On Conditionals

ON CONDITIONALS

On Conditionals provides the first major cross-disciplinary account of conditional (if-then) constructions. Conditional sentences directly reflect the language user's ability to reason about alternatives, uncertainties and unrealized contingencies. An understanding of the conceptual and behavioural organization involved in the construction and interpretation of these kinds of sentences therefore provides fundamental insights into the inferential strategies and the cognitive and linguistic processes of human beings. Nevertheless, conditionals have not been studied in depth until recently, and current research has tended to be compartmentalized within particular disciplines. The present volume brings together studies from several perspectives: (i) philosophical, focusing on abstract formal systems, interpretations based on truth or information conditions and precise notions of inference and entailment; (ii) psychological, focusing on evidence about how people not trained in formal logic use and interpret conditionals in language and everyday reasoning, whether in natural or experimental situations; and (iii) linguistic, focusing on the universals of language that partly constrain the way we reason, and on the relations to other linguistic domains revealed by acquisition and historical change. Readers of On Conditionals - whether their backgrounds are in cognitive science, philosophy of language, linguistics, or indeed artificial intelligence - will find in the book an original and salutary emphasis on the intrinsic connections between the issues that are addressed. The volume points to exciting new directions for interdisciplinary work on the way in which we use form, meaning, interpretation and action in reasoning and in learning from experience.

ON CONDITIONALS EDITED BY

Elizabeth Closs Traugott Alice ter Meulen Judy Snitzer Reilly Charles A. Ferguson

The right of the University of Cambridge to print and sell all manner of books was granted by Henry Vlll in 1534. The University has printed and published continuously since 1584.

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge London New York New Rochelle Melbourne Sydney

CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, Sao Paulo, Delhi Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521113274 © Cambridge University Press 1986 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 1986 This digitally printed version 2009 A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication data On Conditionals. "Present volume arose out of a Symposium on Conditionals and Cognitive Processes, which was held at Stanford University in December 1983" - Pref. Includes indexes. 1. Grammar, Comparative and general - ConditionalsCongresses. I. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. II. Symposium on Conditionals and Cognitive Processes (1983: Stanford University) P292.5.05 1986 415 86 9529 ISBN 978-0-521-30644-7 hardback ISBN 978-0-521-11327-4 paperback

CONTENTS

Contributors Preface Acknowledgments

vii ix xi

PARTI: GENERAL STUDIES 1 OVERVIEW Charles A. Ferguson, Judy Snitzer Reilly, Alice ter Meulen, and Elizabeth Closs Traugott 2 CONDITIONALS AND CONDITIONAL INFORMATION Jon Barwise

3 21

3 CONDITIONALS AND MENTAL MODELS

P. N. Johnson-Laird 4 CONDITIONALS: A TYPOLOGY Bernard Comrie

55 77

PARTII: PARTICULAR STUDIES 5 ON THE INTERPRETATION OF 'DONKEY' -SENTENCES Tanya Reinhart

103

6 GENERIC INFORMATION, CONDITIONAL CONTEXTS AND CONSTRAINTS Alice ter Meulen

123

7 DATA SEMANTICS AND THE PRAGMATICS OF INDICATIVE CONDITIONALS Frank Veltman

147

8 REMARKS ON THE SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS OF CONDITIONALS Ernest W. Adams

i6g

Contents 9 THE USE OF CONDITIONALS IN INDUCEMENTS AND DETERRENTS Samuel Fillenbaum

179

10 CONDITIONALS AND SPEECH ACTS Johan Van der Auwera

197

11 CONSTRAINTS ON THE FORM AND MEANING OF THE PROTASIS John Haiman

215

12 CONDITIONALS, CONCESSIVE CONDITIONALS AND CONCESSIVES: AREAS OF CONTRAST, OVERLAP AND NEUTRALIZATION Ekkehard Konig

229

13 THE REALIS-IRREALIS CONTINUUM IN THE CLASSICAL GREEK CONDITIONAL Joseph H. Greenberg

247

14 THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SI-CLAUSES IN ROMANCE Martin B. Harris

265

15 FIRST STEPS IN ACQUIRING CONDITIONALS Melissa Bowerman

285

16 THE ACQUISITION OF TEMPORALS AND CONDITIONALS Judy Snitzer Reilly

309

17 CONDITIONALS ARE DISCOURSE-BOUND Noriko Akatsuka

333

18 CONDITIONALS IN DISCOURSE! A TEXT-BASED STUDY FROM ENGLISH Cecilia E. Ford and Sandra A. Thompson

353

Index of names Index of languages Index of subjects

373 377 379

VI

CONTRIBUTORS

Ernest W. Adams Department of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley Noriko Akatsuka Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California at Los Angeles Jon Barwise Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University Melissa Bowerman Max-Planck-Institut fur Psycholinguistik, Nijmegen Bernard Comrie Department of Linguistics, University of Southern California Charles A. Ferguson Department of Linguistics, Stanford University Samuel Fillenbaum Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina Cecilia E. Ford Applied Linguistics Program, University of California at Los Angeles Joseph H. Greenberg Department of Linguistics, Stanford University John Haiman Department of Anthropology, University of Manitoba Martin B. Harris Department of Modern Languages, University of Salford P. N. Johnson-Laird MRC Applied Psychology Unit, Cambridge Ekkehard Konig Seminar fur Englische Philologie, Universitat Hannover Judy Snitzer Reilly Salk Institute for Biological Studies, California Tanya Reinhart Department of Poetics and Comparative Literature, Tel Aviv University Alice ter Meulen Department of Linguistics, University of Washington Sandra A. Thompson Department of Linguistics, University of California at Santa Barbara Elizabeth Closs Traugott Departments of Linguistics and English, Stanford University Johan Van der Auwera Department of Linguistics, University of Antwerp Frank Veltman Centrale Interfaculteit, University of Amsterdam

vn

PREFACE

Conditional (if-then) sentences have long been of central concern in the study of reasoning. Because modern academic practice has compartmentalized three distinct disciplines: linguistics, psychology and philosophy, a tremendous variety of different questions and angles of approach have developed, often independently, and without a common focus. The purposes of this book are: (i) to emphasize the intrinsic connections between the issues that have been addressed within the three disciplines; (ii) to show that all share similar concerns with how human beings use conditional constructions in their language to reason and to communicate their thoughts; and (iii) to point to new directions and potential areas of cross-fertilization for future studies. The papers are arranged as follows. Part I presents a broad survey of conditionals, the ways in which they are used to reason, and the ways in which they are structured in language (the overview by the editors, and papers by Barwise, Johnson-Laird, and Comrie from the points of view of philosophy, psychology, and linguistics, respectively). Part II presents approaches to particular aspects of conditionals, starting with papers in the tradition of philosophy and formal syntax and semantics that show how the study of conditionals can lead to the refinement of syntactic and semantic theories (Reinhart, ter Meulen, and Veltman). It moves on to papers that focus on the intentions of speakers in using and understanding conditionals from the different perspectives of philosophy, linguistics and psychology (Adams, Van der Auwera, and Fillenbaum). These are followed by detailed linguistic studies of the interaction of conditionals with other categories of grammar: conjunctive and disjunctive coordinators (Haiman), concessives (Haiman and Konig), modals (Greenberg), tense and aspect (Harris). Three case studies focus on the development of conditional constructions in history (Harris) and in language acquisition (Bowerman, Reilly). The final papers focus on the pragmatics of conditionals used in constructed dialogues (Akatsuka) and in actual expository monologic texts (Ford and Thompson). Each of the papers in Part II is preceded by a brief introductory editorial paragraph pointing to connections with other papers in Part II. Since different terminologies are used in the different traditions and are not always exactly translatable from one tradition to another, no attempt has been made to impose one set of terminology throughout the volume; cross-references in the index should aid the reader in identifying partial equivalences. ix

Preface The present volume arose out of a Symposium on Conditionals and Cognitive Processes, which was held at Stanford University in December 1983. A preparatory workshop in May 1982, summarized in a working paper by Traugott and Ferguson entitled Toward a checklist for conditionals', laid the groundwork for this Symposium. Most of the contributions were extensively rewritten; some were conceived only during the Symposium. We have included widely different perspectives on conditionals, which despite differences in approach and in terminology nevertheless often address the same or very similar data and phenomena, in the hope that it will inspire genuinely interdisciplinary research with an improved understanding of the current state of the art in the various disciplines.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We gratefully acknowledge the support of a number of organizations. Funding for the Symposium on Conditionals and Cognitive Processes that was the inspiration for this book was provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF Grant BNS-8309784) and by the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University. Elizabeth Traugott's research on conditionals was largely conducted during 1983-4 while she was a Guggenheim Fellow and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (supported in part by NSF Grant BNS 76-22943). Special thanks are due to Randa Mulford for her expert help in editing and preparing the indexes, and to Penny Carter for her assistance in bringing the volume to fruition.

XI

PART I

GENERAL STUDIES

1 OVERVIEW • Charles A. Ferguson, Judy Snitzer Reilly, Alice ter Meulen, Elizabeth Closs Traugott If the organism carries a 'small-scale model1 of external reality and of its own possible actions within its head, it is able to try out various alternatives, conclude which is the best of them, react to future situations before they arise, utilize the knowledge of past events in dealing with the present and the future, and in every way to react in a much fuller, safer, and more competent manner to the emergencies which face it. (Craik 1943:61) 1. I N T R O D U C T I O N

Conditional (if-then) constructions directly reflect the characteristically human ability to reason about alternative situations, to make inferences based on incomplete information, to imagine possible correlations between situations, and to understand how the world would change if certain correlations were different. Understanding the conceptual and behavioural organization of this ability to construct and interpret conditionals provides basic insights into the cognitive processes, linguistic competence, and inferential strategies of human beings. The question of what a conditional construction is may be answered in many different ways, and from many different perspectives. The linguistic characterization of conditionals in different languages provides the basis for linguistic universals, which presumably at least in part constrain the way we reason. The diachronic point of view provides knowledge of the possible adaptations that a system of conditionals may undergo, and may detect dependencies on developments in other linguistic domains. Studies of language acquisition provide additional perspectives on a linguistic system, offering not only developmental data but also insights into the basic components and relationships of the adult system. Cognitive psychology presents us with empirical evidence about how people not trained in formal logic use and interpret conditionals in natural language and everyday reasoning. Philosophical logic and philosophy of language both design abstract formal systems of conditionals with interpretations based on truth conditions or information conditions, defining a precise notion of inference or entailment. The linguistic, psychological and philosophical traditions outlined here have been, and will continue to be, developed relatively independently of each other.

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This is inevitable, and even to some extent to be desired. They not only have somewhat different goals, but they use different methods and different types of data, ranging from introspection to text analysis to experimentation. It would be impossible completely to synthesize all the traditions into one research programme. On the other hand, an improved understanding of these various perspectives, their results and their limitations, is essential to the future development of a more genuinely interdisciplinary approach to conditionals in cognitive science. The present volume is the first major attempt at combining the different perspectives and research traditions. This overview is intended to provide a guideline to the papers in the book, giving some further background to the various issues addressed in the papers, and setting the main results in a larger context. It also suggests some possible new lines of research. 2. LINGUISTIC TRADITIONS Linguistic traditions assume that there is some principled correlation between the psychological and semantic properties of conditionals on the one hand and their form on the other. Although there may not be a strict one-to-one relation between meaning and form, the relationship is nevertheless far from arbitrary, and reflects a finite range of conceptual correlates. Insight into the mental representation of conditionals is expected from research on such questions as whether a language has a prototypical conditional construction, what other constructions can be used as conditionals, and what other semantic functions can be expressed by conditionals. Some discussion of conditionals can be found in virtually all descriptive grammars of languages. However, linguists working in the generative tradition have until recently paid surprisingly little attention to conditionals. This may be in part because conditionals interact so extensively with other domains (e.g. causals, temporals, modals) that they pose enormous difficulties for analysis; but it is perhaps largely due to the fact that their syntactic properties tend to be less interesting than their semantic ones, and semantic theory has only within the last decade caught up with advances in syntactic theory. Most recent linguistic work has been either from the perspective of detailed descriptive studies of certain aspects of conditionals in particular languages, or from the broad perspective of universals. In addition, some work has also been done on diachronic aspects of conditionals. We discuss these approaches in turn. 2.1 Descriptive studies The central task of linguistic description is the analysis and presentation of aspects of the grammatical structure of a particular language or language variety, used

Overview by a given speech community located in space and time. Several thousand such grammars or grammatical sketches have been produced, based on different theoretical models and intended for different purposes. Since all natural languages are assumed to have some kind of conditional sentences, any full-scale grammatical description is likely to include an account of conditional constructions, although some models of grammar do not make provision for them and some methods of collecting language data tend not to result in grammars that refer to conditionals. Every human language, it may be assumed, has some way of forming conditional sentences, in which the speaker supposes that such-and-such is (was, might be, had been . . . ) so - the //-clause or 'protasis', also called the 'antecedent' - and concludes that such-and-such is (was, would have been . . . ) so - the then-clause or 'apodosis', also called the 'consequent'. Likewise, every account of human reasoning, every system of logic, has as a key notion an if-then relation between propositions: if p, then q. Yet neither the essential semantics nor the range of possible variation in the form of conditional constructions has been adequately established. The prime purpose of the descriptive linguistic approach is to determine the range of forms and their meanings within and across languages. Such studies show that the ways of expressing conditionals may differ substantially from English if-then markers. Furthermore, they show that people in different societies or different communities within the same society may have different experiences with conditionals and different uses for them (see, for example, Lavandera 1975). It has been argued that preliterate societies do not use overt syllogistic reasoning (Ong 1982: ch. 111). It in no way follows from this that preliterate languages have no conditionals. On the contrary, they clearly do (see much of the data in Haiman's chapter in this volume), but they may be used in other ways and in other contexts. Despite the wealth of descriptive studies, the question of what constitutes a conditional construction in a given language has as yet no adequate theoretical answer. Since material implication has a long history and is the most workedover and best-known logical relation between propositions that corresponds to the conditional sentences of natural languages, linguists are often tempted to use it as the defining basis for conditionals. This is widely recognized as less than satisfactory, in the first instance because users of natural languages tend to reject the validity of false antecedent implying true consequent and often assume some kind of causal connection between the propositions (Geis and Zwicky 1971). Further, the use of material implication for linguistic definition in no way helps to explain the syntactic and etymological ties between conditionals and wish clauses, temporal and causal clauses, imperatives, and so forth. These difficulties have been repeatedly discussed by both philosophers and linguists. Comrie (this volume) accepts the defining role of material implication as a matter of convenience, although acknowledging the familiar objections. Others, such as Smith (1983), preserve the defining value by shifting the

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problems to pragmatics and by modifying the usual meaning of material implication. At the present stage of research it seems likely that if conditionals are in some sense a natural class of linguistic phenomena, the formulation of a universally valid definition will be aided by the accumulation of detailed descriptions of different languages. In practice descriptivists tend to identify conditionals first on the basis of clear semantic equivalence with if-then sentences in a well-known or welldescribed metalanguage, then by the morphological, syntactic, and lexical markers (or 'diacritics') of such sentences, and finally by extension to (a) sentences with such markers that do not agree semantically with conditionals in the metalanguage, and (b) sentences that agree semantically but lack such markers. A language may have one favoured or 'prototype' conditional construction; it may have a small set of such constructions; or it may have no such clear-cut marking of conditionals. Also, the prototypical construction(s) may vary in degrees of use. Thus English if and Latin si unambiguously mark most conditional sentences in those languages, and it is usually possible to use them to paraphrase other sentences generally regarded semantically as conditional sentences. By contrast, conditional sentences in (Classical) Arabic are mostly marked by one of two markers, in 'if (noncounterfactual) or law 'if (counterfactual). In Bengali the two prototypical constructions are with/od/ 'if and with a conditional, nonfinite verb form -/e, the two being generally equivalent semantically but appropriate under different pragmatic conditions. Hua has an unambiguous hypothetical 'if marker, the compound conjunctive suffix -mamo, but many sentences that can be interpreted conditionally do not contain it. Finally, Chinese has no clear prototype conditional construction: although there are some particles translatable as 'if, most conditional sentences are in principle ambiguous and are interpreted as conditional only from the context. Conditional markers are most commonly particles, clitics, or affixes, and these are most commonly placed in or next to the //"-clause. These 'diacritics' may be semantically opaque or in varying degrees transparent (e.g. Russian esli 'if is a form of 'be' plus the interrogative particle //, thus 'be it that . . . ' ) . In some languages the [/marker is related to or identical with 'when' or 'whenever' (see the chapters by ter Meulen and Reilly in this volume), or is closely related to markers of modality (Greenberg in this volume). Other markers also occur, however, most notably intonation and word order, as in the subjectverb inversion which is becoming rare in English but which is still very much alive in German. Many languages have special markers for negative conditionals, again varying from transparent (e.g. Latin nisi) to opaque (English unless). In many languages it will be necessary to describe constructions that specify different degrees of hypotheticality. Various terminological traditions exist: irrealis (unreal), hypothetical, potential, future less vivid, counterf actual, impossible, 'indicative', and 'subjunctive'. Languages vary from almost no dif-

Overview ferentiation, as in Chinese, to such elaborate systems as that of Classical Greek. The distinction may be made by different markers for the protasis, as in the two Arabic words already cited, by a special apodosis marker (e.g. Greek an marking counterfactuals), or by special patterns of tense/aspect forms (e.g. the habitual, noncontinuous Bengali past in -t- when used in a conditional sentence has exclusively counterfactual meaning; see also Harris's discussion of Romance in this volume). In some languages the conditional sentences in which the protasis has the meaning 'whenever' fit formally into the system of hypotheticality as the 'generic' conditional, but in other languages, such as Bengali, 'whenever' may be totally outside the system of conditional sentences, having a syntax parallel to temporal clauses, but not allowing the use of'if. In languages where conditional sentences have been well-described, it is invariably found that some sentences with the formal markers of conditionality are semantically and pragmatically only marginally conditional or not conditional at all. For example, the following political advertisement for a newspaper columnist called Herb Caen: Herb Caen for President. If he doesn't save the country, hell certainly save your day depends on the possible interpretation of /fas the concessive 'although'. In this volume Van der Auwera and Konig address the relation of conditionals to concessives. Another example of the use of a conditional form for nonconditional purposes is provided by such phrases as If you please, which has a wide range of uses, many of them not obviously conditional. To understand the full range of meanings to which conditional forms can be put requires work not only on sentences out of context but also on conditional structures in actual continuous texts, whether spoken or written, monologic or dialogic. One such study is provided in Ford and Thompson's paper (this volume) on expository monologic texts. Here conditional sentences are not used to express material implication, and only rarely to open up new possibilities. Rather, they are used to repeat earlier claims, introduce particular cases illustrating preceding generalizations, establish contrasts with what precedes (see also Akatsuka in this volume), or, when the protasis is in second position, to introduce afterthoughts. The use of conditionals to mark the step-by-step, 'chunked', development of the exposition can also be found in rather different contexts. Marchese (1984) shows that conditionals are used in Godie, a West African Kru language, to mark units in the 'procedural genre' (directions for carrying out a task such as planting rice). She suggests that they mark places where the 'teacher' implies that the 'student' should check whether the appropriate stage in the procedure has actually been understood. To this extent the conditional protasis coheres with other devices for developing information flow, including topic development. In Ford and Thompson's spoken texts, conditionals are also used to form

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polite requests. Presumably, the modality of the conditional allows the speaker to appear less dogmatic or intrusive than would be the case if a nonconditional form were used - hence such formulaic introductions as / thought it might be useful if you knew about yesterday's meeting (note the additional distancing effect of the past tense). An investigation of the extent to which other logical relations such as and, or, and because are used in similar ways in such formulae would add significantly to our understanding of precisely which properties of //"are being selected as politeness markers: irrealis, the use of nonpresent tenses, or even syntactic subordination. Politeness formulae with conditional forms typically involve second person subjects in protases. This ties in with work by Inoue (1983) on the use in Japanese of cleft conditional constructions (those with -(no) nara (ba)- 'if it is that') to convey a sense of uncertainty (hence politeness in some cases, but also impoliteness and scepticism in others) about a situation which the speaker cannot really know or experience, e.g. someone else's (typically the addressee's) emotional or physical feelings. It is striking in this connection that the experiments reported in this volume by Fillenbaum on conditionals used as threats and promises involve exclusively sentences with second person subjects. When Adams reminds us that the reasons may be quite different for saying If you eat the mushroom you will be poisoned and If I eat the mushroom I will be poisoned, although they express basically the same proposition, it is presumably not irrelevant that the formal difference lies in the subjects of the protasis and apodosis. A better understanding of the uses to which conditionals may be put would seem to depend on the development of a theory concerning the interaction of conditionals with first versus second versus third person subjects. Interactions between conditional protases and the person of the subject suggest a further variable worth investigating: that of genre. Expository genres are likely to reveal rather different uses of conditionals from other genres, e.g. strategic planning sessions in which speakers suggest possibilities for people to act on, legal writs versus cross-examining of witnesses, etc. Until the evidence is in, it will be difficult to determine the constraints on possible contexts in which conditionals can be used. What does emerge, however, is that any adequate theory of conditionals must account for the fact that they express relationships between situations. Furthermore, it must be rich enough to motivate the various uses of conditional structures to describe not only relations between situations expressed in propositions but also situations between speakers. 2.2 Universalist studies Research traditions that hold much promise for deeper understanding of conditionals attempt to characterize universal properties of language. One tradition,

