Seeing clearly: Frame Semantic, Psycholinguistic, and Cross ...

CHAPTER 3. OTHER COGNITIVE APPROACHES 113
a past-time space set up by a phrase such as \Before I was married. . . " (which also
contrasts with the reference time).
Using the theory of mental spaces, we can say that a verb of perception sets up two
spaces in addition to the base space (B), a perceptual space (P) and a conceptual (belief/
interpretive/ judgemental) space (C). In the simplest sort of seeing (sense eye), all three
spaces are completely congruent; each object, property, and relation in base space has a
corresponding unique counterpart in each of the other spaces. Thus, the relation between
the entities in the base space, the percepts, and the concepts in the sentence Jan sees the
cat on the mat could be represented graphically as in Fig. 3.1:
C
M
B
C’
M’
Figure 3.1: Mental spaces for Jan sees the cat on the mat.
P
The circles represent the three mental spaces, and the lines connecting entities in
them can represent various kinds of relations between them, as mentioned above. Where
a correspondence exists between two entities, they will not only be connected by lines,
butalsobegiven the same name, using primes to distinguish among the members of the
correspondence. Thus, in Fig. 3.1, the cat, the mat and the on relation all exist in all three
spaces. In other words, besides the real cat really on the real mat, there is (in perceptual
space) a mental image of the cat (C') and the mat (M') and the former is \on" the latter,
and the seer correctly interprets the image, thus coming to believe that there are a cat and
a mat and that the relation on holds between them, i.e. she sets up corresponding entities
(C" and M") and relations in her conceptual space. The sentence says nothing per se about
the existence of the cat and the mat in the base space, but by asserting that they exist
in Jan's perceptual space, it triggers the transfer of the structure to both Jan's conceptual
space and also (normally) base space, by the \strategic principles" discussed in Fauconnier
(1985 [1994]:Ch. 3); i.e., the base space is the \parent" of the perceptual space and unless
there is some reason (from the context of the utterance) to do otherwise, the structure of
C’’
M’’
C