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Abstract As an important part of the general cognitive mechanism, the bounded-unbounded opposition is one of the most fundamental conceptions in human cognition. According to the cognitive grammar, language competence is part of the general cognitive capabilities; therefore, the bounded-unbounded opposition in human consciousness is necessarily reflected in their language structures. The correlation between boundedness in things and that in action is, for example, visible in the English language, where an indefinite article of “a,” or “an,” is put in front of a nominalized verb to indicate a bounded action, while for an unbounded action no such article is needed whatsoever. In Chinese, the nature of action described by a verb can be changed from unbounded to bounded by inserting a numeral word one in front of the verb, as happens to a noun. In Japanese, likewise, an unbounded action is made bounded by the case particle of “マデ.” For instance, the sentence “本を読む/Read books” expresses the idea of an unbounded action, while in the sentence “5時まで本を読む/Read books till 5 o’clock” the action is understood as bounded; conversely, “マデ” must be used together with unbounded verbs, by which rule none of the following expressions can be accepted in Japanese: “*5時まで殺す/Kill someone till 5 o’clock,”, “*5時まで行く/Go till 5 o’clock”, “*5時まで結婚する/Wed till 5 o’clock ,”, “*5時まで死ぬ/Die till 5 o’clock”, simply because the verbs in all those sentences are bounded. On the other hand, predicates in マデニsentences are mostly of bounded nature. For instance, the verb “帰る/return ” in the sentence “十時までに帰る/Return by 10 o’clock” is typically bounded ; the verb “読む/read” in the sentence “来週までに三冊読む/Read three books by next week” becomes bounded because of the numeral phrase of “三冊/3 books”, though the verb is unbounded by itself — in other words, the sentence sounds naturally and comfortably acceptable because it has narrated an event that is complete, which makes it “free”, while expressions like “*来週までに読む/Read by next week（○来週までに読むことは無理だ/the correct expression ought to be: It is impossible to read by next week)” are “bound” (or dependent) because they are structurally incomplete. It is exactly like the situation in Chinese, where a structure can be bounded by the use of a numeral word. As an extension of the rule, the durative aspect in “シテイル” sentences requires a “マデ” case in deep structure, as “シテイル” is normally unbounded, while the perfective aspect in “スル?シタ” sentences requires a “マデニ” case as they are usually bounded. The requirement is conditional, because durative aspect is by no means the only expression of unboundedness, which can also be indicated by the non-durative aspect of other unbounded expressions, such as verbs and phrases that are for unbounded actions and go with マデ. Violations of such rules cause errors in language use, which can be corrected by either adjusting the boundedness of predicates or switching between “マデ” and “マデニ”.
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