Overview often identified with 'universal grammar' and called the 'linguistic universals tradition', is associated with the work of Chomsky and generative grammar. It seeks to identify and predict properties of all languages, with focus on languages as fundamentally rational or computational systems, and on the question of what the mental representations of universal properties of language might be (Chomsky 1975). Most of the work on conditionals in this tradition has been carried out by psychologists and philosophers, and is discussed more fully in sections 3 and 4. Another tradition, often called the 'language universals tradition', is associated with the work of Greenberg, and seeks to identify linguistic generalizations that hold true in many, but not necessarily all, natural languages. The focus here is not so much on language as a rational system but on language as a system that is both rational (propositional) and communicative (functional). The language universals approach (represented in this volume especially in papers by Comrie and Haiman) depends on reliable, valid analyses of particular languages and comparable data from sizeable numbers of unrelated languages. It contributes directly to the characterization of the nature of human language and the range of possible variation among languages. It contributes further, and some might say even more significantly, when researchers examine the relationships between overlapping or conflicting generalizations or attempt to find explanatory principles that account for the generalizations. An early universalist claim about conditionals is Greenberg's Universal of Word Order 14: 'In conditional statements, the conditional clause precedes the conclusion as the normal order in all languages' (Greenberg 1963:66). This stood out among the universals of word order proposed, in that it was held to be valid no matter what the normal or 'basic' order of the simple, active, declarative sentence, e.g. Subject-Verb-Object, or Subject-Object-Verb. Greenberg attempted to explain this universal with reference to iconicity, or parallels between order of elements in language and order of elements in experience, including the order of reasoning. He noted also that logicians always symbolized the order implying-implied exactly as in spoken language. Lehmann (1974) examined this universal and its explanation. He found the universal empirically valid - in other words, he could find no counterexamples: whenever another order occurs it is non-normal or 'marked' in some way (e.g. the //"-clause is an afterthought). He found Greenberg's explanation adequate in so far as it invoked the order of reasoning, but inadequate in so far as it invoked physical experience, and proceeded to analyse the universal and its possible explanatory principles in a manner highly typical of the" universals research tradition. He used evidence from: (a) semantic concepts that figure etymologically or synchronically in //-markers, such as Romance si/se and Latin si(c) 'thus'; (b) syntactic and/or semantic parallels between conditional and other kinds of clauses, e.g. verb inversion in German conditional clauses and questions, or the presupposition of causality in counterfactual conditionals; and (c) homonymy or polysemy of conditional clauses, as in languages where

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the words for 'if and 'or' are homophones. On the basis of these investigations, Lehmann hypothesized a set of semantic constituents of conditionals, including volitional, disjunctive, temporal/locative, and causal elements. Finally, he offered an informal derivation of the Greenberg universal based on a communicative strategy whereby the speaker both engages the addressee in contemplating a potential disjunction and at the same time uses this potential disjunction as the ground for developing an argument. Lehmann attempted to characterize the field of conditionals as a whole. A different kind of approach is to focus on ways in which certain properties of conditionals intersect with properties of other systems.1 Various linguists have claimed, for example, that a protasis is, in some important sense, a kind of sentence topic, and also a kind of prototypical subordinate clause. A sentence topic (as distinguished from a discourse topic - see Brown and Yule 1983: 68-73) is accepted by many linguists as a grammatical unit characterized by certain syntactic, semantic, and often phonological or prosodic properties. When the claim is made that conditional clauses are topics (Haiman 1978) this means that these clauses share critical properties of topics in many languages. It is clear that not all topics are conditional clauses, and not all conditional clauses (at least in the sense of clauses with 'if) are topics, but to the extent that the two structures overlap, generalizations about topics are likely to hold also for conditionals. Thus a whole avenue leading to understanding about conditionals is opened up. Similarly, when the claim is made that the conditional clause is the subordinate clause par excellence, the universals approach would look for crosslinguistic evidence (e.g. the position of clause negation in Bengali discussed in Ferguson 1963). It would also explore the implications of this identification, for example in relation to types of conditional sentences that take the form of coordinated clauses. 2.3 Historical studies Historical studies of conditionals largely address the same questions as descriptive and universalist studies. The difference is primarily one of focus, which in this case is on sources and outcomes, in other words on the processes by which conditionals come to be expressed in new ways and by which they come to express other semantic functions. Questions of directionality and of stability of linguistic elements are central here. Historical linguistics assumes that combinations of linguistic properties that are now impossible and unattested have always been impossible and unattested. This principle, often termed the 'uniformitarian principle' (Weinreich, Labov and Herzog 1968) suggests that, at least for languages as far back as we can reconstruct (which is down to c. 5000 BC), conditional structures in language will have been somewhat similar. Descriptive studies of a wide range of languages are essential for determining what the extent of, and constraints on, possible structures might be. 10

Overview Syntactic questions concerning the development of conditionals range over a number of issues. One is how shifts from coordinate 'paratactic' structure to subordinate 'hypotactic' structure occur, and whether they involve any shift in semantic function - evidence from Modern English and other languages that allow for paratactic conditional structures suggests that they do not. Other questions, which often border more on semantic than syntactic issues, concern changes in the interaction between connectives such as if and tenses or moods. Harris's paper in this volume illustrates the complexities of such a study. Interactions with changes in tense and mood marking have led to radical changes in the details of the verb system of conditionals in the Romance languages. Yet the basic system has remained remarkably stable across several languages and over a thousand years of development. How far other language groups show the same kind of stability remains to be investigated; but, given the constraints on what conditionals are about, and the limited resources in language for expressing such relationships, it may be that the overall characteristics do remain fairly stable, at least when there is a prototypical conditional marker such as Romance si. Semantic questions concerning the development of conditional markers lead to the interesting result that these are derived from a very small set of nonconditionals. Some of the sources have been cited above in connection with Lehmann's study of the universals of conditionals. Traugott (1985) has independently suggested a similar set of main sources, specifically: (i) modals of possibility, doubt and wish, (ii) interrogatives, (iii) copulas, typically of the existential kind, (iv) topic markers and demonstratives and (v) temporals, usually of the nonpunctual type, i.e. usually durative or neutral between durative and punctual (like when). In hypothesizing how the change from modal etc. to conditional could come about, it is plausible to argue that in each case the source marked one of the constraints on the conditional relation. Conditionals raise possibilities on an irrealis continuum, hence the use of modals and interrogatives. Some conditionals presuppose the existence of the situation inp (see Greenberg's discussion of 'particular' conditionals in Greek). Conditionals also treat the situation in p as a constraint on, therefore a frame for, <7, hence the appropriateness of demonstratives and other topic markers as sources for conditionals. Such frames typically involve a temporal relationship, and so motivate the choice of temporals. We can then say that the diacritics used to signal conditionals originally index some characteristic of a conditional constraint and then come to lexicalize the fact that a conditional constraint is being posited. In this light, such conditional interpretations as are illustrated by the so-called 'factual' interpretation of If it's raining we won't go to the park (= Since it's raining/Because you say it's raining . . . ) appear historically to precede the more hypothetical interpretations. This may seem a surprising result for those who think of 'factual' conditionals as 'derived' in special circumstances of use. It should not, however, 11

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be so surprising for those who, like Akatsuka (this volume), see 'factual' conditionals as indeed not factual but on the border of an irrealis continuum. As such they convey epistemic modality and evidential doubt: 'It's possible because you say so, but I don't yet know for sure' - Akatsuka points out that someone who knows it is raining cannot appropriately say If it is raining we won't go to the parky only someone who genuinely has no knowledge or who has merely heard that it is raining (the 'factual' interpretation). What is the process, we may ask, that allows three of the sources, specifically types (iii)-(v), usually associated with existence, i.e. with realis situations, to become markers of irrealis, specifically of conditionals? The answer seems to lie in the fact that in the course of semantic change, meanings typically tend to become increasingly evaluative and in many cases increasingly 'speaker infused' (see Traugott forthcoming). This is true whether we are considering well-known changes like boor (< 'farmer', cf. German Bauer), where the later meaning is more evaluative, or less well-known ones like but (< Old English be-utan 'on the outside'), where the later meaning involves establishment by the speaker not only of textual cohesion but also of contrast. An especially good example is the shift of just in the sense of 'precisely' to a temporal meaning 'in the immediate future or past' (where time reference is based on speaker time), and then to a particle signalling negative evaluation roughly equivalent to 'merely'. In the case of the conditionals, the speaker injects implicatures of evidential doubt and surprise. The same kind of shift toward speaker-infusion in turn allows conditional markers to acquire concessive meanings and not vice versa (see Konig in this volume). Although concessives presuppose the factuality of /?, they inject an even more personal, in this case contrastive, meaning than is to be found in the conditional.

3. PSYCHOLOGICAL TRADITIONS While linguistic research on conditionals has focused predominantly on form and meaning, psychology originally viewed conditionals as a tool to investigate the nature of reasoning. More recently, however, conditionals have been perceived not solely as a tool but rather as intrinsic to the reasoning process itself. The earlier tradition stems from psychology's roots in philosophy; the present line of research is a result of the cognitive revolution in psychology, spurred on by Craik (1943), and psychology's concurrent crossdisciplinary interest in linguistics and language as a cognitive system. Psychological research on conditionals is distinguished from other traditions by its methodology and its objectives. Unlike its philosophical ancestor, psychological research avoids introspection and relies on empirically verifiable data, either experimental or naturalistic. Using data from logically naive speakers, psychologists have focused on the role of conditionals in everyday situations. 12

Overview In this section, we discuss some of the specific issues confronted by researchers in this tradition and review three approaches psychologists have pursued: conditional speech acts, the acquisition and development of conditionals in children and, finally, the role of conditionals in reasoning and thinking. The first area of psycholinguistic research draws on speech act theory as developed by Searle and the observation by Geis and Zwicky (1971) that some conditionals of the form X =) Y 'invite the inference' ~X ID ~Y. Most notable in this area is the work of Fillenbaum which is summarized in this volume. His contribution focuses on conditionals used as bribes, threats and promises and on their relationship to other linguistic structures with conditional meanings. Examples are: (1) If you open the door, I'll kill you, and (2) Open the door and Til kill you. Using experimental data, Fillenbaum has elucidated the complex interaction among speech acts, propositional content, conditional semantics and linguistic structures, demonstrating that a shift of any one of these variables may change the meaning or interpretation of an entire structure. The second approach to conditionals is that of developmental psycholinguistics, where researchers are concerned with the acquisition and use of conditional structures by children. In the early 1960s and 70s, much attention was focused on language acquisition as a result of Chomsky's claims about innate human capacities for language. Child language data were seen as a potential source for discovering the character of universal grammar. Specifically, acquisition data can provide information about possible prototypic structures (the basic components of a structure and the interaction between them), and about how linguistic form is mapped onto semantic function. Conditionals are particularly complex, both morphosyntactically and semantically, but acquisition data present a relatively clear view of individual elements that are difficult to tease apart in the more complex adult system. Therefore, in addition to specific data, developmental psycholinguistics offers another perspective on language and can serve as a testing ground for our hypotheses concerning adult language. Experimental studies investigating conditional comprehension have been conducted in several European languages on school-age children (for a review, see Reilly 1982), as have studies on the understanding of related structures, e.g. unless, when, because and although. Researchers have found that children understand sentences with assertive functions better than those signalling uncertainty or disbelief, implying that the notion of possibility or uncertainty is more difficult than assertion. Children, however, begin to produce if-then conditionals, where uncertainty is implicit, at about i\ years. This comprehensionproduction discrepancy forces us to investigate the nature of early conditional productions. Do these young children understand their own utterances as conditionals? Or do these early apparent conditionals have some other meaning? Drawing on acquisition data from Italian, English, Finnish, Turkish, and Polish, Bates (1976), Reilly (1982, this volume) and Bowerman (this volume) demonstrate that children are cognitively, linguistically and pragmatically capable 13

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of expressing the basic components of conditionals before the conditional marker actually appears. These acquisition data confirm the close semantic ties among conditional, temporal and causal sentences suggested by universalist and historical work in linguistics. Although research on conditional acquisition and related structures has made considerable strides in the past ten years, the vast majority of studies have used middle-class children of educated parents as their subjects. Often the children are the researcher's own. This has been a productive approach, but now there is a need to broaden the research base to children in non-technological cultures and from other socioeconomic strata. Before we assume the generality, even universality, of a development, especially with the later-emerging conditional types, and their complex morphology, we must determine the function and meaning of conditionals for children of other cultures and subcultures. The third area of psycholinguistic research reflects the strong historical influence of philosophy on psychology. Since philosophy has been traditionally concerned with the study of reasoning, it was only natural that psychological research on conditionals would appear in the context of conditional and syllogistic reasoning. Much discussion has focused on the relationship between the natural reasoning process of children and adults without formal training in logic, and the inference patterns considered valid according to principles of predicate calculus. One point of view, based on Piaget's research in cognitive development, holds that during the stage of formal operations (reached during adolescence), thought is characterized by the dissociation of form from content. A major achievement of the formal operational stage is that thought is governed by the principles of predicate logic (Inhelder and Piaget 1958). Experimental studies with both children and adults yield data which conflict with Piaget's premise by finding that subjects do in fact commit logical fallacies in deductive reasoning tasks. Henle (1962), however, proposed that these errors are not a result of faulty inferences, but rather stem from basic errors concerning the nature of the original premises and the subject's attitude toward the logical task itself. Subsequent studies (see Wason and Johnson-Laird 1972) have shown that varying individual aspects of the logical task change subjects' evaluation and/or reasoning performance. Some of the influential factors are: the content of the propositions, whether they are concrete or abstract, the relative realism of the situation in which the task is presented, and finally, the 'meaningfulness' of the relationship between the propositions and the conceptual presuppositions held by the subject (Fillenbaum 1975; Staudenmayer 1975). Complementary studies investigating the development of logical reasoning in children generally confirm the finding that children's interpretations of the conditional connective do not correlate with a truth-functional analysis, and that increased concreteness improves performance (see Reilly 1982). In summary, these studies all demonstrate the influential role that social or world knowledge plays in our reasoning processes, not only in the interpretation of the premises but also 14

Overview in our ability to evaluate inferences and conclusions. Far from being typical, as Piaget originally proposed, the dissociation of form and content in everyday reasoning is unusual and may be limited to those with training in one variety or another of formal logic. Once it was successfully demonstrated that natural reasoning processes and the principles of logical inference are non-isomorphic, several attempts were made to construct models of human deductive processes (e.g. Johnson-Laird 1975). These were often dependent on rules of formal inference (e.g. Braine 1978). Johnson-Laird's contribution to this volume departs from this tradition and begins to construct a theory of conditionals using Stalnaker's (1968) possible world semantics as a point of departure; his theory of mental models is further influenced by Craik's prescient hypothesis on the nature of thought quoted at the beginning of this chapter. In his chapter, Johnson-Laird demonstrates that specific conditionals are given different interpretations, and he argues that their logical properties derive from their interpretations. That is, he proposes that we form a mental model based on the situation in the antecedent clause and then interpret the consequent according to that mental model and general world knowledge. The next step is to find a means to test whether, in fact, this is how we reason with conditionals. 4. THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND LOGICAL TRADITION The third tradition to be discussed here is the philosophical-logical. The study of conditionals is as ancient as philosophy and logic themselves, and indeed, has been of central importance in the development of these fields. Aristotelian syllogistic logic analysed conditionals based on two antecedents as premises with quantificational connections between their terms, and various forms of consequences. Frege's fundamental insight, in which the tradition of modern logic is rooted, established the intrinsic connection between universal quantifiers and antecedents as restrictive terms, by analysing 'every A B' as 'for every thing if it is an A, then it is a B'. This conditional analysis of universal quantification led to the development of the most fruitful and general formal system, Predicate Logic, representing our reasoning in extensional contexts. The material implication interpretation of the conditional, assigning 'true' to a conditional with a false antecedent, was justified by denying that universally quantified sentences have existential presuppositions, i.e. admitting an empty set to be the interpretation of the antecedent A and adhering to bivalence. However, Frege himself stressed that the information conveyed by identity statements in natural language, such as his celebrated example The Morning Star is the Evening Star, could not be captured by this extensional analysis of equivalence of reference, but required an analysis of intensional contexts. This set the stage for a research programme that has come to be known as 'possible world semantics'. 15

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In the subsequent developments of logical systems, conditionals came to play a dual role: (i) at the level of the object-language as a sentential connective, and (2) at the level of metalanguage as a truth-preserving connection between a set of true assumptions and its conclusion, characterizing validity of inferences. The logical-syntactic questions concerning the use of conditionals in axiomatizations and rules of proof were, as a result, separated from the semantic questions concerning the possible interpretations of conditionals and their truth conditions, and the connection to its metatheoretic use in characterizing validity of inferences. Fundamental results were obtained showing the intrinsic connections between conditionals used in valid inferences in the formal system and conditionals used in the proofs admitted in that system. Even more important to logic were the Godel results demonstrating the inherent limitations of any formal system in representing its own reasoning, or in reflecting on its own use of conditionals. These results showed that: (1) some arithmetical systems contain a valid sentence which is not provable within any consistent axiomatization of that system; and (2) no consistent formal system can itself express that it is consistent. The tremors of these deep mathematical results are still felt today in all branches of logic and philosophy. However, mathematical practice proceeded to use conditionals without being hampered by its foundational limitative results, and people, as always, kept on expressing in natural language simple, if puzzling, self-reflective statements such as / am a liar, This sentence is false or Don't believe me (see Hofstadter 1979 for a popular exposition of self-reference). The paradoxical nature of these expressions is clearly brought out in conditionals: compare If I am a liar, then what I said is true, so Ym not a liar and / / / am not a liar, then what I said is false, so I am a liar. In search of an appropriate formalization of reasoning in intensional contexts, philosophical logic has developed a Pandora's box of alternative conditional logics, each claiming its virtues in giving a more adequate account of the meaning of conditionals and their use in reasoning (see Harper, Stalnaker and Pearce 1981). The motivation of these conditional logics is often derived from some particular usage of if-then in natural language. On the assumption that a natural language is translated more or less compositionally into a formal language, all universal quantifiers and if-then sentences are translated by means of the implication connective, which, it is commonly agreed, runs into problems if interpreted as true when the antecedent is false. Alternative interpretations of conditionals have fruitfully used possible world semantics to represent various aspects of the meaning of conditionals, and especially of the way context may affect the meaning of a conditional statement. Since intensional semantics was originally developed by logicians who had a primary interest in tensed contexts and modalities, the interaction of conditionals with various tenses and modal auxiliary verbs was studied extensively. Stalnaker (1968) suggested an interpretation for conditionals which was expli16

Overview citly context-sensitive: if A, then B is true at a possible world W if B is true at the world most similar to W given the truth of A. Lewis (1981) developed another logic of conditionals in which the conditional is interpreted as true if there are worlds which make A and B both true and which are more similar to the actual world than the worlds which make A true but B false. Although Stalnaker's interpretation avoided fallacies based on strengthening of the antecedent (i.e. assuming that when if A, then B is true, if A and C, then B must be true as well for any arbitrary sentence C), this logic made the strong assumption that exactly one world in which A is true is to be selected as the closest one to our actual world. Lewis's logic is based on comparative similarities between various possible worlds, which makes the logic weaker (fewer valid theorems), and brings out an important relation between the denial of a conditional and modalities, interpreting not {if A, then B) as: if A is true then B might not be true. Which worlds are accessible options from a given world must be determined in context, i.e. assuming the truth of the antecedent. This brings in a host of new questions concerning the way in which the background against which A is interpreted is modified or preserved by selecting the options open to us to make B true. Veltman's paper in this volume addresses the connections between conditionals and modalities. It develops a propositional logic based on a truth-predicate relative to available evidence, i.e. a speaker-dependent relation of holding a sentence as true. Some sentences will remain true while incorporating new information, but other sentences may become true or false depending on which modal contexts they are embedded in. The formal system in Veltman's paper is essentially dynamic, analysing the interpretation of a sentence or discourse as a process of constructing verifications or falsifications while gradually building up an interpretation. Various invalid inferential patterns are weeded out in this logic, but other incorrect uses of conditionals must still be accounted for by appealing to pragmatic considerations and additional contextual constraints. The paper may thus be read as a study in motivating the borderline of semantics and pragmatics, showing what problems can be solved in a dynamic conditional logic and which ones still escape this semantic sieve and fall into the pragmatic wastebasket. Adams criticizes attempts like Veltman's to analyse truth as relative to available information. He argues that it is only if one adheres to an absolute notion of truth that logic may provide guidance for rational actions, and for accepting true sentences and avoiding false sentences while having good reason to make inferences in accordance with the logical principles held to be truth-preserving. If truth is to be approximated, Adams argues, it should employ probabilistic concepts which have clear relations to actions, beliefs and rational choice. Addressing the originally Fregean question of how conditionals are employed in information exchanges, Barwise argues in telling mathematical and natural language examples that conditionals either provide constraints on possible 17

