Mental Spaces in Grammar: Conditional Constructions

ISBN-13: 9780521844680 / Angielski / Twarda / 2005 / 316 str.

Barbara Dancygier; Eve Sweetser

Opis

Conditional constructions have long fascinated linguists, grammarians and philosophers. Eve Sweetser and Barbara Dancygier offer a new descriptive framework by broadening the range of study. Using a gamut of English conditional constructions, they explore 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.

Recenzje

'… a thorough and challenging analysis of conditional constructions in English. … a genuinely new approach … Mental Spaces in Grammar: Conditional Constructions is an excellent and intriguing study …' William Van Belle and Ingrid Van Canegem-Ardijns, University of Leuven

Spis treści

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; References; Indexes.