On Subjectivity Of The Subjunctive Mood

The subjunctive mood has been of great interest to linguists and grammarians. Up to these days quite a lot of scholars have approached the subjunctive mood from different perspectives. They have given explanations towards some phenomena related to definition, classification and verification of the subjunctive mood.With the development of cognitive researches on language, we find that the mental space theory can offer the possibilities for exploring the hidden cognitive mechanism involved in the interpretation of the subjunctive mood. The mental space theory has its complete networks, which function independently according to a set of uniform structural and dynamic principles. The basic operation comprised two spaces, one real and the other mental, and one projecting process.This thesis attempts to reanalyze the subjunctive mood in the light of the mental space theory and subjectivity. Through the analysis, the subjunctive mood can be regarded as a phenomenon that the speaker continuously constructs mental spaces while speaking, so that the speaker's perspective can be transferred into the mental space, thus the mental space is projected to the addressee or other participants of the communication. As for the use of be-subjunctives and were-subjunctives, the speaker actually sets up a new space which reflects the real space and which can be perceived by the addressee or the participants. Since the establishment of the mental spaces is closely connected with the subjective speaker, the examination of the subjectivity of the subjunctive mood is the ultimate concern of the present thesis. The subjective manifestation of the subjunctive mood is approached from a cognitive point of view.