

Conditional constructions have long fascinated linguists, grammarians and philosophers. In this pioneering new study, Barbara Dancygier and Eve Sweetser offer a new descriptive framework for the study of conditionality, broadening the range of richly described conditional constructions. They explore theoretical issues such as the compositionality of constructional meaning, describing both the mental-space building processes underlying conditional thinking, and the form-meaning relationship involved in expressing conditionality. Using a broad range of attested English conditional constructions, the book examines inter-constructional relationships. Within the framework of Mental Spaces theory, shared parameters of meaning are shown to be relevant to conditional constructions generally, as well as to related temporal and causal constructions. This significant contribution to the field will be welcomed by a wide range of researchers in theoretical and cognitive linguistics.

• Expands on the current descriptive grammatical coverage of conditional constructions • Pushes forward Mental Spaces theory and theoretical issues of constructional compositionality • Based on attested data

1. Conditional constructions, mental spaces, and semantic compositionality; 2. Prediction, alternativity, and epistemic stance; 3. Tense, epistemic distance, and embedded spaces; 4. Future and present forms in conditional constructions; 5. Non-alternatives and alternatives: mental spaces in different domains; 6. Then and even if: mental space deixis and referential uniqueness; 7. Clause order and space-building: if, because, unless, and except if; 8. Uniqueness and negative stance: only if and if only; 9. Coordinate constructions and conditional meaning; 10. The Door-scraper in the Wild Wood: conditional constructions and frame-based space-building.