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options for situations of the type described in the antecedent, or indicate what a current situation means. His Situation Semantics is a new model-theoretic theory of meaning and interpretation placing strong emphasis on context dependence. Accordingly, knowing the meaning of a sentence is not merely knowing its truth conditions, but rather knowing how it affects the context or background against which it is interpreted, and knowing under what conditions it conveys what kind of information. Situation Semantics is in this regard the youngest sister in the family of 'dynamic' possible world semantics, relying on partial functions and situations as small worlds. It employs a strategy of direct interpretation of English into model-theoretic representations, which constructs partial models and contextual interpretations. In this respect it is opposed to translational semantic theories such as Montague Grammar, which employs some intermediate formal languages into which English is translated and which assumes complete worlds, using only total functions. The informational dependencies obtaining between antecedents and consequents of conditionals make it necessary to analyse the internal structure of antecedent and consequent sentences. This brings many current linguistic results and issues to bear on theories of natural language semantics. Extensional contexts preserve information when coreferring expressions are substituted, whereas such substitutions generally change the information conveyed by intensional contexts. For a fully fledged semantics of natural language this requires a spelling out of coreference and other dependency conditions for various kinds of expressions. One area in which linguistic theories have been concerned with conditions on coreference is pronouns and NP- and VP-anaphora. Reinhart's paper presents the current theoretical perspective on the issues of NP-anaphora and the interaction of informational dependencies between antecedents and anaphora and conditional contexts. Her paper argues for configurational conditions on anaphoric dependencies and variable binding at the level of logical form. In the contribution by ter Meulen, which uses Situation Semantics, the question is raised of how generic information about kinds in plural noun phrases serves to set the background for consequences in generic conditionals. A second question concerns how conditions expressed in the antecedent may restrict generic information expressed in the consequent. Starting from different theoretical assumptions, these three papers contribute linguistically significant and detailed claims about binding conditions on anaphora in conditional contexts and the use of conditionals in creating contexts for the interpretation of dependent expressions. Collectively the papers give a representative, if incomplete, picture of the state of the art in model-theoretic semantics for natural language as a new field of research which employs formal, mathematical methods and insights to develop a linguistically adequate syntactic and semantic theory of languages. No research on conditionals in artificial intelligence has been represented in 18

Overview this volume, although the papers mentioned above share some of the theoretical issues of more computationally oriented research. Anaphoric dependencies still provide an abundant source of linguistic puzzles, especially when we consider the interaction of such dependencies with conditional dependencies and tense. One topic that certainly deserves closer study is the connection between conditionals and attitudes. Conditional belief is a central concept of theories of subjective probabilities (Harper, Stalnaker and Pearce 1981), but it has not been the subject of systematic, theoretical linguistic analysis. Also, the interaction with conditionals and other than purely epistemic attitudes, like perception or expectation or sentence-embedding verbs such as say that, remains to be explored within the new paradigm of a dynamic and compositional theory of meaning and interpretation based on a sound syntactic component. 5. CONCLUSION The study of conditionals is crucial to our understanding of language. It is equally crucial to our understanding of how our actions are guided. This connection with action has been a traditional theme in the philosophy of science, theories of causality and analyses of scientific reasoning (for a recent study, see Stalnaker 1984). Currently it remains an open area for interdisciplinary research into the nature of cognitive processes underlying our reasoning in natural language. Only by reinstating the connection between form, meaning, interpretations and actions may we hope to gain an improvement in understanding how we learn from experience. The present book suggests a few of the issues that have to be addressed in the process. NOTE 1 After the completion of this overview a monograph on crosslinguistic characteristics of conditional markers came to our attention: Danielsen, Niels. 1968. Zum Wesen des Konditionalsatzes nicht zuletzt im Indoeuropdischen. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

REFERENCES Bates, Elizabeth. 1976. Language and context: the acquisition of pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. Braine, Martin D. S. 1978. On the relation between the natural logic of reasoning and standard logic. Psychological Review 85: 1-21. Brown, Gillian and George Yule. 1983. Discourse analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chomsky, Noam. 1975. Reflections on language. New York: Pantheon Books. Craik, Kenneth. 1943. The nature of explanation. London: Cambridge University Press. Ferguson, Charles A. 1963. Clause negation in Bengali. Seattle: University of Washington. Multilith. 19

Charles A. Ferguson et al. Fillenbaum, Samuel, 1975. If: some uses. Psychological Research 37: 245-60. Geis, Michael L. and Arnold M. Zwicky. 1971. On invited inferences. Linguistic Inquiry 2: 61-6. Greenberg, Joseph H. 1963. Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In Universals of language, ed. Joseph H. Greenberg. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Haiman, John. 1978. Conditionals are topics. Language 54: 564-89. Harper, William, Robert Stalnaker, and G. Pearce (eds.) 1981. IFs, conditionals, belief, decision, chance and time. Dordrecht: Reidel. Henle, Mary. 1962. On the relation between logic and thinking. Psychological Review 69: 366-78. Hofstadter, Douglas R. 1979. Godel, Escher, Bach. New York: Basic Books. Inhelder, Barbel and Jean Piaget. 1958. The growth of logical thinking. New York: Basic Books. Inoue, Kyoko. 1983. An analysis of a cleft conditional in Japanese - where grammar meets rhetoric. Journal of Pragmatics 7: 251-62. Johnson-Laird, P. N. 1975. Models of deduction. In Reasoning: representation and process in children and adults, ed. Rachel J. Falmagne. Hillsdale, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Lavandera, Beatriz. 1975. Linguistic structure and socio-linguistic conditioning in the use of verbal endings in s/-clauses (Buenos Aires Spanish). Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania. Lehmann, Christian. 1974. Prinzipien fur 'Universal 14'. In Linguistic workshop II, ed. Hansjakob Seiler. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. Lewis, David. 1981. Counterfactuals and comparative possibility. In IFs, conditionals, belief, decision, chance and time, ed. William Harper, Robert Stalnaker, and G. Pearce. Dordrecht: Reidel. Marchese, Lynell. 1984. On the role of conditionals in Godie procedural discourse. Paper presented at the conference on subordination, Eugene, Oregon, June 2-4. Ong, Walter J. 1982. Orality and literacy: the technologizing of the word. New York: Methuen. Reilly, Judy S. 1982. The acquisition of conditionals in English. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. Smith, N. V. 1983. On interpreting conditionals. Australian Journal of Linguistics 3: 1-23.

Stalnaker, Robert. 1968. A theory of conditionals. In Studies in logical theory, ed. Nicholas Rescher, 98-112. Oxford: Blackwell (repr. in Harper etal. 1981). Stalnaker, Robert. 1984. Inquiry. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, Bradford Books. Staudenmayer, Herman. 1975. Understanding conditional reasoning with meaningful propositions. In Reasoning: representation and process in children and adults, ed. Rachel J. Falmagne. Hillsdale, NJ.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1985. Conditional markers. In Iconicity in syntax, ed. John Haiman, 289-307. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. Forthcoming. Is internal semantic-pragmatic reconstruction possible? In Rhetorica, phonologica, syntactica: Papers presented to Robert P. Stockwell, ed. Caroline Duncan-Rose, Jacek Fisiak, and Theo Vennemann. Wason, Peter C. and P. N. Johnson-Laird. 1972. Psychology of reasoning. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Weinreich, Uriel, William Labov and Marvin Herzog. 1968. Empirical foundations for a theory of language change. In Directions for historical linguistics, ed. Winfred Lehmann and Yakov Malkiel, 95-188. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press. 20

CONDITIONALS AND CONDITIONAL INFORMATION • Jon

Barwise

1. INTRODUCTION For those of us involved in the attempt to spell out the relation between statements and those aspects of reality they are about, conditionals are a thorny issue.1 Within this semantic tradition, common wisdom can be summarized rather contentiously as follows: classical model theory gives us the semantics of the material conditional. It works fine for mathematical conditionals, but is a disaster if applied to ordinary language conditionals, especially counterf actual conditionals. Within the possible worlds framework, there are various treatments, some of which are quite successful for certain types of natural language conditionals, including counterfactuals, but they are all a disaster when applied to mathematical conditionals. I will give examples of both sorts of failures below. My own opinion is at odds with this view of where things stand. I think that the language of mathematics is continuous with ordinary language, since discourse about mathematical objects and mathematical activity takes place in English or some other natural language. While it would not be appropriate to argue for this commonsensical but unfashionable position in this paper, it is appropriate to point out the consequences for a theory of conditionals. To one who takes this line, mathematical conditionals simply are natural language conditionals, so an adequate account of mathematical conditionals must be part and parcel of an adequate account of natural language conditionals. Hence, neither of the approaches to the conditionals mentioned above is at all satisfactory and the lack of an adequate account of the semantics of conditionals is a major embarrassment. If the general issue is the study of the relation between statements and the features of the world they are about, the problem with the conditional is pretty obvious. What in the world are conditionals about? In this paper I want to suggest that an old answer to this question is right, but that it has never been taken seriously because of the failure of semantics to take the notion of subject matter seriously. Then I will outline an account of the semantics of conditionals based on this suggestion within Situation Semantics. Before getting down to work, I want to make a few terminological remarks, to help carve things up in what seems to me a useful way. 21

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First, the distinction between sentence and statement is very important. A sentence can be used by different speakers in different situations to make different statements. Sentences have meanings, and those meanings have a lot to do with the truth value of statements made with the sentences, but truth values simply cannot be assigned to sentences in isolation. This is, by now, a familiar point and one discussed at great length in chapter n of Barwise and Perry (1983), referred to hereinafter as S&A. Second, there is a certain strategy for dealing with a host of loosely related problems in semantics that I want to be able to refer to easily, so as to dismiss it. The strategy derives from first supposing that sentences (as opposed to statements) are true or false, then noticing that many actual sentences are not rich enough to give you a truth value without various contextual factors. Instead of having second thoughts about the original supposition, the temptation has often been to try to salvage it. Consider, for example, my statement: (1)

If I can state the problem clearly, John will solve it

This statement is rife with context-dependent elements. As applied to names, the strategy in question claims that my use of the name John is really short for some 'proper' name, or definite description, one that would pick out John in a unique way, independent of context. As applied to /, it claims that my use of this noun phrase is really elliptic for some other NP that would pick me out, independent of the fact that I am the speaker. As applied to the problem, it would attempt to add some restrictive relative clause that would uniquely identify the problem I meant among all problems. Other context-dependent elements in this example will emerge in our discussion of conditionals. In general, the strategy attempted to replace a sentence by some less contextdependent sentence, one where the difference between sentence and statement is negligible (or can at least be handled by the then current theory), and to claim that an utterance of the one was a telegraphic form of an utterance of the other. I will call this the 'fleshing out strategy', because it assumes that sentences whose interpretation depends on some troublesome contextual element can be fleshed out to sentences where that contextual element is eliminated. I assume that this strategy is wrong-headed, that it has been shown to be unworkable, and that it should now be laid to rest. This too is discussed at length in chapter 11 of S&A. Third, a remark about my use of the terms 'counterfactual' and 'subjunctive conditional'. The adjective 'counterfactual' applies to certain conditional statements, not sentences, whereas it is the other way around for the term 'subjunctive conditional'. Roughly, a counterfactual statement is one which presupposes that the antecedent is false. These are usually expressed using the subjunctive, but not always, and not all uses of subjunctive conditional sentences are counterfactual. Thus I will be contrasting indicative and subjunctive conditional sen22

Conditionals and conditional information tences and statements, in general without a presumption of counterfactuality. Fourth, I want to distinguish between specific conditional statements, on the one hand, and general conditional statements, on the other. A specific conditional statement is one used to describe some specific situation. A general conditional statement, on the other hand, is one used to make some more general claim. Contrast the following pair under their most obvious interpretations: (2) (3)

If it is snowing, then the sidewalks are slippery If it snows, then the sidewalks are slippery

There is a rough indication of the distinction in the tense of the underlying sentence. By and large, general conditional statements use sentences where the antecedent and consequent are in the 'simple' present tense, whereas specific conditionals use other tenses, often the progressive. In traditional terms we might say that (3) has an implicit universal quantification over times and places, whereas (2) is about some particular time and place. Sometimes only context can determine whether a conditional statement is specific or general, especially in mathematics, where the simple present tense is ubiquitous. There is simply nothing about the sentence: If x = a • 6,then Vx = Va • Vb that determines whether some statement made with it is making a general claim about all numbers under discussion, say, or a claim about three specific numbers. Which is the case will be a property of the statement, not the sentence. (By the way, when I use this statement in what follows, I will follow the custom of referring to the positive square roots of x, a and b.) Similarly in nonmathematical English. For example, the sentence: (4)

If two men are compatriots and one is from France, then the other is from France

could be used either to make a true general statement, or it could be used in a context where two men refers to Bizet and Verdi, one to Bizet, and the other to Verdi, and so used to make a specific conditional statement. Similarly, there is nothing in the sentence / / / can state the problem clearly, John can solve it that indicates that I am using it to express faith in John to solve a particular problem, if only I can state it clearly, rather than to solve any problem that I can state clearly. The sentence could also be used this way. It just so happened that I was referring to a particular problem when I used it. In formal languages it is traditional to translate these two sorts of statements in quite different ways. Often general conditionals are translated by introducing ad hoc universal quantifiers having wide scope over specific conditionals. Consequently, the specific conditional has been seen as more basic, with general conditionals obtained by quantifying into it. I want to suggest that this is 23

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backwards, that the interpretation of general conditionals is more basic, and that we can understand the interpretation of specific conditionals best as instances of the interpretation of general conditionals. I propose to interpret general conditional statements as describing 'parametric constraints' and specific conditionals as describing instances of the constraints where parameters are fixed. Finally, I want to distinguish between the truth conditions of a sentence and stronger conditions. In Barwise (to appear) I argued that we need to move from truth conditions to information conditions. That is, we need to focus on two distinct but related things: (i) under what conditions a sentence can be used to convey information, and (2) what information the sentence conveys under those conditions.2 These two questions will be a recurring refrain, as I attempt to show that the informational perspective provides a useful way to attack the problem of conditionals. For the semantics of conditionals, this perspective has two important consequences. One is that in order to begin to answer the two questions, a semantic theory has to provide things for informative conditional statements to be about, sorts of things that are not found in traditional theories, things like situations and relations between them. The second consequence is an appreciation of the importance of our ability to exploit environmental constants when attempting to convey information. I will return to this point in section 3.3. In the next section I present a number of traditional puzzles and examples in the semantics of the conditional. In the third section, I review some points from Situation Semantics needed for my account of the conditional. In the final section, I sketch my proposal for the semantics of conditionals and examine its consequences for the examples.

2. SOME EXAMPLES Some of the examples below are presented because they make certain points. Others are presented because they pose serious challenges to any semantic account of conditional statements.

Example A: The case of Virgil and the material subjunctive Let me start with a real-life example. Back in the late 1960s, Virgil, a student at the University of Wisconsin, happened to be arrested at a demonstration with a rock in the pocket of his coat. After pleading innocent to a charge of carrying a concealed weapon, Virgil was asked: 'If someone had attacked you, would you have defended yourself with this rock?' This was a question to which Virgil did not know the answer. However, having just finished a course in mathematical logic, he quickly recalled the first-order semantics for 24

Conditionals and conditional information conditionals, and reasoned as follows: 'Since no one attacked me, the antecedent of: (5)

If someone had attacked me, then I would have defended myself with this rock

is false, hence the whole of (5) is true.' So he answered 'Yes'. Based on this answer, it was decided that the rock was a weapon, so Virgil was convicted. If Virgil had studied from Quine (1959), he might not have fallen into this trap, for, as Quine tells us on pages 14-15: Whatever the proper analysis of the contrafactual conditional may be, we may be sure in advance that it cannot be truth-functional; for, obviously ordinary usages demand that some contrafactual conditionals with false antecedents and false consequents be true and that other contrafactual conditionals with false antecedents and false consequents be false. Any adequate analysis ... must consider causal connections, or kindred relationships, between matters spoken of in the antecedent of the conditional and matters spoken of in the consequent. Quine's analysis seems right on target in Virgil's case. Under what conditions could Virgil have known that (5) was true, and so been in a position to make an informative claim with it? Clearly knowing that the antecedent and consequent were false was not enough. Virgil would have had to know something about a relationship between two general types of situations, those where he is attacked, those where he defends himself. He would have had to know that the one type of situation leads to the other in a systematic way. Quine is being rather disingenuous in the above quotation. We know from his other writings that he does not really think any sense can be made of the subject matter of a statement. By contrast, a key feature of Situation Semantics is its attempt to take the notion of subject matter seriously, by using situations to get at subject matter. Hence, the account I propose below could be seen as an attempt to work out Quine's suggestion that the interpretation of a conditional should be a relation between the matters spoken of in the antecedent and consequent. Example B: The case of the possible worlds mathematician Usually the problems with the possible worlds account have been phrased as problems about necessary truths like mathematical theorems. Suppose I am in the middle of some proof in a lecture and I assert, of some specific natural number n that has arisen in the proof, 'If n is odd, then n2 is odd.' On the possible worlds account, the semantic value of my statement is the universally true proposition, for one of two reasons: either because the antecedent is false in all possible worlds, or because the consequent is true in all possible worlds. Thus, the account simply fails to give any account of the relation between such a statement and what it is about: odd numbers and the operation 25

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of squaring, in this case. It gives no hint as to the informational function of my statement in the proof, which might be a constructive proof of some fact or might be a proof that n is not odd. My statement is informational because I know that n is a natural number and that the operation of squaring natural numbers always takes one from odd numbers to odd numbers. This is all quite familiar, and largely discounted by those doing possible worlds semantics, since they are, by and large, interested in natural language and its relationship to human activity and don't seem to see mathematics as part of this. However, the problem about mathematical objects reaches up and affects the semantics of conditional statements about mathematicians, their activity and attitudes. The following is not a true story, but it might have been, if a mathematician took the possible worlds account of subjunctive conditionals seriously and applied it to his everyday talk about mathematical activity. Virgil went on to become a number theorist, we suppose, and has been trying to prove Fermat's Last Theorem' (FLT) for several years. Also, after his experience with the judicial system, he became an advocate of the possible worlds approach to subjunctive conditionals. One day Virgil discovered a correct proof3 that the conjecture FLT is equivalent to a conjecture RH that his friend Paul had been working on. Upon making this discovery, he dashed to Paul's office and showed him the proof. Then Virgil asserted: (6)

(7)

'If you could give a correct proof of RH, then I could give a correct proof of FLT.' 'Yes,' said Paul. 'Well, then,' Virgil added, 'It is false that if you could give a correct proof of RH, then I could give a correct proof of not-FLT.' 'Naturally,' said Paul, 'since you couldn't give correct proofs of both something and its negation.' 'But don't you see,' replied Virgil, 'that means that FLT and RH are both true! We're famous!'

I think the intuitions that Virgil's utterances of (6) and (7) are both true are fairly robust. What Virgil realized was that a possible worlds account that could make both of these true would also have to assign true to FLT and RH. A possible worlds analysis has to decide what truth value to assign to a conditional 0—>^ in the actual world i in the case where 0 is not true in any world 7 accessible from i. The most common option, the one followed by Stalnaker and Lewis in their theories, for example, claims that in this case the conditional is true in world i. Call this Option I. On the other hand, one might claim that the conditional is undefined (or perhaps false) in world /. Call this Option II. Virgil's argument is that if either option were correct, 26

Conditionals and conditional information then in order to assign true to his statements (6) and (7) in the actual world, FLT and RH must be true. Here, for the interested reader, is Virgil's argument. Since the natural numbers and other hereditarily finite objects are the same in all possible worlds, talk about them is absolute between possible worlds. That is, a proposition about such objects will have the same truth value in all possible worlds. In particular, being formally provable is absolute between possible worlds, since formal proofs are hereditarily finite objects. Thus RH is formally provable in one world just in case it is formally provable in all. Let's first assume that Option II is right. Then, since (6) is true, there must be a possible world / in which Paul gives a correct proof/? of RH. Similarly, if Option I is right, then since (7) is true, the embedded statement If you could give a correct proof of RH, then I could give a correct proof of not-FLT is false, so again there must be a possible world / in which Paul gives a correct proof p of RH. Now there is no reason to suppose that the actual physical proof p found by Paul exists in worlds other than /, or that, if it does, Paul finds it in other worlds. However, because it exists in/, RH is formally provable in/ and hence formally provable in all worlds. But the RH must be provable in the actual world, and so both RH and FLT must be true.4 Since Virgil has not, in fact, proved FLT, his argument that it is true must be absurd. As Quine says, subjunctive conditionals (I would say all conditionals) express a relationship between the matters spoken of by the antecedent and by the consequent. Intuitively, the reason that (6) is true has to do with a relationship between the type of situations where Paul discovers a proof of a conjecture and the type of situations where his friend Virgil converts Paul's proof into a proof of something he knows to be equivalent to the conjecture. That is, (6) seems to have to do with, or be about, the types of situations described by its antecedent and consequent. The possible worlds framework is too blunt an instrument to let us get our hands on these types of situations and a relationship between them. Note, for example, that the consequents of the conditionals in (6) and (7) played absolutely no role in the above argument, aside from their role in getting us to agree that the statements (6) and (7) were true. Any statements with the same antecedent and same truth value would have done as well, regardless of what the consequent was about. Another example, which is less technical and more persuasive to some people of the point I am trying to make, comes in the discussion in section 3.4. Example C: Bizet and Verdi, Kennedy and Oswald The two previous examples had to do with subjunctive conditionals, a kind of conditional that has, in general, struck logicians as highly problematic, especially because they are frequently used to make counterfactual claims. Consider, for example, the famous pair of sentences that made Quine wonder 'whether 27

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any really coherent theory of the contrafactual conditional of ordinary language is possible at all' (Quine 1959: 15): (8) (9)

If Bizet and Verdi had been compatriots, Bizet would have been Italian If Bizet and Verdi had been compatriots, Verdi would have been French

Much ink has been spilt on this pair of statements. For Quine and many others the inability to decide between them casts doubt on the very existence of a coherent account of the counterfactual. Lewis, on the other hand, argues that since there is nothing to choose between them, they are both false, and uses this to motivate his version of a possible worlds account over Stalnaker's. But why are the problems with this pair only problems about subjunctive or counterfactual conditional statements? It is hard to see what problems about these statements, made by a cultured, twentieth-century logician, would not apply equally to the following pair if either had been made by less knowledgeable contemporaries of Bizet and Verdi: (10) (11)

