In this pioneering new study, Barbara Dancygier and Eve Sweetser offer a new descriptive framework for the study of conditionality

Barbara Dancygier is Assistant Professor in the Department of English, University of British Columbia.

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.