Mental Spaces In If-Conditional Constructions

Human reasoning about conditional statements has been the subject of a great deal of interest in philosophy, linguistics and psychology. Cognitive linguistics holds that there is a close relation between grammar and cognition: many grammatical principles are actually projected from the rules in reality through human beings cognition. Conditional constructions are a perfect sample to exemplify the extent to which human cognitive access is different from the kinds of cognition involved in standard logic semantic and pragmatic models.English conditional constructions provide an exceptional laboratory of interrelated constructions, of varying degrees of compositionality, and inheriting varying aspects of conventional form-meaning mappings from each other. The if-conditional construction is no exception in that it is the mapping of the human cognition and construal of conditional relations between events and states of affairs of the real world unto language.Unlike logicians, linguists approach conditionals from the perspective of how human beings document meanings carried by linguistic conversations and furthermore, the working of mental spaces for the processing of conditionals.Fauconnier (1994) defines mental spaces as domains of 'backstage cognition', abstract mental constructs that are generally set up on the basis of general scenarios. Mental spaces are constructed and modified as thought and discourse unfolds and are connected to each other by various kinds of mappings, in particular identity and analogy mappings. According to Fauconnier, meaning construction involves two processes: (a) the building of mental spaces; and the establishment of mappings between those mental spaces. Conditionals of even the most standard form are capable of setting up a varied array of mental spaces, carrying out a broad range of communicative function. General mental-space-building strategies are constantly involved in the interpretation of conditionals. Conditional spaces are used not only to plan future actions, but for a range of the other purposes limited only by speaker's and the hearer's useful inferences from one space to another. If as a "space-builder" sets up or evokes a mental space, with respect to which the main clause is understood. A conditional can thus set up, elaborate and negotiate possibilities and construe something. In those conditionals speech-act structure, epistemic structure, metalinguistic structure privileged domains, in that they automatically and implicitly available for access in processing utterance, including conditional utterances.Within the framework of Mental Space Theory, shared parameters of meaning are shown to be relevant to conditional constructions. Parameters such as prediction and alternativity are available as part of the apparatus in constructing the interpretation of a conditional. Additionally clause order of if-construction in all types also reflects specific mental space set-ups as well as the compositional contribution.I would claim that this study will explore various meanings of if-conditional constructions by a new way. However the general observation that if-conditional constructions set up structure is only the beginning of an account of conditionality. Based on the foregoing statement if-constructions appear to be compositional in their interpretation. Though it offers a new, unified insight into the relationship between conditionality, mental spaces and grammar, the question remains whether a satisfactory semantic theory for the problematic linguistic phenomena.