If Bizet and Verdi are compatriots, then Bizet is Italian If Bizet and Verdi are compatriots, then Verdi is French

On the material conditional account, one can say that both are true, since the common antecedent is false, but one can say nothing about the earlier pair. Look at them informationally, though. Under what conditions could (10) be used to convey information? Imagine someone who knows that Verdi is Italian, knows what it means for two people to be compatriots, but does not know the nationality of Bizet. This person is in circumstances where he can use (10) to make an informative statement. These circumstances would not permit him, though, to use (11) to make an informative statement. Notice that the person who would make an informative claim with (10) needs to know at least two things: a fact about Verdi, that he is Italian, and a general fact about compatriots of Italians, that they are also Italians. The latter fact can be viewed as a relation between two types of situations, one where an individual is a compatriot of some Italian, the other where the individual is himself Italian. Now go back to (8) and (9). Exactly the same can be said of (8) and (9) as we said of (10) and (11), respectively. If a twentieth-century speaker knew that Verdi was Italian, and knew what it meant for two people to be compatriots, but did not know the nationality of Bizet, he could use (8), but not (9), to convey information. Indeed, the information content of the statements (8) and (10) (though not the meanings of the sentences used) is virtually the same. Similarly with (9) and (11). An adequate account should permit of informative (and hence true) statements made with any of (8)-(i 1). It seems dubious, from the perspective of informative communication, that a theory could get things right about one kind of conditional and have virtually nothing to say about the other. And it cuts both ways. The material conditional 28

Conditionals and conditional information does not apply to the subjunctive; the possible worlds approach, in Lewis's version, does not say anything about the indicative. The usual argument (e.g. Lewis 1973: 3) for a radical difference between the semantics of subjunctive (or counterfactual) and indicative conditionals contrasts the following pair, the first of which is true, the second of which is probably false: (12) (13)

If Oswald did not kill Kennedy, then someone else did If Oswald had not killed Kennedy, then someone else would have

The difference in truth value of this pair is supposed to show that we need different sorts of accounts. This seems like a mistake, though. The minimal change in (13) that gives an indicative is not (12) but (10): (14)

If Oswald has not killed Kennedy, then someone else will have

To see that (13) and (14) could be used, from different temporal vantage points, to convey the same information, imagine that one of the various conspiracy theories of Kennedy's assassination is correct, and that the mastermind behind the plot has lined up several would-be assassins along the fateful route in Dallas, with Oswald the first. At the end of the appointed hour, the mastermind looks at his watch and asserts (14). It seems that roughly the same information would be conveyed if, years later, the mastermind asserted (13). The considerations embodied in Examples A-C suggest to me that Thomason and Stalnaker are right in their call for a unified account of subjunctive and indicative conditionals, but that such an account has to be more fine-grained than the possible worlds account, to let us get at those relations between the subject matter of the antecedent and consequent that conditionals are about. The next four examples bring up a different set of problems. Example D: The case of the missing pollen Much of what we know about the world, and how to act in it, is local, or conditional, in that we know how things work as long as certain conditions obtain. I know that if it snows, then the sidewalks will be slippery, and so I must take care. I know that if my 9-month-old daughter Claire rubs her eyes, then she is sleepy, and so will take a nap. I know that if the cat comes into the house, Claire will get bitten by fleas. In describing these pieces of conditional knowledge, I have used conditional statements, but I am not claiming that conditional knowledge amounts to knowing these conditional sentences. And, indeed, I do not think that such knowledge does amount to knowing sentences, but that is beside the point here. When I speak of certain conditions obtaining, I am not referring to the conditions described by the antecedents of these conditionals, but to other, more pervasive, background conditions that generally obtain. 29

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What one has knowledge about, when one has a piece of conditional knowledge of the above form, is a feature of the world - what Perry and I have called a conditional constraint on the world. In the main section of this paper I want to examine how the meanings of conditional sentences are related to these conditional constraints on the world. Now, though, I want to give some examples of how the ordinary reasoning we do using conditional statements is governed by the conditional nature of our knowledge. It is well known that ordinary reasoning using conditional statements is wildly different from the logic of the material conditional. Philosophers have realized this for many years. Recent attention to the problem has arisen in artificial intelligence (AI). AI workers, in attempting to build machines that act intelligently in the real world, have demonstrated the ubiquity of conditional knowledge, and the extent to which the commonsense use of such knowledge is at odds with straightforward applications of traditional logic. Let's briefly review this discrepancy by examining a few examples of the difference between the ordinary use of conditionals and that given by classical logic. First, take the knowledge about what it means when Claire rubs her eyes, expressed by my general conditional statement above: (15)

If Claire rubs her eyes, then she is sleepy

For months this was a sound piece of (conditional) knowledge that Mary Ellen and I used to understand Claire and learn when we should put her to bed. However, in early summer it began to fail us. As conditions changed around us, a frame of mind which in one set of circumstances represented knowledge of Claire came to represent a false belief about her. Combined with other symptoms, we eventually figured out that Claire was allergic to something or other (call it pollen X since we are still not sure what it was) and that X could also cause her to rub her eyes. And so we changed our belief. Suppose one wants to represent knowledge with sentences and sound reasoning with valid deduction. Examples like the above pose a dilemma. Either one cannot use the obvious conditional sentence, one corresponding to what I would have said was the case, to represent what I knew, or else one cannot use a host of inferences that are judged valid in classical logic in representing my reasoning (or both - and this, I fear, is the real moral). For example, I cannot use any inference that would justify concluding / / Claire rubs her eyes in the presence of pollen X, then she is sleepy from / / Claire rubs her eyes, then she is sleepy. For example, I would have to abandon the Hypothetical Syllogism as representing sound reasoning: from [If 0 then y] and [If y then ip] infer [If 0 then xp] 30

Conditionals and conditional information Here is an example of what is called the nonmonotonicity of ordinary reasoning. If the cat had come in the house, Claire would have been bitten by fleas. However, if the cat had not had fleas and had come into the house, Claire would not have been bitten by fleas. Such examples cause one to abandon the rule: from [If 0 then xp] infer [If (p and%, then xp] If I am at all typical, many logicians tend to think of these problems as analogous to friction in classical mechanics. Logic is after frictionless inference. If we can get that right, then surely we should be able to add a parameter later to take care of this problem. After all, isn't the problem straightforward at some level? Isn't it just that one is not being explicit about what the real antecedent of the statement is, the one that makes the conditional true and that the speaker really meant? This intuition, which seems fairly sound, suggests a certain strategy of fleshing out conditionals by adding a syntactic parameter, one that can be used for making background assumptions explicit. The idea would be to find some way to move from a conditional statement: A: If 0 then xp to a 'weaker' statement: A': If£, then if 0 then xp (weaker since it has an additional antecedent), that meets two conditions: (i) /? describes the conditions under which the original conditional A holds; and (ii) the person that claims to know (believe, assert) the original conditional A really knows (believes, intends to assert) the weaker A'. I think that many workers in AI who have confronted these problems now believe this assumption is just plain false. I have come to agree. It seems to me that it is another form of the fleshing out strategy mentioned earlier. Again it seems to be based on the confusion between sentence and statement, and on a reluctance to take the context of an utterance into sufficient account. There is simply no reason to suppose that there is any way to flesh out a conditional statement to incorporate a description of the exact conditions under which the conditional holds, or even the conditions under which the speaker believes it to hold. However, there seems to be something right about the intuitions behind the strategy. In all of these examples there is a none too subtle shift in context that somehow affects the appropriateness of the usual inference schemes. We do need some sort of parameter to take account of this shift in context in

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an explicit way. Within the possible worlds approach to semantics, this is just what Stalnaker and Lewis provide. For Stalnaker, for example, the missing parameter is a selection function / from nonempty sets of worlds to worlds. For Lewis, it is a similarity relation on possible worlds. The failure of the above inference schemes for the logic of ordinary language conditionals, and the fact that they fail in the Stalnaker and Lewis accounts for the right sorts of reasons, is one of the arguments in favour of those theories. However, consider the following:

Example E: A proof that i = —i If you examine statements made by mathematicians in doing mathematics, as opposed to the way it gets formalized in logic, it turns out that the problems from the last section arise there too. Just the same sorts of inferences get you in trouble, for just the same sorts of reasons. Indeed, many of the famous false 'proofs' can be phrased as improper uses of laws like the above. I will give the very simplest here, a 'proof that i = - i , that uses (or rather, misuses) only true conditional statements and the usual laws of equality. I use / for V - i, so that / • / = - 1 . 1 also use the fact that V i = i. (16) (17)

If x = a • b, then Vx = \/a • Vb If x = 1 and a = -1 and b = -1, then

x-a-b

From these true statements, and the laws of equality, we can conclude, using the Hypothetical Syllogism, that: (18)

If x= 1 a n d « = - 1 and/? = - 1 , then* = - 1

There are two, related, ways of looking at this problem, both of which locate the difficulty with a shift in background conditions, but which differ in a way that will prove important. One analysis of the problem would be to say that the sentence used in (16) can be used, in different circumstances, to make radically different statements, statements where there is an implicit universal quantification over a domain of numbers fixed by context. Some such statements would be true, others false. The sentence can be used in high school algebra courses to make a true statement about all positive real numbers. However, this is not the context in which it is being used when combined with (17), where we extract square roots of negative numbers. While there is no problem with taking square roots of negative numbers, (16) does not express a true fact in those circumstances. A somewhat different analysis would be to say that an informative statement of (16) is not a complete proposition, but rather is what one might call a parametric proposition, something that yields a fact when the parameters are appropriately fixed. Just what counts as an appropriate value of the parameters is 32

Conditionals and conditional information determined by context. In the case of (16) the appropriate values of the parameters are positive real numbers. Thus, in combining it with (17) we are fixing the parameters of the parametric proposition described by (16) at inappropriate values. This example is so simple that it is perhaps not as convincing as it might be. A better example uses the following law derived in the study of triangles: (19)

If sin(a) = sin(/?) then a= (3

There is an infamous 'proof (e.g. Maxwell 1959: 10-12) that all acute triangles are isosceles, one that revolves around a misuse of this fact. Law (19) is typically proved in circumstances where one is talking only about angles that are interior angles of acute triangles, and so smaller than 900. In the infamous proof (19) is applied to two angles which are, as it turns out, exactly 1800 apart, so they cannot both be interior angles of such triangles. What is deceptive is the way one strays out of the circumstances where (19) applies quite without knowing it. Anyone who has ever had to formalize mathematical proofs in first-order logic knows that this sort of context relativity pervades ordinary mathematical discourse. The context dependence of mathematical discourse is part of what makes formalizing mathematical proofs so very difficult, since the context has to be formalized too. Of course, in mathematics this is usually (always?) possible, even if difficult. The difference is that in real life it is not just difficult but often simply impossible, because the context may be literally ineffable. What moral should we draw from this? At least one: that however one wants to account for the failures, real or apparent, of classical laws like the Hypothetical Syllogism for natural language conditionals, the failures are not an argument for a clean break between natural language conditionals on the one hand, and mathematical conditionals on the other. A theory that accounts for the facts in one case but misses them in the other is, other things being equal, less satisfactory than one with a unified account. The account I am proposing makes explicit the dependence of the information content of conditional statements on background conditions. It predicts that whenever the Hypothetical Syllogism fails, there is a shift of background conditions involved. Example F: Jack and Jim's quarrel This is a famous example taken from Downing (1959), of a subjunctive conditional that has been argued to be both true and false. The situation is this. Jack and Jim are old friends, prone to helping one another under normal circumstances. Jim is very proud, and so would never ask help of anyone with whom he had recently quarrelled. Jack, on the other hand, is a very unforgiving person, and so wouldn't have helped anyone with whom he had recently quarrelled. Now, in the particular situation, Jim needs help but he and Jack have 33

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quarrelled. The counterfactual in question is: (20)

If Jim had asked Jack for help, then Jack would have helped him

Is this true or false, or both? Given all the facts of the case, Jim could not possibly have asked Jack for help, so if the antecedent is to be seriously entertained some of the facts must be set aside - perhaps because the speaker is ignorant of them. If one sets aside the fact that Jim and Jack have quarrelled, then, it is claimed, (20) seems to be true. On the other hand if you ignore the fact that Jim is stubborn, and so imagine that he might have asked Jack for help, Jack would not have helped because of the quarrel, so (20) seems to be false. Example G: Sly Pete and Mr Stone One last example, this one due to Allan Gibbard (1981), of two indicative conditional statements, each of which seems to be true, but which also seem to be in direct conflict. It has many of the features of the previous example, but seems, initially, more of a challenge to the kind of account I want to give. Sly Pete and Mr Stone are playing poker on a Mississippi riverboat. It is now up to Pete to call or fold. My henchman Zack sees Stone's hand which is quite good, and signals its contents to Pete. My henchman Jack sees both hands, and sees that Pete's hand is rather low so that Stone's is the winning hand. At this point the room is cleared. A few minutes later Zack slips me a note which says 'if Pete called, he won', and Jack slips me a note which says 'if Pete called, he lost. ...' I conclude that Pete folded. (Gibbard 1981, as quoted in Stalnaker 1984: 108) Gibbard uses these examples to argue against the idea that these sorts of indicative conditionals express any sort of proposition at all. His argument is discussed at length in Stalnaker (1984). The example here would seem to present a serious obstacle to any sort of informational account of the conditional. After all, both henchmen seem completely justified by the facts of the situation in asserting what they do, so presumably such an account will have to call both assertions informational, hence true. But how can they both be giving us information about what will happen if Pete in fact calls? While this is rather similar to Example F, our analysis is committed to different claims about the two examples, as we will see later. 3. INFORMATION IN SITUATION SEMANTICS In this section I am going to review some points made in S&A, with some modifications suggested in Barwise and Perry (1985; hereinafter Ss&sa) stressing those parts of the theory that are central to my proposal for the semantics of conditional sentences. 34

Conditionals and conditional information 3.1 Meaning, information, and constraints In Situation Semantics we look at the linguistic meaning within a general theory of meaning and information. The general picture is that a situation s can contain information in virtue of some constraint that holds between types of situations.5 Let us use S, S', . .. for types of situations, and write s:S if s is of type S. A type S of situation is realized if there is a real situation s:S.6 A constraint is a relation holding between types of situations, S=>S\ If this relation holds, then it's a fact that if S is realized, then so is S'. We read S^>S' as S involves Sf. In S&A we indicated such a constraint C by: involves, S, S''; 1 A real situation s contains information relative to such an actual constraint C if s:S. It may contain various pieces of information relative to C, but the most general proposition that s contains, relative to C, is that S' is realized, that is, that there is a real situation s:S'. In order to see how one situation can contain information about specific things, it is important to realize that constraints hold between parameterized types of situations. Here is an example with a single space-time parameter /. Consider the constraint that if Claire rubs her eyes, then she is sleepy. This constraint is a relation between two types of situations, S and S': S = the type of situation where at /, Claire is rubbing her eyes which we write as: [s I in s: at /: rubbing, Claire's eyes, Claire; 1] and, using the same notation; Sr = [s I in s: at /: sleepy, Claire; 1] Assume that S really does involve 5', so that if at some specific space-time location /, s is of type S(l) (the type where the parameter / is anchored to /), then there is a real situation s':S'(l). In other words, at that very location, Claire is sleepy in s'. Thus, the proposition that S'(l) is realized entails the proposition that at /, Claire is sleepy. In general a constraint C or the form S^>S' will have many parameters, and every parameter in S' will also be a parameter of S. Given any such constraint, and any anchor/for some or all of the parameters in 5, that is, any assignment of appropriate values to the parameters, then the result of replacing the parameters by the values will give rise to an actual constraint. That is, if: is actual, then so is:

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We call the latter constraint an instance of the former. If a parameterized constraint is actual, then every appropriate instance of it is also actual. Thus, one who knows a general constraint, and knows that something is an instance of it, has enough information to conclude that the latter is actual. Looking ahead to the use of constraints to interpret conditionals, this is a good place to make a point relating actual constraints C and their instances. Consider the following constraint, where x, a and b are parameters that can be anchored to positive real numbers: x being the product of a and b involves VJC being the product of Va and Vb\ that is: where: S = [s | in s: product, a, b, x; i] S' = [s\ in s: product, Va, V&, VJC; I] This is a general law relating situations with positive real numbers as constituents. The parameters are what Perry and I call roles, indeterminates that can only be anchored to positive real numbers. However, given an anchor /for any or all of these indeterminates, this law gives us a more specific law: For example, if we anchor x to i, then we get a law relating the square roots of positive reals and their reciprocals. In the limiting case, we get a law relating types of situations with no parameters at all. Suppose we anchor x to i, a to 4 and b to 1/4, for example. This still gives us an actual constraint, one that relates the type of situation S containing the fact that 1 = 4 • 1/4 to the type of situation Sf where the square root of 1 is the product of the square roots of 4 and 1/4. Or, if we anchor b instead to 1/3, we would get another actual constraint as an instance of C, this one where the type of situation where 1 = 4 - 1 / 3 involves the type S'(i, 4, 1/3). Of course there are no actual situations where 1 =4-1/3, but the specific constraint is still a legitimate instance of various general actual constraints, and so actual. Consequently, anyone who knew the general law, and that 1,4 and 1/3 were positive real numbers would be justified in concluding the specific instance of it. It might be a way he would come to learn that 4-1/3 is not 1. So far none of this has anything to do with language. It just has to do with things like situations, types of situations, constraints, propositions, and the like. What does it have to do with linguistic meaning and the use of language to convey information? Recall that we began by distinguishing between sentences and statements, where the latter are certain kinds of utterances made with declarative sentences. Similarly, we distinguish between the meaning of a declarative sentence and the interpretation of an utterance of that sentence. 36

Conditionals and conditional information Roughly speaking, the interpretation of an utterance is the fact, situation or event it describes. Thus, at a first approximation, an utterance of Claire is sleeping will describe a real situation s where Claire is sleeping at the spacetime location / referred to by the speaker with the use of the present tense is, one that temporally overlaps the space-time location lu of the utterance: in s: at /: sleeping, Claire; i However, things are not quite so simple. If there are any such situations, there will be many such, containing more or less of the rest of what is going on. And there may be none, if my utterance is false. So we modify this so that the interpretation is a type of situation, the type S of situation where Claire is sleeping. We take the propositional content of the utterance to be that there is a real situation of that type - in other words, that S is realized. Thus, we take the interpretation of an utterance to be the type of situation it describes, and so take the meaning of a sentence to be a relation between types of situations, the type in which the sentence is used to assert something, on the one hand, and the type so described, on the other. That is, the meaning of a sentence is itself a constraint. We analyse linguistic meaning as residing in these sorts of systematic relations between types of situations. In S&A we saw that a great many contextual elements can enter in determining the interpretation of any particular statement from the meaning of the underlying sentence. This is even more pervasive in getting from the meaning of conditionals to their interpretation. As we saw in the examples, even in mathematics, the context greatly affects the interpretation of a given sentence. There are two different sorts of context relativity that need to be distinguished to understand conditionals, distinguished much more clearly than we did in S&A. One might call them features of language that exploit environmental constants, versus features that exploit systematic variation. Indexicals are examples of the latter; the former are a bit harder to identify. Let me give two examples. Consider the difference between the sentences: (21) (22)

It's 4 p.m. It's 4 p.m. here

It seems that under normal circumstances the information conveyed by informational utterances of these sentences is the same, so that the utterances must have the same interpretation, and so the sentences have the same meaning. This is the way we treated them in S&A. However, this glosses over what might appear a minor point, which becomes important in the understanding of conditionals. There is a slight difference in meaning between these two sentences. If you and I are talking about calling New York from here in California, and you ask me what time it is there, I can use (21) but not (22) - at least, not without simultaneously pointing at a map or something similar - to tell you the time 37

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there. This suggests that the interpretation of (22) is complete in a way that (21) is possibly incomplete, in that the interpretation of (21) does not determine the place it is about in quite so definite a way as (22) does. Sentence (21) normally exploits the fact that time is relatively invariant with respect to place. As long as we are in the same time zone, we can simply ignore the fact that time is a function of place. Thus, the interpretation of sentence (21) has a parameter whose exact value is usually irrelevant for the information content. However, it can be set at unusual values by context, as in our talk of calling New York. The use of the word 'here' exploits systematic variation, namely that the place a person can refer to with 'here' varies in a systematic way with where the person is. A speaker can always refer to where he is with 'here', if necessary, and the interpretation of (22) will contain that place as a constituent, rather than containing a parameter that gets set at that place by context. There is an inclination to think that something like the fleshing out strategy should take care of context dependence, that statements like (21) are always telegraphic forms of some more complete utterance, like (22), or It's 4 p.m. in New York, or some such. However, this is just as misguided as the previously mentioned instances of this strategy, and for just the same reason. There is no reason to suppose that the speaker has, in general, any context-independent way of referring to the place he is talking about. Let me be a bit more explicit about the proposal I am making for a difference in meaning for these two statements. For the sentence: (22)

It's 4 p.m. here

when used in a statement u, describes the state of affairs regarding the time, at the location lu where the statement is made, as being 4p.m. Using our notation: at lu: 4p.m.; 1 In terms of types, we have a parameter-free type 5 = [5 I in 5: at lu: 4 p.m.; 1] By contrast, a statement using: (21)

It's 4 p.m.

gives us a parametric type S(l) = [s I in s: at /: 4 p.m.; 1] Under normal circumstances this parameter is filled automatically by context. Once one sees examples of this, they come up everywhere. For example, suppose I say Kansas City is closer than Columbus. There is a three-place relation lurking here, x is closer than y to z, but the third parameter is fairly insensitive and can be filled in by context. Normally it is filled in by the location 38

