Mental spaces function as temporary containers for relevant information about a particular domain (Coulson 2001:21).

Mental spaces are local rather than global and are thus not describable in truth-conditional terms. This entails that the elements in a given mental space do not refer directly to entities in the outside world. It should become apparent at this point that mental space theory can easily account for fictive realities. In mental space terms we will say that the referent of a millionaire in Ursula wants to marry a millionaire, is not construed in a REALITY space, but rather in Ursulas WISH or DESIRE space. Consider now the following variations of that example: (1) a. Ursula dreamed she married a millionaire ( and cried when she woke up) b. Ursula thinks she married a millionaire ( but her husband is actually broke) c. Ursula hopes shell marry a millionaire ( but she never will) In the three cases above, just as in Fauconniers (1994) original example Ursula wants to marry a millionaire, the elements referred to are the same: the individual Ursula on the one hand, and the role a millionaire on the other. In (1a) the millionaire belongs to a DREAM mental space; in (1b) it inhabits Ursulas wishful thinking or BELIEF space; and in (1c) it is an element in a HOPE domain. In none of these cases is there a direct counterpart between the millionaire element in the DREAM, BELIEF, and HOPE spaces and a millionaire individual in some objective REALITY space. This notwithstanding, Ursula can still dream of a millionaire, be deluded enough to believe her spouse to be one, or hope to marry rich. As the figures below illustrate, only in (1b) does Ursula need to be married in actuality.

From a purely linguistic perspective, mental spaces have been defined as conceptual constituents, which may or may not be symbolized by a particular grammatical element or structure (Langacker 1997a: 10). Spaces are inhabited by elements, which represent conceptual entities. In spoken languages, elements in spaces are generally introduced or pointed to by either names (e.g. Ursula, UNESCO, Jane Smith) or by descriptions (e.g. a millionaire, that agency of the United Nations, or the plaintiff attorney that always puts her foot in it). Mental spaces themselves are either introduced by grammatical expressions or by means of pragmatic information projected onto the overt input. The former constitute the so-called space-builders. These represent overt 2

indicators that either open up new mental spaces or shift the focus to some existing ones.5 In oral languages, space-builders may take on a variety of grammatical forms, such as: i) subject-verb complexes (e.g. Ursula wants, Sally believes, The child thought); ii) prepositional phrases (e.g. in her dream, in cold climates, behind bars); iii) adverbials (e.g. perhaps, actually, theoretically); iv) conjunctions (e.g. if, when, because); and though never studied as such v) some morphemes such as evidential particles (e.g. -la in Haviland 1987, 1996). Metaphorically speaking, space-builders can be described as colored glasses that are put on the conceptualizers nose to motivate a given view of some situation or state of affairs. Mental spaces can then be understood as colored scenarios whose elements are all construed relative to particular color filters. Thus, an element that appears, say, blue in some mental space, can be red, green, or even colorless in another. Strictly speaking, this implies that conceptual elements have no fixed properties. Instead, they will always be interpreted vis--vis the conceived domain within which they are construed. Take now the following three examples from McCawley (analyzed in Lakoff 1996: 92), from Lakoff and Sweetsers foreword to Fauconnier (1994: x), and from Lakoff (1996: 94ff): (3) a. I dreamed that I was Brigitte Bardot and that I kissed me. [said by McCawley] b. If Woody Allen had been born twins, they would have been sorry for each other, but he wasnt and so hes only sorry for himself. c. If I were you, Id hate me. [vs. If I were you Id hate myself] In the famous Brigitte Bardot example in (6a), two mental spaces are set up, namely a REALITY space in which Jim McCawley is Jim McCawley, and a DREAM space in which that element in reality maps onto two different elements, i.e. Jim McCawley as Jim McCawley and Jim McCawley as Brigitte Bardot. The Jim McCawley element in actuality is a man with a male body and certain thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, who reports on a past dream event. In that dream, Jim McCawley maintains his body, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs when being kissed by Brigitte Bardot. At the same time, his consciousness is also in Bardots body, as Brigitte Bardots will and judgment has been replaced by his. Consider now example (6b). There, one individual in REALITY space, film director and actor Woody Allen, has two identical counterparts in another space, a COUNTERFACTUAL space in which he has been born twins. One referent splits into two, which results in a co-referential split into the singular he and the plural they, since the word twins is used here as a non-referential predicate nominal. The antecedent therefore has split reference. Example (6c) presents a similar case of a conceptual split self. The first person singular pronouns in the two instances of I and in me (or myself in its minimal pair) refer to different conceptual elements in different mental spaces. The first personal pronoun I refers to the utterer in the space of interaction, which by default can be assumed to be a REALITY space. Within this space, the speaker sets up an embedded COUNTERFACTUAL space in which the addresser takes the addressees identity. Both in the Id hate me and in the Id hate myself scenarios, the I refers to the speaker as the addressee, taking the addressees perspective. The referent of me and myself, however, are different despite the fact that they are both first person pronouns and should thus equally refer to the speaker. In the first version, the direct object me is not co-referential with its subject. It refers to the utterer as him or herself in the space of language production. When the direct object is myself, however, co-reference does occur. In that interpretation, the addresser, that is, the properties of the addressee, is presented as hating the addressee.

Since the scenes in these three examples are all non-veridical (none of them refer to an actual split individual), they serve to illustrate the human mental ability of construing elements in different domains and establishing mappings between them. At the same time, they also show the role of language in setting up these domains and connections, as well as its constrained flexibility.