Reasoning, Mappings, and Meta-metaphorical Conditionals

Abstract Charles Fillmore’s work on conditional constructions (1986; 1990a; 1990b) has laid out ways in which verb forms and other aspects of conditional structure are mapped onto different aspects of conditional semantics and pragmatics. In some of my own work (Sweetser, 1990) I have examined aspects of conditional interpretation, and even (Sweetser, forthcoming) attempted to build on Fillmore’s analysis, and to find added compositionality in the relationship between the forms and meanings of the varied manifestations of conditionals in English. This particular paper is about a class of conditionals which has not to my knowledge been considered in the literature, and which affords a unique glimpse of the power of conditionals in building cognitive structures. In particular, I shall argue that examples like (1-4) provide interesting evidence that metaphorical statements share crucial properties of reasoning structure with literal statements.