Conditionals and conditional information of the utterance, but it need not be. I could be talking to my wife about our trip to Minnesota next summer, and arguing that we should go to see my family in Kansas City rather than hers in Columbus, because Kansas City is closer than Columbus, closer to where we will be. Thus, we will distinguish a statement with a parameter-free interpretation from one with an interpretation that gives one only a parametric type of situation, where the parameter must be filled by context in a different way. We will return to this below, in the discussion of parametric information. In general, however, the picture of meaning is basically the same. Meaning consists in constraints between types of situations, and it is such constraints that allow a situation to contain information. There are many different kinds of actual constraints, arising in radically different ways: from laws of nature, from the process of individuating the world, from conventions, from people's intentions, among others. This is not the place to go into this in any detail, so I will assume the reader is familiar with the account of constraints and meaning given in S&A. The interest in the account given below rests entirely on taking constraints seriously. The main thing we need to get started on the semantics of conditionals is the view of constraints as facts relating types of situations, facts which can guide people's actions. They are just the sort of relation between matters that Quine felt were needed for an understanding of subjunctive conditionals. As indicated earlier, such states of affairs are enormously important in everyday life. Consequently, it is important for people to be able to describe them to others. That, I would claim, is why human languages always have a way of forming conditionals. 3.2 Truth conditions versus information conditions There are many ways of classifying competing semantic accounts. One way that makes for strange bedfellows is whether they take sentences (or better, statements) to determine truth values directly or indirectly. Thus, while any self-respecting semantic theory must give some account of the conditions under which a statement is true, there is still a good deal of flexibility as to whether this account is direct or indirect. In accounts of meaning based on Tarski's analysis of truth, as in Davidson's programme, for example, it is assumed that to know the meaning of a sentence just is to know the conditions under which it is true, so this is a direct theory. Mentalistic theories are indirect, in that they factor the interpretation of a statement through something mental, like the idea it expresses, or a sentence of 'mentalese'. Situation Semantics is also indirect in its approach to truth, but in a more radical way. In Situation Semantics, attention shifts from the conditions under which a statement is true, to something stronger, the conditions under which a statement carries information, and what information it carries under those 39

Jon Barwise

conditions.7 The main point can be summed up briefly as follows. If a semantic account is going to explain the role utterances can play in the communication of information between agents, then it has to give an account of the information content of utterances. In Situation Semantics, the interpretation of a statement is a type of situation. If the statement is true, there is a real situation of that type. A key ingredient in understanding the information content of a sentence is understanding the subject matter of statements made with it - that is, understanding what situations it can describe and under what conditions it can describe them. Only if we can get our hands on the subject matter of constituent statements can we express relationships between them of the kind needed to understand conditionals. Neither first-order model theory nor possible world semantics gives us a fine-grained enough stock of things to serve as subject matter to satisfy our current needs - as we have seen above. This move, from truth conditions to strong information conditions, has other consequences, and is more of a departure from the model-theoretic tradition than it might seem at first. It allows us to apply general principles of information flow in the explanation of semantic phenomena. One of the most important such applications is what Perry and I call 'exploitation of environmental constants'. The basic idea is that what stays fixed does not need to be made explicit. This is important enough to deserve a subsection of its own. 3.3 Conditional constraints, environmental constants and parametric information The final piece that we need to review is the discussion of conditional constraints from S&A (pp. 99-100, 112-14, a n d 270-2). I will review this in some detail, taking advantage of some of the changes made in Ss&sa, and some more recent thoughts Perry and I have had on the matter. Most constraints to which we are attuned do not apply to every situation, but only under certain conditions. For example, striking a match means that it will light, but only under appropriate conditions, including the condition that free oxygen be present. It doesn't mean that it will light if you're underwater, for example. This concept of a conditional constraint, and the conditions under which a conditional constraint holds, was a central part of our account of how one can come to know things on the basis of nonfactual constraints, by exploiting environmental factors. For example, it explains how it was that for months I was able to use the conditional constraint about Claire to learn when she was sleepy, until she encountered pollen X. The concept thus turns out to be important in understanding the informational function of conditionals. In order to get the account of conditionals to work out right, though, in terms of fitting the data, we need to modify slightly our earlier account of conditional constraints. To motivate the change, let me step back and discuss a more general issue. 40

Conditionals and conditional information If R is some n + iary relation, then it takes n + i objects ax . . . an + i (one of these may be a space-time location) and a truth value / to determine a proposition, namely the proposition that the objects stand (/= i) or do not stand (z = o) in the relation R; equivalently, the proposition that the parameterfree type: 5 = [5 | in5: R,#i . . ., afran+ \\ i] is realized. However, if one of these objects, an + ] say, is an environmental constant, that is, if an+x is fixed in some way, then it only takes n objects and a truth value to determine the same proposition. If true, this proposition can be a piece of information about R, and the objects in question. Now let's look at it the other way around. What if we are given R and ax, . . . ,an and a truth value / explicitly? We do not have enough for a parameterfree type, and hence a proposition. All we have is a parametric type: S(an4.j) = [s I in s: R, au . . .#n,an

+ l\

i]

Only if the final parameter an + x is anchored to a value an + l in some other way will we have enough to give us a proposition that represents information, or misinformation. Until that is fixed, all we have is parametric information or misinformation - information relative to some assignments, misinformation relative to others. We have already seen some concrete examples of this in the discussion of It's 4 p.m. and Kansas City is closer than Columbus, and back in the discussion of Example E. The interpretation of these statements gives information relative to certain parameters that have to be determined by context. I want to treat the involves relation in a similar way, as a three-place relation between types of situations: S involves S' given that B, which I write as:

We think of B as conditions on the situations we are in such that the constraint between S and S' holds, as long as the situations in question are all of type B.« The important thing to realize is that as long as a given background condition B is in force - that is, as long as all situations that arise are of type B - then there is no reason that one will ever be aware of the dependence on B. It can be treated as an environmental constant. For example, it was only when Claire started rubbing her eyes when she obviously was not sleepy that we had any idea that the constraint that her rubbing her eyes means she is sleepy is conditional on certain background conditions B obtaining, conditions that had held until then but of which we were unaware. The actual constraint was not the constraint S^>S' described earlier, but S^>S' \ B, where B is the type of situation where there is no pollen X present at /. 41

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That is, just as we can think of the relation of being closer than as a two-place relation, as long as a fixed vantage point is maintained, so too we can think of constraints as being absolute relations between types of situations, as long as background conditions stay constant. Problems can arise in communication, when the background conditions are different for speaker and listener. If I am talking to someone around here and explain that Kansas City is closer than Columbus, communication should be straightforward. However, if I am speaking on the phone and say the same thing, communication is problematic. Similarly, when I told a babysitter in March that if Claire rubs her eyes, then she is sleepy, then communication worked, and the sitter obtained useful information about Claire's behaviour. However, if I had written this on a permanent set of instructions and a sitter had read it in June, when conditions had changed, communication would not have worked, in that she would have obtained a piece of misinformation. Similarly, in a class where angles are always interior angles of acute triangles, the students and teacher exploit this environmental constant to convey information with the sentence: if sin(a) = sin(/3), then a — j8 However, if we inadvertently stray out of this environment into one where angles greater than 900 come up, as in Example E, then we may use this sentence to convey misinformation, and so make mistakes. A speaker can affect what sorts of background conditions are appropriate for the interpretation of his utterance. Indeed, the utterance itself can have an effect on the background conditions that are taken as being in effect. If I say Matches struck usually ignite, and if it is interpreted relative to normal background conditions, then it expresses a true fact. However, if I say Matches struck in the presence of free oxygen usually ignite then the presence of free oxygen is not taken as being part of the background conditions of my utterance. 4. I N T E R P R E T I N G CONDITIONAL STATEMENTS With these pieces in place, let's turn to conditionals. To motivate the discussion, and tie it up with constraints, I will start by treating general conditionals. I will first discuss the interpretation of general conditionals, then the interpretation of specific conditionals. 4.1 Interpreting general conditionals Consider a pair of statements as follows: (23) (24)

Snow means that the sidewalks are slippery If it snows, then the sidewalks are slippery 42

Conditionals and conditional information For our purposes, we can take these as synonymous. Moreover, statement (23) is one that attributes information to situations of a certain type, snowy ones, by describing a constraint between types of situations. This being the case, it is only natural to take the interpretation of (23) and (24) to be a single constraint:

2

4

(

2

4

2

4

)

S'24 = [s I in s: at /: snowing; 1] S"24 = [s I in s: at /: slippery, sidewalks; 1] where / is a role restricted to range over sublocations of the present location / referred to by the speaker of (24). Thus, these are the parameterized types assigned as the interpretations of the antecedent and consequent, respectively, with the role / common to both. The constraint means that for every anchoring of / to some real location /', any situation sx of type S'2A (/') is part of some s2: S"2,(l).

Similarly, (25) and (26) describe a single constraint C2: (25) (26)

Claire rubbing her eyes means that she is sleepy If Claire rubs her eyes, then she is sleepy

However, this is not quite right. Neither of these constraints is actual. They do hold quite widely, though, and as long as we are in conditions B where they do hold, we can trust them. Thus, what we assign to these statements is a parametric constraint, where a parameter/? is to be anchored to the prevailing background conditions. Thus, what we want is not C2 but C2\B where B is anchored to the prevailing background conditions, hopefully to B = [s | in s: at /: pollen X; o], or something containing it. Thus, the interpretation of a general conditional statement is a parametric constraint C\B, where B is a parameter anchored to the prevailing background, and where C is S=>5", these types being the interpretations of the antecedent and consequent, respectively. As such, this will not provide a complete proposition, but only a parametric proposition, a proposition relative to the background conditions B - the proposition that C\ B is actual. This may be information, or it may not. This makes the exact information content of a statement of a general conditional highly context-dependent, which seems right. However, it might appear to be too context-dependent, since it could happen that the exact information content is not even determined by what the speaker knows, in that he or she might not know what the relevant conditions B are. This may seem an unpleasant consequence of the account, but, sad to say, it seems right. Moreover, it is just what is needed for many of the puzzling features of the logic of conditionals, as we will see. In any case, it is not restricted to conditionals. After all, I can obviously say of two objects a and b that 43

Jon Barwise

a is closer than b, that is, closer to me - even if I don't know exactly where I am. The information content of my statement is that a is closer than b to me, and so is relative to where I am. Similarly, the speaker's environment determines B, and to the extent that the listener shares B, the statement can function informationally in a more or less straightforward manner. 4.2 Interpreting specific conditionals Let us look at some specific conditionals related to the general conditional discussed above: (27) (28)

If it is snowing, then the sidewalks are slippery If it snowed, then the sidewalks were slippery

These conditionals also describe constraints, but more specific ones, in that the space-time location has been filled out by use of the more specific tense: Q7

=

^23(^27)

^28

=

^23 ('28/

where l21 and /28 are the space-time locations referred to in utterances (27) and (28), respectively. More generally, under what conditions can a specific conditional sentence 0—> t/> convey information, and, under those conditions, what information does it convey? The basic picture is this. The speaker is talking about a specific, highly limited, situation, say su. Usually just a few things and some relations between them are involved. He is saying that this is a situation where a conditional constraint S=$>S' \B applies, where B is anchored to the background conditions. S is the interpretation of 0, S' is the interpretation of ip. Thus, his utterance will be informational relative to B if there is an anchor / for the parameters of B such that su:B(f), and if he has the information, relative to B, that S^>S' \B is actual. He may have such information simply by being in that type of situation and knowing how things work there. The propositional content of his utterance is just that S(f) => S'(f) is actual. Notice that both the specific situation su and the type of situation B play roles in determining when a specific conditional statement is informational, but they are not part of the information content. Of course, some of the constituents of su will be constituents of the types S and 5' and hence be constituents of the information content. For example, the values of the parameters anchored by/will be constituents. Lewis (1973) discusses the annoying vagueness of the truth conditions of counterfactuals. He puts this down to a difficulty in knowing what other worlds are most similar to our own. On our account, the difficulty in deciding whether a given counterfactual statement is true is not due to any vagueness about what the underlying sentence means, or to difficulty in knowing what other 44

Conditionals and conditional information possible worlds are most similar to our own. On the account presented here, the meaning is pretty clear, and there are no other possible worlds. Rather, the difficulty in knowing whether a counterfactual statement is true rests in two other problems:9 knowing just what situation su the speaker is talking about; and knowing whether there is some background type B such that su is of type B and the conditioned constraint C \ B is actual. 4.3 The examples revisited The account I have given, while informal, is rigorous enough to commit us to claims about the examples given earlier. Let's work through some of these examples to see what predictions our theory makes, and how well it stands up. I will take them in a different order. Example D. For a first example, I take one that is true, but where both the antecedent and consequent are false. One of the things that must be accounted for is how a true conditional can carry new information to a listener who already knows that both the antecedent and consequent are false. To see that this can happen, imagine that Mary Ellen and I are going out for the evening, and that a new sitter has arrived. Suppose she happens to see that Claire is annoyed with the cat and fussing at it, that she is not rubbing her eyes, and that she is not the least bit sleepy. From the other room, though, I only hear Claire fussing and say: (29)

If Claire is rubbing her eyes, then she is sleepy

It seems pretty obvious that my statement carries information about Claire to the sitter, and that the information is something about Claire other than the fact that she is not rubbing her eyes. What I am saying is that a certain constraint C29 is actual in a particular situation s29. But just what situation s29 am I talking about? Is it the real world where Claire is not rubbing her eyes and is not sleepy, or is it some fictitious but 'near' world where Claire is rubbing her eyes and is sleepy? Neither; and here is a real advantage of dealing with situations, which are partial, rather than the whole world. I refer to the situation with Claire playing on the floor with some toys. This situation is quite limited in that it does not settle many things, like whether or not Claire is rubbing her eyes, or whether the cat is present. What I say about this situation is that it is one where a certain conditional constraint applies, so that a certain unconditional constraint is actual. As long as there is no pollen X present there, then the constraint is actual, and my communicative act is informative. Let's look at this example in a bit more detail, just to get the feel for what is going on. The constraint I am describing is C29 = S'29 => S"29 where S'29 is: [s I in s: at /: rubbing, Claire, Claire's eyes; 1] andS'^is: 45

Jon Barwise

[s | in s: at /: sleepy, Claire; i] Here / is the particular space-time location referred to in my use of the present progressive. To say that this constraint C29 applies in the particular situation s29 is to say that there is a background type B such that C291 B holds, and s29 is of type B. By assumption, the only sort of constraint of this sort around is where B is the type of there being no pollen X present. Of course the sitter does not know just what that condition is, and I might not either, in making my statement. As regards subjunctives and counterfactuals, notice that if, a few minutes later, I say to the sitter / / Claire had been rubbing her eyes, then she would have been sleepy, I am describing exactly the same constraint, but just from a different point in time and, perhaps, with the knowledge (or false belief) that there was no real situation of the type described by the antecedent. Now let's contrast (29) with a false statement, but one that would seem to follow from it using the Hypothetical Syllogism: (30)

If Claire is rubbing her eyes and there is pollen X present, then she is sleepy

The antecedent of this conditional changes the conditions under which it can be used appropriately. The background type can no longer be one where there is no pollen X present. Whereas (29) was said in a background where it was a fact there was no pollen X present (at /: pollen X; o), the use of (30) is not appropriate in a context where this fact is fixed. In order for S^>S' \B to be a constraint, S f\ B must be coherent if the constraint is to be a constraint on situations at all. More generally, there will be no problem applying the Hypothetical Syllogism if the background conditions B stay constant. It is only as they shift that invalid inferences will get made. Example E. Exactly the same thing is at work here. With (16) we are describing a conditional constraint, one that applies to positive real numbers, that is, in those situations where the numbers being talked of are positive reals. In the 'proof that 1 = - 1 , we have moved out of these conditions and have attempted to apply the constraint where it is not applicable. The same holds for the 'proof that all triangles are isosceles triangles. Example A. Now let's take an example where it is really not clear whether the statement is true or is false - the example of Virgil and the rock. Virgil's (5) was a specific conditional statement. It asserted that a conditional constraint C5 (relating types of situations in which he is attacked and types of situations in which he defends himself) applied in the situation s5 he was in at the demonstration. Was (5) indeed true? It was just if C5 applied in s5. Were there general psychological facts about Virgil, and facts about how things were back then, that applied to give a general constraint, of which this was a special case? Since Virgil had never been in a situation where he was really being attacked, 46

Conditionals and conditional information he simply did not know how he would have reacted. But this is why Virgil's initial puzzlement was in fact entirely appropriate. His answer ought to have been'I don't know'. Example C. What can we now say about the statements that caused Quine to despair? Let's start with the indicative versions: (10) (i i)

If Bizet and Verdi are compatriots, then Bizet is Italian If Bizet and Verdi are compatriots, then Verdi is French

Taking the sentence/statement distinction seriously, let's imagine that these were uttered by different speakers, A and B, to a common listener, C. Consider (10) first. As we saw earlier, the conditions under which this would be informational would be if A were talking about the situation of Verdi's being Italian. In this case, (10) does describe an actual constraint, and it is informationally correct. On the other hand, if B is talking about the situation of Bizet's being French, ( n ) too describes an actual constraint. Both constraints are specific instances of a general conditional constraints: if x is of nationality z, then if x and y are compatriots, then y is of nationality z. So there are circumstances in which (10) and ( n ) both represent true statements, statements about different specific situations, statements that convey different information about these situations to C. What is C's reaction? She might not believe both statements, since they do sound at odds. On the other hand, she might believe both of these true statements and so come to know both facts described. That is, she comes to learn that if Bizet and Verdi had been compatriots, then Bizet would have been Italian and Verdi would have been French. However, the latter is incompatible with Bizet and Verdi being compatriots. Thus, C could, in fact, learn that they were not compatriots, something neither A nor B needed to know to make informational statements. Now let us turn to the subjunctive versions, say (8) as contrasted with (10): (8)

If Bizet and Verdi had been compatriots, Bizet would have been Italian

We can take this to be about the very same situation, of Verdi's being Italian, and describing the same constraint. It might be used in trying to decide whether or not Bizet and Verdi were compatriots. Or, more typically, it would be used as a counterfactual, where one knew that, in fact, there was no real situation extending the one being talked about in which the two men were compatriots. The conclusion, though, is that there is no reason not to say that both (8) and (9) could be used, counterfactually, to make true statements, statements that carry information about a certain specific constraint. While this is in direct conflict with Lewis's account, it seems to square with most people's intuitions. Example F. With this under our belt, let us see what the account would say about Downing's example: (20)

If Jim had asked Jack for help, then Jack would have helped him 47

Jon Barwise

Consider a particular statement u of (20). Such an utterance will determine a constraint C20, one where Jim asking Jack for help involves Jack helping Jim. However, in addition, the statement has to be made about a specific real situation s20, relative to a set of background conditions, B2Q. The background, we will suppose, contains only the fact about Jim and Jack being willing to help one another when asked, provided they have not quarrelled recently. We will leave the rest to the situation being talked about. Given appropriate context, one could imagine the speaker talking about either of two situations, s2o,o which omits the quarrel, or s2(M which includes the quarrel but omits the fact that Jim is stubborn. However, neither of these situations is one where the constraint applies, since neither is the sort of situation where Jim and Jack would help one another. The second is clearly abnormal in that the quarrel is explicitly present. However, the first only leaves the quarrel out. It is still not a situation where they have not quarrelled, that is, one where there is a fact of their not having quarrelled. A speaker who did not know about the quarrel might feel justified in asserting (20) but he would not in fact have had enough information to make a true statement. Only if he had known that there had been no quarrel could he have been in such a position, and he can't have known that. Notice that there is a conditional closely related to (20) that the ignorant speaker might legitimately fall back on, once learning of the quarrel: (31)

If Jim and Jack had not quarrelled and Jim had asked Jack for help, then Jack would have helped Jim

Here the speaker has explicitly moved part of the background into the conditional, so we get a true conditional closely related to the original. Conversational maxims suggest giving the speaker the benefit of the doubt if that is what he claims he really meant. What about the following argument? 'But look, if Jim had asked Jack for help, then they couldn't have recently quarrelled (since then Jim would not have asked), so sure enough Jack would have helped.' This conditional is clearly changing the background conditions, moving the lack of an argument between Jack and Jim out of the background, into the subject matter, so it is not an appropriate defence of the statement in (20) in the original background #20-

Example G. Zack, you will recall, had enough information to assert If Pete called, then he won. Jack, on the other hand, had enough to assert / / Pete called, then he lost. Yet, it seemed, we had conflicting information about what would happen in the case where Pete in fact called. We can assume that the background type for both utterances was the same, including facts about the rules of poker, and about how good players use all available information about their opponents' hands. Zack thinks he has information about a particular situation, one that includes Mr Stone's hand and 48

