A mental space is a medium for conceptualization and thought. Thus any fixed or ongoing state of affairs as we conceptualize it is represented by a mental space. Examples include: - our immediate reality, as understood - fictional situations, situations in paintings, movies, etc. - past or future situations, as understood - hypothetical situations - abstract domains, e.g., conceptual domains (e.g., subject matters such as economics, politics, physics), mathematical domains, etc. Mental spaces have the following basic properties: - Spaces may contain mental entities. - Spaces may be structured by cognitive models. - Spaces may e related to other spaces by what Fauconnier calls “connectors.” - An entity in one space may be related to entities in other spaces by connectors. - Spaces are extendable, in that additional entities and ICMs may be added to them in the course of cognitive processing. - ICMs may introduce spaces. [...] Fauconnier hypothesizes that the following strategies are used in cognitive processing involving mental spaces: - Avoid contradictions within a space. - Maximize common background assumptions across adjacent spaces. - Foregrounded elements introduced into a space become backgrounded in future spaces.
- Lakoff (1987), a pag.281

Spaces are like situations in situation semantics in that they are partial; they do not require that everything in the world be represented. The major difference is that mental spaces are conceptual in nature. They have no ontological status outside of the mind, and hence have no role in objectivist semantics.[...] It is therefore not the kind of thing that could function within a theory of meaning based on the relationship between symbols and things in the world.
- Lakoff (1987), a pag.282