A Cognitive Study Of The Construction Of Counterfactuality In English Conditionals

Counterfactual thinking is a pervasive cognitive activity of human beings. The meaning of counterfactuality emerges during the process of our conceptualization of counterfactual thinking. In English, counterfactuality can be expressed by different kinds of linguistic expressions, among which English conditionals are the most typical one. For a long time, scholars of different fields, such as philosophy, psychology and artificial intelligence, have contributed to the study of conditionals that express counterfactuality from different perspectives. However, little is known of the mental representations and cognitive processes that underline the construction of counterfactuality. Moreover, the previous studies from the linguistic point of view mainly put their emphasis on the conditionals with grammatical markers like the backshifting of tense, but fail to give explanation of counterfactuality in conditionals without explicit grammatical markers (For example, If you are the President here, I’m Shakespeare.). Cognitive linguists such as Fauconnier reproduce the dynamic process of the construction of counterfactuality form the perspective of meaning construction, which introduces a different research perspective of giving reasonable and consistent explanation of why English conditionals can express counterfactuality. Based on their studies, this thesis focuses on the dynamic process of the construction of counterfactuality in English conditionals within the theoretical framework of Fauconnier’s Conceptual Blending Theory, and makes explanation of its pragmatic functions in context.This thesis argues that there are three types of counterfactuality in English conditionals. They are constructed respectively in the three conceptual domains---the social-physical domain, the epistemic domain and the speech-act domain. On the one hand, the counterfactuality in different domains determines the different verb forms in English conditionals. In the social-physical domain, where there are constraints on the temporal relationships of causally related events or states of affairs, those restrictions will be reflected in corresponding restrictions on sequence of tenses in conditionals describing those events or states of affairs. But in cases where no such relationship exists between the two contents, where the only conditional relationship is between the epistemic states or speech acts expressed by the two clauses, there is no restriction on the verb forms of the protasis and the apodosis.On the other hand, the constructing process and pragmatic functions are different in each domain. The construction of social-physical counterfactuality goes like this:the protasis prompts for an abstract counterfactual input space, in which at least one element such as agent or situation is against the known reality in social-physical world. The element and the negative stance in this input together with the frame in another input is projected to the blend, leading to the emergence of a new frame in the blend, thus counterfactuality is delivered by completion and elaboration of the blend. The pragmatic function of the social-physical counterfactuality in context is to express the speaker’s emotions such as advice, regret, shame, relief, gratitude, etc.In the epistemic domain, much inference from the context are drawn to construct the conceptual integration network of this type. During the process of construction, the negative stance of the false or contradictory premise together with the frame of the conclusion is projected into the blend, leading its counterfactual interpretation. The pragmatic function of the epistemic counterfactuality in context is to reflect the speaker’s belief, attitude and judgment. In the speech-act domain, the encyclopedic wrong of the content of the uttering speech act results in the counterfactual interpretation of the content of another clause. The pragmatic function of the speech-act counterfactuality in context is to show the speaker’s purpose of appealing feelings and emotions of the hearers.The research made in this thesis can not only enrich the theory of conceptual blending theory in cognitive linguistics but also be of reference value to students, teachers and language users in their learning, teaching and using English conditionals.