Conditionals and conditional information about Pete's having information as to what Stone's hand is. Talking about that, he asserts (under the prevailing conditions) that if Pete calls, he will win, because he will only call if he knows his hand is better than Mr Stone's. Jack, on the other hand, is talking about a different situation, one that includes the facts of the matter about both hands. According to the rules of poker, if Pete calls with the hands as they are, he will lose. If Jack and Zack really have the information they think they have, then Pete won't call. What happens if Pete does call? Well, that can only happen if one of them had misinformation about the situation they were talking about, not information. There could be various reasons for this. Perhaps Jack mistook one of the two hands. Or perhaps Zack is wrong about Pete's poker playing ability, or about Pete's having received the information about Mr Stone's hand from Zack's signals. Or perhaps Pete is about to have a sudden change of heart, one that makes him unwilling to use illicitly obtained information. All kinds of things could go wrong. If any of them go wrong, then the situation being talked about does not match the assumed background conditions, so the respective speaker is just plain wrong. The fact that both speakers could be right in no way militates against there being a propositional content to their claims. If both are right, then the propositions combine to yield the right consequence, that Pete will not call. If Pete calls, then one of them was mistaken. That speaker was conveying the propositional content, not as information but as misinformation. Example B. This leaves us only with attempting to understand the information conditions of statements (6) and (7). First, what are the prevailing background assumptions Bl Well, they are certain commonsense facts about actual proofs of conjectures about natural numbers, like the fact that anything that has a correct proof is true, not false. In addition, there is an actual conditional constraint, that if one has a proof that 0 and xp are equivalent, then having a proof of 0 involves being able to obtain a proof of \p. Finally, there is the assumption that we are talking about open conjectures, not about propositions whose truth we already know. The situation being talked about contains two particular statements, FLT and RH, and Virgil's proof that they are equivalent. The statement (6) describes a specific actual constraint obtained from the general conditional constraint. The puzzling case, though, is (7): (7)

It is false that if you could give a proof of RH, then I could give a proof of not-FLT

It seems true, but just why? To answer this, we must examine the informational function of It is false that if 0 then \p, where the embedded conditional is a specific conditional. If the embedded statement says of a certain situation su that some conditional constraint applies, giving a specific constraint, then It is false that if 0 then 49

Jon Barwise

xp asserts that there is no such conditional constraint that applies to su giving the constraint in question. Given the plethora of constraints we recognize, how could it ever happen that a speaker comes to have the information that there is no such conditional constraint that applies in a particular situation to yield some specific actual constraint? Let's look at a couple of examples. Suppose you say / / you were as poor as I am, you would not buy so many books. I may know that you are wrong, because I may know that I am poorer than you. This is just what the material conditional gets at, when it says that a conditional is false if the antecedent is false and the conclusion true. Here is a different sort of example. Suppose we are ready to distribute some candy bars to the children, and you, wanting to be the one to hand them out, say If I give each child one of these bars, every child will get one he likes. However, I notice that all the candy bars have coconut in them, and know that some of these children cannot stand coconut. I know that your conditional statement is false, since there can be no such way of giving the children bars that will make them all happy, no matter how good your intentions. This same idea applies to an example from Stalnaker (1984: 164). Tweedledum and Tweedledee are prevented from tossing a fair coin. Tweedledum says / / we had tossed the coin, then it would have come up heads. Tweedledee disagrees quite strongly, asserting that if they had tossed it, it would have come up tails. I claim that they are both wrong. It is just false to make either claim since general symmetry considerations show that there is no general law which determines the outcome of a fair coin toss before the coin is tossed.10 It is not, as Stalnaker suggests, that the statements are of indeterminate truth value, but rather that they are both false. Notice, though, that either Tweedle would be right in asserting the conditional / / we had tossed this coin, it would have come up heads or tails. However, for understanding (7), the tricky case is when the antecedent of the conditional is necessarily false, something that has not come up in the above examples. Or has it? What if, in the case of the candy bars, there are fewer bars than children? In that case, the antecedent is necessarily false, but it still seems that we would judge the conditional as a whole false, for the observed reason. Now, let's get back to Virgil. How could it be that he has the information needed to assert (7)? That is, how can he have the information that the embedded statement: If you could give a proofofRH, then I could give a proof of not- FLT is false? Paul gives the answer to this. In these circumstances, RH and not-FLT serve not so much to designate particular statements, as to designate parameters anchored to RH and not-FLT. That is, the best way to understand (7) is as denying the existence of a general constraint that gets one from a proof of a conjecture in number theory to a proof of something inconsistent with the conjecture. There can be no such general constraint because any number-theoretic statement that is provable is true. 50

Conditionals and conditional information 5. CONCLUSION What in the world are conditionals about? I have attempted to show that the sort of answer that Quine suggests, that they describe relations between the matters spoken of by the antecedent and consequent, is in fact quite workable, and that it applies to a wide range of conditionals, including mathematical conditionals. The two essential ingredients of my account are constraints as the interpretation of conditionals and the use of a parametric background type that is anchored by context. The former is needed to get at the subject matter of conditional statements, the latter is needed to account for their logic. Both of these are suggested by general considerations having to do with information and its flow. This account is, admittedly, more complicated than the material conditional. I have the feeling, though, that it gets at what people working on truth-conditional accounts of conditionals have really been after. What one really wants is an account that describes the conditions under which a speaker is in a position to assert if 0 then \p, in terms of the conditions under which 0 and ip obtain. Notice the wording here. We assume that there are such things as conditions under which things hold. The conditions are not descriptions, but we can try to describe them. That is, the conditions are not linguistic expressions but things that we can try to describe in our theory by using linguistic expressions. This is just the kind of account we have sketched of the interpretation of conditionals. We have suggested spelling out the conditions under which a speaker can assert a conditional, and the information the conditional carries, in terms of relations between the types of situations described by their antecedents and consequents, much as Quine suggested. The account is compositional to the extent that the meaning of compound sentence (// 0 then \p) is systematically related to that of its parts, even though there is no simple relation between the particular truth value of the whole and its parts. There is another tradition in the study of conditionals, one that takes conditionals as being about dispositions to change beliefs in the light of new evidence. The intuition is that if I believe that if 0 then \p and come to learn that 0, then I will be disposed, in general, to believe that ip. What does our account have to say about such matters? Stalnaker (1984: ch. 6) makes a convincing case for needing to distinguish between what he calls conditional11 belief and belief in conditional propositions. He argues that they should be closely related, in that conditional propositions, whatever they are, are 'propositions about features of the world which justify certain policies for changing one's belief in response to potential new information' (p. 119). But constraints are exactly those features of the world that underwrite information flow, and so are just the sort of thing one needs to 51

Jon Barwise

know about to be in a justified position in changing one's beliefs in response to new information.

NOTES 1 This paper, the second in a series with the general title of The situation in logic', grew out of my reply to Richmond Thomason's papers (1983a, b), which he presented to the Symposium on Conditionals and Cognitive Processes. Reading Stalnaker (1984) inspired me to rewrite the paper and give, I think, a more satisfactory account. I would like to thank the members of the CSLI Logic Group for many helpful comments on both drafts, especially John Etchemendy and David Israel. Daily discussions with John Perry in the course of writing the paper were crucial to its development. Thanks also to Alice ter Meulen, Rich Thomason and Elizabeth Traugott for helpful comments on the earlier draft, and to Ingrid Deiwiks for help with preparation of the paper far beyond the call of duty. The research for, and preparation of, this paper were done at the Center for the Study of Language and Information, supported by an award from the System Development Foundation. 2 These are the questions for declarative sentences. Other sorts of sentences will have other informational functions. Questions, for example, are quests for information. 3 To be definite about what I mean by provable, I will take 'proof to mean a proof in first-order logic from the axioms of some standard true number theory like Peano arithmetic. 4 One heroic measure that might be suggested to avoid this paradoxical situation would be for all different possible worlds to have non-isomorphic natural numbers. However, this will not solve the problem as long as each world satisfies the reflection schema, which asserts that anything provable is true. For in that case, FLT will be true in world j , but since the integers of j must contain the actual integers as an initial segment, FLT will be true in the actual world as well, and hence so will RH, which is equivalent to it. This was why I took FLT to be a universal numbertheoretic conjecture. 5 In S&A we sometimes used classes of situations, and class membership, to represent these types. At other times we used event-types and anchorings to represent them. One of the changes suggested in Ss&sa was to treat these types directly, rather than representing them with sets or classes. I am following that change here, though little harm will come from using the notion of event-type from S&A. I use the notation [s I . . . s ...] for the type of situation that satisfies the conditions . . . 5 . . . . Borrowing a notation from computer science, I write s:S to indicate that s is of type 5. This only makes sense if S has no parameters. There are three operations on types that are important: fl, U, and ~~|. These satisfy the usual laws for a boolean algebra, except for the laws that makes SU~|S a unit element and Sfl~|S a zero element. Rather than there being a zero element, there is a property of being an incoherent type, which is satisfied by a filter of types, in particular, by every type of the form 5fl~|5. There is a partial ordering on the types, SCS', which means that every situation of type S is also of type S'. Thus, if SCS' and s:S, then s:S'. 6 If S has parameters, then S is realized only relative to some anchor for the parameters of S. 7 Any statement will carry some extraneous information, like what language the speaker is using. What really counts is that it should carry its propositional content as information. In S&A we stressed the type of situation a statement describes, and called that the interpretation of the statement. In Ss&sa, however, in reaction 52

Conditionals and conditional information to Soames' commentary (1985), we admitted that there are associated propositions, and called them the propositional content of the statement. In this paper I am taking the propositional content to be the proposition that the type of situation described is realized. 8 In S&A we tried to define this three-place relation in terms of the two-place relation, by BDS'^S". Studying conditionals has convinced me that this particular reduction is incorrect. In this paper I will just treat it as a three-place relation. I will implicitly use the following five assumptions about this relation in what follows: (1) if B is fixed, then the resulting two-place relation is transitive: Sj => S21 B and S2 =>S3\B then S} => S3 \ B. This is why the Hypothetical Syllogism is valid as long as background conditions do not vary. (2) If a conditional constraint holds relative to some B and this background condition is tightened, then the constraint holds relative to the more restrictive type of situation B'\ if S^S' \ B and B'CB, where B' is compatible with S, then S => 5' I B'. (3) If S => S' I B then S is compatible with B, that is, SHB is not incoherent. (4) If S^>S' B and / is a coherent anchor for some of the parameters of B, then 5(/)=^>5'(/) B(f). (5) If S^S' \B where B has no parameters, and if B is realized by some real situation, then S =J> S' is actual. 9 This seems to correspond very well to Stalnaker's intuitions, if not his formal account, when he says (1984: 131): Suppose a speaker says something of the form if A then B and a hearer disagrees. There are two contrasting kinds of explanations for the conflict: (1) it may be that the hearer has not understood what .. . situation the speaker meant . . . or (2) it may be that the speaker and hearer disagree about some relevant fact. In Stalnaker's more formal account, both sorts of facts go into determining a single selection function on possible worlds that determines the proposition. 10 I am assuming that even if some strong form of determinism is true, that fact is not what the Tweedles were getting at with their conditionals. 11 For Stalnaker this use of conditional has to do with dispositions to change beliefs, not with the conditions under which a belief is knowledge, as when I spoke of conditional knowledge.

REFERENCES Barwise, Jon. To appear. The situation in logic. 1: logic, meaning and information. In Proceedings of the ig8$ International Symposium on the Philosophy, Method and History of Science, Salzburg. Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Company. Barwise, Jon and John Perry. 1983. Situations and attitudes. Cambridge, Mass.: Bradford Books, MIT Press. Barwise, Jon and John Perry. 1985. Shifting situations and shaken attitudes. Linguistics and Philosophy, 8, 1: 105-61. Downing, P. 1959. Subjunctive conditionals, time order, and causation. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 59: 149-59. Dretske, Fred. 1981. Knowledge and the flow of information. Cambridge, Mass.: Bradford Books, MIT Press. Gibbard, Allan. 1981. Two recent theories of conditionals. As quoted in Robert Stalnaker, 1984. Inquiry. Cambridge Mass.: Bradford Books, MIT Press, 108-9. 53

Jon Barwise Lewis, David. 1973. Counterfactuals. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Maxwell, E. A. 1959. Fallacies in mathematics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quine, Willard Van Orman. 1959. Methods of logic, rev. edn. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Soames, Scott. 1985. Lost innocence. Linguistics and Philosophy, 8,1: 59-71. Stalnaker, Robert. 1984. Inquiry. Cambridge, Mass.: Bradford Books, MIT Press. Thomason, Richmond. 1983a. Conditionals, time and causal independence. MS, University of Pittsburgh. Thomason, Richmond. 1983b. Remarks on mood and conditionals. MS, University of Pittsburgh.

54

CONDITIONALS AND MENTAL MODELS •

P. N. Johnson-Laird 1. INTRODUCTION What would count as a complete theory of conditionals?1 One goal for such a theory is to answer the following two questions: (i) (ii)

What do conditionals mean? What are their logical properties?

These are matters of logical and linguistic analysis: they concern human competence. However, a complete theory of conditionals should also answer two psychological questions: (iii) (iv)

How do people understand them? How do people reason with them?

These are matters of human performance that call for the investigation of mental processes. There are a number of theories that provide answers to some of these four questions. Yet, despite the conceptual analyses of philosophers and logicians, the semantic and syntactic studies of linguists, and the experimental investigations of psychologists, there is no single existing theory that provides a unified and complete account of both competence and performance. My aim in this paper is accordingly to make progress towards such a theory - a theory that concerns the everyday interpretation and use of conditionals, not an idealized philosophical concept, and one that is intended as a contribution to cognitive science. The paper has four parts. The first part considers how ordinary individuals reason with conditionals, and it describes the main approach that psychologists have taken to deductive reasoning - the theory that there are formal rules of inference in the mind. It argues, however, that this view is mistaken and that inference depends instead on a search for 'mental models' of premises that are counterexamples to putative conclusions. A corollary of this theory is that the logical properties of conditionals derive from their interpretation and not from any formal rules associated with them. The second part of the paper takes up this question of how people interpret conditionals. It establishes 55

P. N. Johnson-Laird that they do so in different ways in different contexts. Such interpretations could reflect an intrinsic ambiguity in conditionals, or alternatively the effects of context on an underlying univocal concept. The third part thus considers the attempt by Braine to provide a psychologically plausible univocal analysis, and the theory proposed by Ramsey, and later elaborated by Stalnaker, that conditionals are evaluated by a sort of 'thought experiment'. Braine's theory unfortunately fails to apply to all conditionals; Stalnaker's approach, and recent alternatives to it, relies on a 'possible worlds' semantics. The fourth part treats this approach as the starting point for a new psychological theory based on the notion of mental models.

2. HOW DO PEOPLE REASON WITH CONDITIONALS? 2. i The main empirical phenomena Psychological experiments have shown that people with no training in logic cope reasonably well with arguments in the form of modus ponens (see Wason and Johnson-Laird 1972). Given such premises as: (1)

If the red light is on, the studio is occupied

(2)

The red light is on

(If p then q)

(p)

nearly everyone draws the conclusion: (3) The studio is occupied (•"• q) The only mystery here is the mechanism that selects this particular valid conclusion from the potentially infinite set of other valid conclusions that could be drawn from the same premises. These other conclusions, such as a disjunction or conjunction of the premises, are obviously trivial, but the mechanism that leads to the formulation of nontrivial conclusions has yet to be elucidated definitively. I have argued elsewhere that its operations can be described in terms of the maintenance of semantic information (Johnson-Laird 1983). Ordinary reasoners have greater difficulty with arguments in the form of modus tollendo tollens: (4) (5) (6)

If the red light is on, the studio is occupied The studio is not occupied Therefore, the red light is not on

(If p then q) (~q) (.'. ~p)

Likewise, they make many mistakes, as Wason and his colleagues have shown, in deciding what evidence would in principle controvert a conditional rule (see e.g. Wason and Johnson-Laird 1972). For instance, in order to evaluate the rule: 56

Conditionals and mental models (7)

If there is a vowel on one side of a card, then there is an even number on the other side

the majority of subjects choose to turn over a card bearing a vowel, but they fail to select a card bearing an odd number. They are often less susceptible to this sin of omission if the rules and materials are more realistic, but this manipulation does not always work, and quite why it should work at all remains a matter of active controversy (see Evans 1982; Griggs 1983; Wason 1983; Oakhill and Johnson-Laird 1983). 2.2 The doctrine of mental logic Psychological theories of propositional reasoning have invariably been based on the assumption that the mind contains rules of inference or inferential schemata of the sort postulated in 'natural deduction' systems (see e.g. Inhelder and Piaget 1958; Johnson-Laird 1975; Osherson 1975; Braine 1978; Rips 1983). Mistakes in reasoning are then explained in terms of misinterpretations of the premises, failures in performance, and even the possible existence of 'pathological' rules of inference. The difference in difficulty between modus ponens and modus tollendo tollens is accounted for by assuming that there is a mental rule for the former, but not for the latter - which must therefore depend on a chain of deductions such as a reductio ad absurdum. Alas, this theoretical manoeuvre is intrinsically ad hoc, and so too is the way these theories of mental logic try, if at all, to specify the mechanism that leads to informative rather than to trivial conclusions. The theorist selects one formalization of the calculus rather than another, and lays down otherwise arbitrary constraints on the use of rules of inference. The doctrine that there are mental rules of logic implies that people have at least two sorts of knowledge about conditionals: a knowledge of their logical properties, which is embodied in rules such as modus ponens, and a knowledge of their meaning and, in particular, of their truth conditions. These two sorts of knowledge must of course be compatible with one another. However, there is an important asymmetry between them: a statement of the truth conditions of conditionals constrains the form of inferences that are valid, but a statement of the form of valid inferences leaves conditionals open to a number of distinct semantic interpretations. On the one hand, if the conditional is taken to have the truth conditions of material implication - true unless its antecedent is true and its consequent is false - then both modus ponens and modus tollendo tollens will be valid. On the other hand, if a conditional is taken to be governed by these two rules of inference, it does not follow that it has the truth conditions of material implication. It might instead have 'defective' truth conditions in which no truth value is assigned in those cases where its antecedent is false. Although such a conditional, if p then q, is not equivalent to its contrapositive, if ~q then ~~p, both rules of inference remain valid (see Johnson-Laird and Tagart 1969). 57

P. N. Johnson-Laird 2.3 The theory of mental models and its application to inference The asymmetry between meaning and inferential form naturally suggests that children may acquire a knowledge of truth conditions before they acquire a knowledge of rules of inference. It also suggests a more radical hypothesis: perhaps the only people who ever acquire complete systems of formal rules of inference are logicians, and perhaps the doctrine of mental logic is a complete mistake. Once one knows the truth conditions of propositional connectives (and quantifiers), there are a number of algorithms for reasoning that do not require any access to formal rules. Hence, a logically untutored mind may not contain rules of inference, inferential schemata, or any system for making deductions that depends on the quasisyntactic manipulation of symbols. Reasoning could be based not on formal principles but on the fundamental semantic principle that a valid deduction has no counterexamples: there is no model of the premises in which the conclusion is false. This assumption leads naturally to a quite different conception of human reasoning. At the heart of the theory is the thesis that any deduction about a finite domain can be made using mental models. The following general inferential procedure is only a slight extension of a theory of comprehension. Step 1. Construct a mental model of the state of affairs that the premises describe. Step 2. Formulate, if possible, an informative conclusion that is true in all the models of the premises that have so far been constructed. If there is no informative conclusion but only trivially valid ones, then no conclusion is drawn from the premises. Step 3. Try to construct an alternative model of the premises that renders the conclusion false. If there is such a model, abandon the conclusion and return to step 2. If there is no such model, i.e. the finite possibilities inherent in a finite model have all been examined, then the conclusion is valid. If a given conclusion is to be evaluated, then only this step need be carried out. The theory of mental models can be applied to propositional, relational and quantificational reasoning, though it is restricted to finite domains. It has been implemented in a variety of computer programs, and it has been corroborated by the results of experiments on reasoning (Johnson-Laird 1983). Unlike the theories based on mental logic, its deductive mechanism depends on a search for counterexamples. However, reasoners have to be able to construct mental models of states of affairs described in premises. Indeed, the theory implies that the logical properties of connectives and quantifiers derive from their interpretations and, in particular, from their contribution to the truth conditions of the assertions in which they occur. It is therefore crucial to give an account of how people understand conditionals since, according to the theory, interpretations determine logical properties. 58

Conditionals and mental models 3. HOW DO PEOPLE UNDERSTAND CONDITIONALS? 3. i The interpretation of conditionals Psychologists have discovered one uncontroversial fact about conditionals: they are interpreted in different ways in different situations. In the first experiment on the interpretation of conditionals, Johnson-Laird and Tagart (1969) asked subjects to evaluate a set of cards in the light of a conditional, such as: (8)

If there is an 'A' on the left-hand side of the card, then there is a number '3' on the right-hand side

Thus, a card might have an 'A' on the left and a '4' on the right, and the subjects' task was to decide whether the card indicated that the conditional was true (or false), or was irrelevant to its truth value. Most subjects produced a pattern of judgements consistent with a 'defective' truth table: the conditional was true when its antecedent and consequent were true; it was false when its antecedent was true and its consequent false; but when its antecedent was false of a card, then that card was 'irrelevant' to the truth value of the conditional. This defective truth table for ordinary conditionals had been mooted by various authors, including both Quine (1952) and Wason (1966). An important qualification to these results was demonstrated by Legrenzi (1970). He showed that in a strictly binary situation subjects tend to treat conditionals as having the truth table of material equivalence: true when the antecedent and consequent are both true or both false, but false in any other condition. His subjects watched a ball bearing run down one of two channels, causing one of two lights to be illuminated. Given a conditional of the form: (9)

If the ball rolls to the left, then the green light is lit

the majority of subjects treated trials in which the antecedent and consequent were both true, or both false, as consistent with the rule, and any other combination as inconsistent with it. Some philosophers - notably Grice (1967) - have argued that conditionals correspond to material implications from which certain implicatures are drawn in virtue of conversational conventions. Other philosophers have argued that conditionals never correspond to material implications. For instance, Stalnaker (1968) wrote: 'the falsity of the antecedent is never sufficient reason to affirm a conditional, even an indicative conditional' (but cf. Stalnaker 1975). Yet, certain conditionals with negated antecedents do seem to have truth conditions corresponding to those of material implication, e.g. the assertion: (10)

