Description: 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.
Brief description: Barbara Dancygier is Assistant Professor in the Department of English, University of British Columbia.
Review Quotes: "The book is welcome and long-awaited...[Mental Spaces in Grammar] gives a uniquely comprehensive account of the richness of the field and the cognitive dimensions that are involved. The authors (p. 27) describe the book as 'a tour of English conditional constructions' -- a promise that they live up to with flying colours."
-Peter Harder, University of Copenhagen, Functions of Language