If the poem isn't by Wordsworth, then it is by Coleridge

seems to be rendered true by the mere fact that the poem is by Wordsworth, i.e. the antecedent is false; or by the mere fact that it is by Coleridge, i.e. the consequent is true. 59

P. N. Johnson-Laird Most traditional theories of conditionals draw a distinction, explicitly or implicitly, between indicative and subjunctive (or counterfactual) conditionals. Even theorists who attempt to treat indicative conditionals truth-functionally concede that counterf actuals such as: (i i)

If the Viennese had three legs, they would march in waltz time

establish some sort of connection between antecedent and consequent, and accordingly transcend any simple truth-functional account. Such conditionals can indeed be true even if both antecedent and consequent are false. They involve further tacit premises which, if taken together with the antecedent, entail the consequent (see Chisholm 1946; Goodman 1947). There is some disagreement among theorists about whether a counterfactual implies that some such argument exists or is itself an elliptical presentation of it. The problem, of course, is to specify which premises should be used with a given antecedent. Philosophers have naturally swept this problem into the pragmatic 'wastepaper basket': it is all a matter of context. Undoubtedly, conditionals are interpreted in many different ways, and the variety of interpretations is even greater, as Fillenbaum (1978) has established, when illocutionary force is taken into account. This diversity in interpretation is perplexing, but it does not necessarily imply that if is polysemous. Several theorists have made ingenious attempts to reconcile a univocal semantics for conditionals with the vagaries of their interpretation, and it is to these attempts that we now turn. 4. WHAT DO CONDITIONALS MEAN? 4.1 A univocal psychological theory Braine (1978) has proposed an ingenious uniform interpretation of conditionals that is consistent with the doctrine that there are inferential schemata in the mind. In part anticipated by Ryle (1949: ch. 5), he argues that assertions of the form: If p then q merely state a rule of inference to the effect that q can be inferred from p: P Therefore, q though they provide in themselves no information about the basis for the inference. Thus, for example, the conditional: (12)

If the red light is on, then the studio is occupied

sanctions the inference: 60

Conditionals and mental models The red light is on Therefore, the studio is occupied Although it is true that whenever q follows from p, the assertion: if p then q, is true, the converse claim is unfortunately false. There are many conditionals that do not have the force of warranting inferences, e.g.: (13) (14) (15)

If you've run out of petrol, there is a garage down the road If you're interested, the world record for the mile has just been broken If the court wants the tapes, Richard has them

Thus, (13) can hardly be said to warrant the inference: You've run out of petrol Therefore, there is a garage down the road In this and the other cases, the consequent of the conditional is true simpliciter (given that the conditional is true), and the antecedent is not a premise but stipulates the conditions in which the truth of the conditional is likely to be of relevance to the addressee (Austin 1961). Many other conditionals can hardly be said to warrant inferences. Indeed, a striking feature of conditionals is that their antecedents always state conditions, whereas their consequents can serve a variety of illocutionary functions: (16) you are married to her I hereby pronounce you married to her If you give her the ring, are you married to her? do marry her if only you would marry her! A conditional that contains a performative utterance hardly states a rule of inference, and a conditional with a question or an exclamation as its consequent certainly cannot serve as a rule of inference. Indeed, any formulation of the semantics of conditionals in terms of truth conditions is, strictly speaking, too restrictive. What is required is an account that accommodates statements, performatives, questions, requests, and the full panoply of illocutions. If conditionals always sanction rules of inference, then their logical properties should be straightforward. In fact, their behaviour in inference seems quite variable. Some conditional premises yield a transitive conclusion; others, as Stalnaker (1968) points out, do not: (17) (18)

If J. Edgar Hoover had been a Communist, then he would have been a traitor If J. Edgar Hoover had been born in Russia, then he would have been a Communist

Braine (1979) argues that such examples are misleading and are not genuine failures in transitivity. If the second premise is true and Hoover became a 61

P. N. Johnson-Laird naturalized American, then transitivity holds. But, if the second premise is true and Hoover did not become a naturalized American, then the first premise is false. In short, either transitivity holds or one of the premises is false in the context of the argument. The following two assertions, however, seem to be true in the same context: (19) (20)

If you need any money, then there is a ten pound note in your wallet If there is a ten pound note in your wallet, then you don't need any money

The first asserts that there is a ten pound note in your wallet and states the conditions in which this information may be relevant; the second states the principle that if there is a ten pound note in your wallet then you do not need any money. Yet, obviously, the transitive inference is invalid: If you need any money, then you don't need any money The only way out appears to be to recognize that not every conditional sanctions an inference, and thus to accept that Braine's theory is only a part of the story and does not apply to all conditionals. 4.2 The Ramsey-Stalnaker 'thought experiment' An alternative approach to a unified semantics for conditionals began with Ramsey's (1931) idea that the way to evaluate a conditional is to add its antecedent to your stock of beliefs, and then to assess whether or not its consequent is true. If you believe that there is a causal or necessary connection from the antecedent to the consequent, then rationally you will infer that the consequent is true, and hence that the conditional as a whole is true. If you already believe that the consequent is true, then it should remain a part of your beliefs, and you will consider the conditional true, too. Hence, a causal or necessary connection may be relevant to your assessment of the conditional, but it is not an indispensable part of the process. This 'thought experiment' triggered by a conditional works only where you have no prior opinion about the truth of the antecedent. Stalnaker (1968) accordingly suggested the following addition to the procedure. Where you believe the antecedent to be true, your evaluation of the conditional is equivalent to your belief about the consequent. Where you believe the antecedent to be false, its addition to your beliefs will require some of them to be modified in order to avoid inconsistency, and which particular modifications you make will be determined on pragmatic grounds (see Rescher 1964). A general procedure for conditionals can thus be summarized as follows: add the antecedent to your stock of beliefs; adjust your other beliefs, where necessary, to maintain consistency; and evaluate the conditional as true or false depending on whether its consequent is true or false. 62

Conditionals and mental models Stalnaker (1968, 1981) went on to propose a set of truth conditions for conditionals congruent with this method of evaluation and based on 'possible world' semantics. Subsequently, Lewis (1973), Pollock (1976) and others have formulated alternative accounts of counterfactual conditionals within the same framework of 'possible worlds'. Undoubtedly, this approach has made a major contribution to elucidating language in general and conditionals in particular. What I want to consider in the next section is a psychological theory partly inspired by it, but also based on the assumption that because the set of possible worlds is infinite in size, it cannot fit directly into an individual's mind (see also Partee 1979; Johnson-Laird 1982). 5. MENTAL MODELS OF CONDITIONALS 5.1 Some assumptions about the interpretation of conditionals The ideal solution to the problem of 'if would be to establish neither a single uniform logic of the term, nor a variety of meanings for it, but a single uniform semantics from which both the diversity of the interpretations of conditionals and the vagaries in their logical behaviour will emerge. In aiming for such a theory, I shall begin with a number of interrelated assumptions that I shall briefly motivate. First, the meaning of conditionals can be grasped by human beings. This principle ought to go without saying, but it has to be made explicit - in part because 'possible world' analyses are too big to fit immediately inside anyone's head, and in part because certain theories lead to the view that, in Putnam's phrase, 'meanings ain't in the head' (see Putnam 1975 for a defence of this view, and Johnson-Laird 1983 for a rejoinder). Since one cannot prove that people understand the proper meaning of conditionals, it is necessary to assume that they do. Second, the semantic interpretations of conditionals can be built up compositionally from the interpretations of their constituents. The principle of compositionality is familiar to students of logical semantics and Montague Grammar, though of course it is not universally accepted (see e.g. Russell 1905; Chomsky 1977). In my view, compositionality is hardly an empirical issue: such is the power of compositional semantics that any noncompositional analysis can probably be mimicked by a compositional one. Third, there is an immediate and striking observation that can be made once one accepts compositionality: the interpretation of the consequent of a conditional is identical to the interpretation of the same main clause if it occurs in isolation but in a context that is known to satisfy the antecedent of the conditional. There are therefore no constraints on the form or illocutionary force of the consequent. Similarly, there is no need to make special provisions for the interpretation of the consequents of conditionals, since the 63

P. N. Johnson-Laird ordinary procedures for coping with main clauses suffice. In particular, the mental model theory of modal auxiliaries such as 'may' and 'will', which assumes that they are unambiguous but depend on epistemic or deontic beliefs for their interpretation (Johnson-Laird 1978), can be directly incorporated within the present account. The third assumption is borne out by the following observation. If both speaker and listener are conscious of the content of an antecedent, i.e. of the imminence of the corresponding state of affairs, then it can be omitted. For example, a mother observing her child about to grab a forbidden cake can assert: (21)

I'll smack you

The force of this utterance is not that the mother will smack the child regardless, but rather that she will do so if the child takes the cake. Indeed, should the mother be uncertain about her child's intentions she could equally well assert: (22)

If you take the cake, I'll smack you

Even with counterfactuals, the antecedent can be omitted where the speaker and the listener are conscious that the antecedent event was imminent but did not occur. Hence the mother, observing instead that her child has mastered the temptation to take the cake, can assert: (23)

I'd have smacked you

where the force of the utterance is that she would have done so if the child had taken the cake. Fourth, it is a corollary of the previous assumption that the function of the antecedent of a conditional is to establish a context, i.e. a state of affairs that should be taken for granted in considering the consequent. When the speaker and listener are conscious that the actual state of affairs does correspond to the antecedent, then indeed it is odd to assert the antecedent. The mother would not say: (24)

If you take the cake ...

in a context where the child has plainly taken it. Here, it would only be appropriate to use an antecedent that designates a generic state of affairs that subsumes what has happened: (25)

If you take cakes ...

Since antecedents function to establish contexts of interpretation, there are corresponding constraints on their form: they must make a statement, and their tense and aspect call for a special interpretation. Finally, although the Ramsey-Stalnaker notion of a 'thought experiment' has been endorsed by some psychologists (Rips and Marcus 1977), it is an 64

Conditionals and mental models idealization: people do not evaluate a conditional by adding its antecedent to their complete stock of beliefs (with minimal modifications) and evaluating its consequent. They do not have ready access to all their beliefs, and it might take hours for them to review even a relevant sample. Armed with these assumptions, let us turn to the theory of mental models to help us to formulate an account of how conditionals are evaluated. The overall, though over-simplified, scheme can be summarized in two steps: Step i. Construct a mental model based on the superficial linguistic representation of the antecedent and on those beliefs triggered during this process. Step 2. Interpret the consequent in the context of the model and general knowledge. There are, of course, many details that need to be spelt out in order to transform this simple picture into a more accurate one, and I will consider, first, the interpretation of the antecedent; second, the nature of the relation between the antecedent and the consequent; and finally, the extent to which the truth conditions of the antecedent specify the situation in which the consequent is evaluated. 5.2 The interpretation of the antecedent What underlies the meaning of conditionals, according to the present theory, is the ability to envisage states of affairs that may or may not correspond to reality, that is, the ability to construct mental models of such states of affairs and to bear in mind their existential status. The metaphysics of English distinguishes between three major classes of states of affairs: actual states, real possibilities and hypothetical states. An actual state is described by a straightforwardly true but contingent assertion, such as: (26)

Elizabeth II is the queen of England

A real possibility is described by an indicative antecedent: (27)

If Elizabeth II abdicates ...

which designates an event that is possible in relation to the current state of affairs. A hypothetical state is described by a subjunctive antecedent: (28)

If Elizabeth II had abdicated ...

which designates a once possible, but now imaginary event, to be taken hypothetically in relation to the then current state of affairs. The distinction between real possibilities and hypothetical states is one between the real history of the world and hypothetical alternatives to it (see Isard 1975 for the description of a computer program that interprets conditionals 65

P. N. Johnson-Laird

about games of tic-tac-toe in very much this way). Hence, there is no difference in the truth conditions of the two sorts of conditional when they refer to future events, e.g.: (29)

If anyone uses nuclear weapons, World War III will occur

and: (30)

If anyone were to use nuclear weapons, World War III would occur

The only distinction here is that (30) suggests that the possibility is more remote. There are, however, differences in the acceptability of certain illocutions depending on whether a reference to the future concerns a real possibility or a hypothetical event. An antecedent expressing a real possibility can be coupled with a performative or a request: (31)

If you give her the ring, I hereby pronounce you married

But an antecedent that expresses a hypothetical event in a history that is an alternative to reality less readily accommodates performatives or requests: (32)

?If you were to give her the ring, I hereby pronounce you married

In referring to past events or to those that are presently occurring, there are genuine differences in the truth conditions of the two sorts of conditional. Adams (1970) provides us with a useful pair of contrasting examples: (33)

If Oswald didn't assassinate Kennedy, then someone else did

and: (34)

If Oswald hadn't assassinated Kennedy, then someone else would have

The antecedent of the first conditional presents a real possibility, namely, that Oswald did not kill Kennedy. This may be the true state of affairs in the actual history of the world. Since Kennedy was indeed assassinated, it follows that someone else must have done the deed, and hence the conditional is true. The antecedent of the second conditional presents a hypothetical possibility, and it therefore invites us to consider, not the actual history of the world (which for the speaker includes Oswald as the murderer of Kennedy), but a hypothetical alternative history in which Oswald did not kill Kennedy. The conditional asserts that in this alternative Kennedy would nevertheless be murdered - an assertion which is, to say the least, debatable. A similar contrast can be drawn for antecedents that refer to events presently occurring. In summary, if is a verbal cue to consider real or hypothetical possibilities, and the content, the grammatical mood of the clause, and the context, usually make clear the intended status of the antecedent. The metaphysics of English is in fact more complicated than I have so far admitted: the contrasting system of actual states, real possibilities and hypothetical states is all relative to the 66

Conditionals and mental models status of the discourse. Hence, the same tripartite division of conditionals applies equally to factual or fictional discourse. There are even conditionals that bridge the gap from the fictional to the real: (35)

If Hamlet had killed the king at once, then the play would have come to an abrupt end

and from the real to the fictional: (36)

If 'Hamlet' had been a soap opera, he would have married Ophelia

5.3 The nature of the relation between antecedent and consequent Once a model of the antecedent has been established, the consequent can be interpreted in relation to that model. As I have already argued, there is nothing particularly special about the process of interpreting the consequent perse, but the nature of the relation between antecedent model and consequent is more problematical. The early philosophical analyses of conditionals (e.g. Chisholm 1946; Goodman 1947) recognized the importance of this relation, but it has tended to be downgraded in the Ramsey-Stalnaker-Lewis approach on the grounds that a conditional is true if its consequent is true in the relevant world(s) in which the antecedent is true, regardless of whether there is any relation between them. From a psychological standpoint, no one asserts a conditional on such grounds alone. One would hardly claim: (37)

If Elizabeth II abdicates, then some dogs have fleas

merely because the consequent is almost certainly true in the state of affairs characterized by the antecedent. Indeed, such an assertion would be interpreted as positing some relation between the antecedent and the consequent, and listeners would attempt to sketch in a plausible scenario that relates them. As we shall see, we can make sense of certain conditionals only by bearing in mind that they are invariably taken to mean that some sort of relation is intended to hold between antecedent and consequent. There are two issues concerning this relation: its nature, and its degree, i.e. the extent to which the antecedent determines the state of affairs in which the consequent is to be evaluated. In this section, I am going to consider the nature of the relation, beginning with its temporal component. If the antecedent of a conditional refers to a specific event or to a temporally bounded state, its consequent may refer to an event or state that occurs earlier, contemporaneously, or later. An indicative antecedent referring to the present can be related to events or states in the past, present, or future: (38)

f was hot yesterday If it is wet now, then it \ is hot now will be hot tomorrow 67

P. N. Johns on-Laird

An antecedent referring to the future can likewise be related to states that occur earlier, at the same time, or later: (39)

[ was hot yesterday . . . . is hot now Tr If it is wet tomorrow, then it < . . is hot tomorrow will be hot the day after

In this case, both the time of the utterance and events prior to it can occur before the antecedent state. Not surprisingly, the analogous possibilities are open for an antecedent referring to the past. And exactly the same possibilities can arise with counterfactual conditionals: (40)

f had been wet yesterday f would have been hot yesterday If it i were wet now it i would be hot now were wet tomorrow [ would be hot tomorrow

where any combination of antecedent and consequent is feasible. Granted these various temporal relations, the consequent event does not necessarily occur at the same time as the antecedent event. It may be necessary to construct a scenario leading from the antecedent model to the consequent event, or from the consequent event to the antecedent model. Consider the assertion: (41)

If it rains in the Sahara, the desert will get wet

An accurate model of the antecedent should represent the fact that the desert gets wet, and the conditional should therefore be evaluated as true without the need to construct a scenario. But now consider the related example: (42)

If it rains in the Sahara, the desert will bloom

A model of the antecedent will not represent the blooming desert since that is not a concurrent event; but it is, of course, a likely consequence in the near future. Hence, the interpretation of the consequent of the conditional calls for the construction of a scenario based on the initial model of the antecedent and on beliefs about the relations between the two. The nature of the beliefs used to develop a scenario will determine the nature of the relation between the antecedent and the consequent. Conditionals such as: (43)

If the match had been struck, it would have lit

(44)

If the match had lit, it would have had to have been struck

elicit beliefs about causal relations. Conditionals such as: (45)

If it had been midday just now, it would have been 11 a.m. an hour ago 68

Conditionals and mental models (46)

If it had been 11 a.m. an hour ago, it would have been midday just now

elicit beliefs about temporal measurement that establish the necessary connection between antecedent and consequent. The role of beliefs in fleshing out the interpretation of conditionals is easily overlooked, as it has been sometimes by theorists who have sought to reduce causal assertions to the assertion of counterfactuals. A comprehensive theory of causal relations should accommodate the fact that, as Miller and Johnson-Laird (1976) have argued, one event (or its non-occurrence) can cause, allow, or prevent another event (or its nonoccurrence). A counterfactual of a given form is indeed indeterminate. Thus, the conditional: (47)

If the match hadn't been struck, it wouldn't have lit

is taken to mean that one event caused the other, whereas the conditional: (48)

If the match hadn't been dry, it wouldn't have lit

is taken to mean that the one state of affairs allowed the other to occur. The interpretation of conditionals depends on beliefs, if only because the interpretation of auxiliaries and tense depends on them, too (see Johnson-Laird 1978).

5.4 Truth conditions and the antecedent-consequent relation The truth conditions of a conditional depend on the extent to which the antecedent specifies the situation in which the extension of the consequent is to be evaluated. In principle, there could be three possible degrees of relation between antecedent and consequent: the antecedent could determine the state of affairs in which the consequent is to be evaluated completely, partially, or not at all. In practice, it turns out that there are conditionals in all three categories, and I will examine each sort in turn. Since it is tedious to have to keep pointing out that the consequent can serve any illocutionary function, I shall assume in what follows that whenever I refer to 'truth conditions' the reader will mentally enlarge this phrase to embrace the meanings of questions, requests, and other illocutions. At one extreme there is the category of conditional in which the antecedent has no bearing on the state of affairs in which the consequent's truth conditions have to be evaluated - it merely stipulates the relevance of the information conveyed by the consequent. This sort of conditional is exemplified by: (49)

If you've run out of petrol, there's a garage down the road

Here, the conditional is simply true or false depending on whether or not there is a garage down the road. The main criterion that distinguishes this class of conditionals is that the antecedent expresses (or implies) a desire, 69

P. N. Johnson-Laird need, predilection or state of mind that in principle cannot be related to the truth of the consequent, but the consequent provides information of potential use to those in that state of mind. The general schema for such conditionals is thus:

If p (where p implies x

needs feels wants

y),

then (x will be interested to know that) q is the case Since the consequent, q, describes some state of affairs that is supposedly relevant to x, it must be either factual or concern real possibilities: (50) If you need money, there \ is

> some in the bank

Granted this analysis, it ought to be possible for a hypothetical need or predilection to be the occasion of referring to some actual state of affairs or to a real possibility. Hence, there should be a category of conditionals with antecedents that refer to alternative histories, and with consequents that refer to actual states or real possibilities. Such conditionals do indeed exist, e.g.: (51)

If you had needed some money, there was some in the bank

which asserts that, relevant to a new imaginary state of affairs (your need of money) at a particular time in the past, there was an actual state of affairs (money in the bank) which obtained at that time. The conditional is thus true provided only that there was some money in the bank at the relevant time. The present theory has thus led to the discovery of a class of conditionals which combine counterfactual antecedents with indicative consequents - a class to which I have been unable to find any reference in the literature. At the other extreme, there is the second category of conditional in which the antecedent completely determines the state of affairs in which the truth conditions of the consequent are to be evaluated. For example, such a conditional as: (52)

If someone is in a room, there is a room that is not empty

is true because its consequent is true in any mental model of its antecedent. This simple class of conditionals illustrates the way in which truth conditions can be stated within the framework of mental models. A conditional in this category with the form: If p, then q 70

Conditionals and mental models is true if and only if q is true in any mental model of p. Hence, in this case there is a ready translation into the framework of possible worlds. A mental model based on the antecedent of a conditional is a fragment of many possible worlds, that is, it is consistent with many alternative complete specifications of how the world might be, because many propositions will be neither true nor false in the fragment. The conditional is true if and only if q is true in all the accessible worlds in which p is true. The third, highly frequent, and most problematical category of conditionals, contains those in which the antecedent provides part, but only part, of the specification of the state of affairs in which the consequent is to be evaluated. An illuminating way in which to consider such conditionals is in the context of everyday reasoning (see Johnson-Laird 1983). Suppose, for example, that evidence at a murder trial establishes that the victim was stabbed to death in a cinema during the afternoon and that the accused was on an express train to Edinburgh when the murder was committed. One might be tempted to assert (like many of the subjects whom Bruno Bara and I have tested informally): (53)

If the accused was on a train when the murder occurred, then he (sic) must be innocent

It is clear from questioning the subjects that they base this claim on a number of implicit assumptions: A person cannot be in two places at once There are no cinemas on trains Express trains do not pass through cinemas It is not possible to stab someone in a cinema if one is travelling on a train These principles are obviously used in constructing a mental model based on the evidence given at the trial. They could, however, all be made explicit in the antecedent of the conditional: If the accused was on a train when the murder occurred, and a person cannot be in two places at once, and there are no cinemas on trains, and ..., then the accused is innocent Thus, the natural way in which to think of such conditionals is that the consequent is evaluated with respect to a model of the state of affairs that is described by the antecedent taken in conjunction with general knowledge. The point of the informal experiment, however, was to demonstrate that there is no simple algorithm by which to discover all the possible conditions that must be fulfilled in order to guarantee innocence: subjects readily raise 71

P. N. Johnson-Laird

a number of feasible scenarios in which, despite the assumptions above, the accused is nevertheless guilty. For example, he may have used an accomplice, or a radio-controlled robot, or a spring-loaded knife hidden in the seat. Of course one can go on adding explicit denials of each of these possibilities to the antecedent (just as we do in the experiment), and of course there comes a point when even the most ingenious of subjects concedes the innocence of the suspect. Yet, there is no way to ensure that all the possibilities of guilt have been exhausted. Two morals follow: first, there is no guarantee of the validity of many everyday inferences, since one cannot be sure that all models of the premises lead to the conclusion; second, many everyday conditionals are incomplete: that is, their utterance, even when context is taken into account, does not suffice to establish precisely what proposition is being expressed. In particular, the antecedent situation may be radically underdetermined. Mental model theory copes with the indeterminacy of discourse in the following way: an initial model is constructed (perhaps even based on arbitrary choices) which can be revised recursively in the light of subsequent information. One obvious source of subsequent information is the consequent of the conditional. This point is brought out by Quine's (i960) revealing pair of examples: (54)

If Caesar had been in command in Korea, he would have used catapults

and: (55)

If Caesar had been in command in Korea, he would have used the atom bomb

In the first case, the consequent suggests an antecedent model representing the military technology of Caesar's day; in the second case, the consequent suggests an antecedent model representing Caesar's hawkish personality. Granted these respective models, then both conditionals are plausible, though their antecedents still remain too underdetermined to yield definite truth values. The major conclusion that follows from this tripartite analysis of conditionals is that the truth conditions of a conditional depend on establishing which category it belongs to: if it is a member of the first category, then it will be true given only that its consequent is true; if it is a member of the second category it will be true provided that its consequent is true in any model of its antecedent; if it is a member of the third category, then it is true if the consequent is true with respect to the model based on the antecedent and any relevant beliefs (including those triggered by the consequent) and there is no such model in which the consequent is false. However, in this third case, the antecedent may lack clear-cut truth conditions, and it will be impossible to establish whether the conditional is true or false. Since it is impossible to determine which of the three categories a conditional belongs to merely from its antecedent, it follows that its truth conditions depend on the relation between antecedent and consequent. 72

Conditionals and mental models 6. CONCLUSIONS This paper began with four questions, which I will now try to answer, treating them in reverse order. How do people reason with conditionals? They do so by setting up mental models of conditionals based on their interpretation of them, formulating informative conclusions, and then searching for alternative interpretations that refute these putative conclusions. They normally make no use of rules of inference, depending instead on their ability to interpret conditionals and to search for counterexamples. How do people interpret conditionals? They set up a mental model based on the meaning of the antecedent, and on their beliefs and knowledge of the context. They then determine the nature and degree of the relation between antecedent and consequent. This process may lead to a recursive revision in the antecedent model. Finally, if need be, they set up a scenario relating the model of the consequent to the antecedent model. The relation may be merely that the consequent state of affairs is relevant to a protagonist in the antecedent model, or it may be a logical, temporal, causal or deontic relation between the two models. What are the logical properties of conditionals? They are many and various. Conditionals are not creatures of a constant hue. Like chameleons, as I once put it, they take on the colour suggested by their surroundings. Their logical properties depend on the relation between antecedent and consequent, and that in turn depends on beliefs. Even where the antecedent specifies completely the state of affairs in which the consequent is to be evaluated, the relation may be an entailment: (56) If a man has a suit, then he has a jacket and trousers or a mutual entailment: (57) If a woman has a husband, then she is married The former supports inferences in the form of modus ponens and modus tollendo tollens; the latter, in addition, supports valid inferences of the form: Mary is married. Therefore, she has a husband Mary does not have a husband. Therefore, she is not married What do conditionals mean? If is a cue to consider a possible or hypothetical state of affairs. Where the relation between antecedent and consequent is one of 'relevance', the conditional is true if and only if its consequent is true. Otherwise, the conditional is true if and only if the consequent is true in the antecedent model and there is no alternative model in which it is false. The majority of conditionals, however, lack clear-cut truth conditions because their antecedents and the beliefs they trigger place insufficient constraints on the set of possible antecedent models. If the consequent is a request, or a question, or some other illocution, then the extension of the conditional is the same 73

P. N. Johnson-Laird mutatis mutandis. The states of affairs in which a request, for instance, should be carried out are those that correspond to the antecedent model. What I have presented in this paper is not, of course, a complete theory of conditionals. That would require a much more detailed and comprehensive account of the compositional semantics of conditionals, of their systemic contrast to other structures based on when, unless, because, and of the mental processes underlying the construction and manipulation of models. Nevertheless, mental models do seem to be one way - the only way that has so far been advanced - to make psychological sense of conditionals in the light of the work on 'possible world' semantics. NOTE i I am very grateful to David Lewis and Bob Stalnaker for criticisms of an earlier draft of this paper. REFERENCES Adams, Ernest. 1970. Subjunctive and indicative conditionals. Foundations of Language 6: 89-94. Austin, J. L. 1961. Ifs and cans. In Philosophical papers of J. L. Austin, ed. J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Braine, Martin D. S. 1978. On the relation between the natural logic of reasoning and standard logic. Psychological Review 85: 1-21. Braine, Martin D. S. 1979. On some claims about if-then. Linguistics and Philosophy 3; 35-47Chisholm, Roderick M. 1946. The contrary-to-fact conditional. Mind 55: 289-307. Chomsky, Noam. 1977. Essays on form and interpretation. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Evans, Jonathan St B. T. 1982. The psychology of deductive reasoning. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Fillenbaum, Samuel. 1978. How to do some things with IF. In Semantic factors in cognition, ed. John W. Cotton and Roberta L. Klatzky, 169-214. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Goodman, Nelson. 1947. The problem of counterfactual conditionals. Journal of Philosophy 44:113-28. Grice, H. Paul. 1967. The William James lectures, Harvard University. Published in part in 1975 as Logic and conversation. In Studies in syntax, VOL. 3, Speech acts, ed. Peter Cole and Jerry L. Morgan, 64-75. New York: Academic Press. Griggs, Richard A. 1983. The role of problem content in the selection task and in the THOG problem. In Thinking and reasoning: psychological approaches, ed. Jonathan St B. T. Evans, 16-43. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Inhelder, Barbel and Jean Piaget. 1958. The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Isard, S. D. 1975. What would you have done if ...? Theoretical Linguistics 1: 233-55. Johnson-Laird, P. N. 1975. Models of deduction. In Reasoning: representation and process in children and adults, ed. Rachel J. Falmagne, 7-54. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Johnson-Laird, P. N. 1978. The meaning of modality. Cognitive Science 2: 17-26. Johnson-Laird, P. N. 1982. Formal semantics and the psychology of meaning. In Pro74

Conditionals and mental models cesses, beliefs and questions, ed. Stanley Peters and Esa Saarinen. Dordrecht: Reidel. Johnson-Laird, P. N. 1983. Mental models: towards a cognitive science of language, inference, and consciousness. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Johnson-Laird, P. N. and J. Tagart. 1969. How implication is understood. American Journal of Psychology 82: 367-73. Legrenzi, Paolo. 1970. Relations between language and reasoning about deductive rules. In Advances in psycholinguistics, ed. Giovanni B. Flores d'Arcais and Willem J. M. Levelt. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Lewis, David. 1973. Counterfactuals. Oxford: Blackwell. Miller, George A., and P. N. Johnson-Laird. 1976. Language and perception. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Oakhill, J. V. and P. N. Johnson-Laird. 1983. Cognitive load and the search for counterexamples. Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, University of Sussex, MS. Osherson, Daniel N. 1975. Logic and models of logical thinking. In Reasoning: representation and process in children and adults, ed. Rachel J. Falmagne, 81-91. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Partee, Barbara Hall. 1979. Semantics- mathematics or psychology? In Semantics from different points of view, ed. R. Baiierle, Urs Egli, and Arnim von Stechow, 1-14. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Pollock, John. 1976. Subjunctive reasoning. Dordrecht: Reidel. Putnam, Hilary, 1975. The meaning of 'meaning1. Language, mind and knowledge, ed. Keith Gunderson, 131-93. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, VOL. 7. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Quine, Willard Van Orman. 1952. Methods of logic. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Quine, Willard Van Orman. i960. Word and object. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Ramsey, Frank Plumpton. 1931. General propositions and causality. In The foundations of mathematics and other logical essays, ed. Frank Plumpton Ramsey. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Rescher, Nicolas. 1964. Hypothetical reasoning. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Rips, Lance J. 1983. Cognitive processes in propositional reasoning. Psychological Review 90: 38-71. Rips, Lance J., and Sandra L. Marcus. 1977. Suppositions and the analysis of conditional sentences. In Cognitive processes in comprehension, ed. Marcel Adam Just and Patricia A. Carpenter, 185-220. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Russell, Bertrand. 1905. On denoting. Mind 14: 479-93. Ryle, Gilbert. 1949. The concept of mind. London: Hutchinson. Stalnaker, Robert C. 1968. A theory of conditionals. In Studies in logical theory, ed. Nicolas Rescher, 98-112. Oxford: Blackwell. Stalnaker, Robert C. 1975. Indicative conditionals. Philosophia 5: 269-86. Stalnaker, Robert C. 1981. A defence of conditional excluded middle. In Ifs: conditionals, belief, decision, chance and time, ed. William L. Harper, Robert C. Stalnaker and Glenn Pearce, 87-104. Dordrecht: Reidel. Wason, Peter C. 1966. Reasoning. In New horizons in psychology, ed. Brian M. Foss. Harmondsworth, Middx.: Penguin. Wason, Peter C. 1983. Realism and rationality in the selection task. In Thinking and reasoning: psychological approaches, ed. Jonathan St B. T. Evans, 44-75. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Wason, Peter C , and P. N. Johnson-Laird. 1972. Psychology of reasoning: structure and content. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. 75

CONDITIONALS: A TYPOLOGY • Bernard

Comrie

1. INTRODUCTION The aims of this paper are, first, to attempt a characterization of conditionals that has crosslinguistic validity and, second and more important, to try to identify the significant parameters in the crosslinguistic description of conditionals, looking both at properties that are common to all languages and at properties that show significant crosslinguistic variation.1 The claim that a given parameter of variation is significant is, of course, an empirical claim, and it may well be that in further work on this topic other parameters, of which I am unaware or which I consider insignificant, will need to be added to my list. Two general remarks are necessary before embarking on the characterization of conditionals and crosslinguistic variation within conditionals: these relate to the general problem of isolating a given construction, both intralinguistically and interlinguistically, and to the general problem of identifying the meaning of a construction. I assume that a given construction is to be identified, in general, in terms of a prototype rather than in terms of necessary-and-sufficient conditions. Thus, I will not be surprised if some sentences having the form of prototypical conditionals in a given language do not in fact receive the interpretation of conditions (as when English If you do that, I'll hit you is interpreted as a prohibitive), nor if sentences that do not have the form of prototypical conditionals nonetheless receive a conditional interpretation (cf. the parallel interpretations in English of / / he came late, he was punished and Whenever he came late he was punished). Furthermore, I distinguish strictly between the meaning of a construction and its interpretation, claiming that many aspects of interpretation that are traditionally assigned to the semantics of a construction or sentence are in fact conversational implicatures (in the Gricean sense) that are not part of the meaning of the sentence, and can in fact be cancelled in appropriate circumstances. This last point will become particularly important in the discussion of degrees of hypotheticality (section 5). As a simple illustration, we may return to the example (1) If you do that, I'll hit you Under normal circumstances, this will be interpreted as indicating that if the addressee does not carry out the action referred to, then the speaker will not 77

Bernard Comrie

hit the addressee, i.e. the if is interpreted as if and only if; however, other examples show clearly that English // is not necessarily interpreted in this way: (2)

If you buy those stocks, then you'll lose your money, but of course you'll probably lose your money anyway

In terms of the context in which If you do that, I'll hit you is normally uttered, the conversational implicature that if is to be interpreted as 'if and only if falls out naturally: the utterance is intended as a prohibition, giving motivation to comply with the prohibition (namely, not getting hit). If the speaker hits the addressee anyway, or rather, if the addressee assumes that the speaker may hit the addressee anyway, then the motivation behind the prohibition is lost, i.e. the utterance becomes incoherent.2 2. C H A R A C T E R I Z A T I O N OF CONDITIONALS In logic, conditionals (material implications) are defined as a relation between two propositions, the protasis (p) and the apodosis (q), such that either p and q are both true, or p is false and q is true, or p is false and q is false; excluded is the possibility of p being true while q is false. I maintain that this logical characterization is part of the characterization of conditionals in natural language (though, as will be seen below, a further restriction is necessary in natural language). Many conditional sentences in natural language do indeed receive an interpretation congruent with this range of possibilities allowed in logic, e.g. (3)

If today is Sunday, the priest will be in church

(as said by someone who is in fact unsure what day of the week it is - this caveat is not essential, but makes for more plausible interpretations). This allows that today is Sunday, and that the priest is in church. However, should it turn out that today is not in fact Sunday, then the proposition remains true whether or not the priest is in church. All that is excluded is that today should be Sunday and that the priest should not be in church. In examining actual utterances in actual contexts, the interpretation of a conditional may be more restrictive than this, in particular by excluding the possibility of '~p and q\ Thus, if someone says (4)

If you go out without the umbrella, you'll get wet

then the normal interpretation is that if the addressee does take the umbrella (and uses it in the appropriate way), then the addressee will not get wet. In fact, however, this is not part of the meaning of the conditional, but only a conversational implicature, which can be derived from other aspects of the interpretation of the sentence in context. Given Grice's overall injunction to 78

Conditionals: a typology be relevant, and knowing that people in general prefer not to get wet, and that umbrellas are typically used to prevent getting wet, the only coherent interpretation of the utterance is as a warning to take the umbrella to prevent getting wet. If the speaker saying If you go without the umbrella, you'll get wet knows full well that the umbrella has so many holes that it won't keep the addressee dry, then strictly speaking the speaker has not made a false statement, although he has made a misleading one (perversely so). This suggests a universal, which I will now formulate as a hypothesis. If a language has any conditional construction, then it will have one where the logical relation between the two propositions is the same as that given for material implication in the propositional calculus. From this, it follows that a language should not just have a construction with the meaning: '/? if and only if q* (i.e. the conditional is true if p and q are both true or both false, but not otherwise). This does not exclude the possibility that a language might have, in addition, conditionals with this more restricted truth table. Thus, in English the conjunctional phrase provided that encodes just such a biconditional, e.g.: (5)

Provided that no one objects, we'll have the meeting at 4 o'clock

(from which we deduce, without any appeal to conversational implicatures, that if anyone objects the meeting will not be held at 4 o'clock and that if no one objects the meeting will be held at 4 o'clock). English unless has a similar biconditional interpretation, though with negation of the protasis, thus: (6)

Unless you leave immediately, you'll be late

has the interpretation 'If and only if you do not leave immediately, you will be late' (see Quirk etal. 1972: 781).3 One further point that follows from the above characterization of the logical relation between protasis and apodosis is that, in the conditional construction, neither of these propositions is stated to be true. Apparent counterexamples come to mind, as in the following dialogue: A: I'm leaving now B: If you're leaving now, I won't be able to go with you Note that B can say this even fully accepting that A is indeed leaving now. What is crucial, however, is that the truth of 'A is leaving now' is not part of the meaning of the conditional sentence, although it may indeed form part of the overall interpretation of the context of which B's utterance forms only one part. This can be seen from the contrast between B's utterance above and the alternative: (7)

Since you're leaving now, I won't be able to go with you

This alternative states explicitly that A is leaving now, and therefore commits B to not going with A. The conditional version still leaves open, however, 79

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the possibility that, if A changes his mind, then B will in fact go with him. Thus, in a conditional if p then q, there is no statement of the truth of either p or q, although this is of course consistent with the truth of p or q being established elsewhere in the context. The related question of whether conditionals can express the falsity of p or q is crucial to the discussion of counterf actual conditionals, and I will return to this problem in section 5. Most descriptions of English sentences like: (8)

If he had come, I would have been happy

state that it is in fact false that he came and false that I was happy, but in section 5 I suggest that this is not the case in English, and that the comparable data require further investigation for other languages. Thus it is possible that a stronger generalization may be forthcoming, namely: from a conditional neither the truth nor the falsity of either p or q can be deduced (though they may be derived by implicature or from context). One feature of the characterization of material implication in logic is that the only relation that need hold between protasis and apodosis is that expressed in the truth table, so that otherwise totally unrelated propositions may appear as protasis and apodosis, subject only to the condition that they have appropriate truth values, as in: (9)

If Paris is the capital of France, two is an even number

(10)

If Paris is the capital of Spain, two is an odd number

(11)

If Paris is the capital of Spain, two is an even number

This does not carry over to natural language, where conditionals require a stronger link between protasis and apodosis. In most instances (see below for exceptions) this link is causal, i.e. the content of the protasis must be interpretable as a cause of the content of the apodosis. We therefore add this as a second requirement in the characterization of conditionals in natural language. One might hypothesize that the causal relation is a conversational implicature, rather than part of the meaning of the conditional; but, while I have no strict data arguments against this, it does not correspond to my intuitions about the anomaly of sentences of the type given above - they are false because they require a causal relation that is not there. Conditionals are of course still distinct from causal constructions, in that causal constructions involve commitment to the truth of two propositions, thus: (12)

Since you're leaving now, I won't go with you

commits the speaker to believing that the addressee is leaving now and that the speaker will not go with the addressee, whereas: (13)

If you're leaving now, I won't go with you

commits the speaker to neither. 80

Conditionals: a typology The causal relation is from the protasis as cause to the apodosis as effect. In section 6 we will discuss some conditional constructions with an inverse causal relation, i.e. where the apodosis is a cause for the protasis, as in: (14)

If it will amuse you, I'll tell you a joke

where my telling the joke is the cause of your being amused. Note, however, that in such examples there is also a causal relation from protasis to apodosis: your future amusement is the cause for my telling the joke. Thus such constructions are actually bicausal, and therefore consistent with the claim that conditionals necessarily involve a causal relation from protasis to apodosis. Causal relations in language in general may involve not only the literal content of propositions but also the speaker's motivation for making the claim that includes a proposition. Thus, the most usual interpretation of: (15)

John is a thief, because I saw him stealing

is not that my seeing John steal caused him to be a thief, but rather that my seeing John steal is the reason for my believing that he is a thief (epistemic). In the example: (16)

Since you asked, ten isn't a prime number

the addressee's asking provides the reason not for ten being a nonprime number, but rather for the speaker's asserting this (speech act).4 This same kind of causal relation is possible in conditionals. Under normal circumstances the following sentence would be rejected as incoherent: (17)

If Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota, then Pierre is the capital of South Dakota

because there is no causal link between the two propositions. The sentence becomes coherent, however, if embedded in the following dialogue: A: What's the capital of South Dakota? B: I'm not sure. Bismarck and Pierre are the capitals of the two Dakotas, but I'm not sure which is which A: Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota B: If Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota, then Pierre is the capital of South Dakota Here, the causal link is not directly between Bismarck being capital of North Dakota and Pierre being capital of South Dakota but rather between B's knowledge that Bismarck is capital of North Dakota and the epistemic basis of B's claim that Pierre is capital of South Dakota. An example of the speech act type would be: (18)

If you want to know, ten isn't a prime number

An apparent counterexample to the causal link in conditionals is provided by constructions with even if: 81

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(19)

Even if you pay me, I still won't do it

which clearly does not have as part of its meaning 'Since you will pay me, I will do it'.5 In fact, part of the meaning of this sentence is precisely the denial of a causal link between protasis and apodosis. This last observation gives a clue to a possible way to incorporate such constructions into our general characterization of conditionals. Common to all types is reference, in the semantics of the construction, to a causal relation between protasis and apodosis; whether the causal relation is presented positively or negatively simply distinguishes subtypes. One might compare the following example: (20)

I will do this, not because I want to, but because you have forced me to

where the second clause explicitly denies a causal relation between the speaker's wanting to do something and his doing it, even though the second clause is surely still causal. The characterization of conditionals provided so far is purely in conceptual terms, i.e. the logical relation between two propositions and the causal relation between them. To say that a language has a conditional construction or conditional constructions, we need to add to these conceptual criteria a formal criterion, namely that the language must have a formally identifiable syntactic construction whose basic function is to encode conditionals as defined above. The construction may have other uses in addition to that of expressing conditionals, but this must be its basic function. One can weaken the definition slightly, requiring only that encoding conditionals be one of the basic functions of the construction in question, and in what follows I will normally use this weaker characterization. Thus, a German sentence like: (21)

Wenn er kommt, gehe ich weg

will be considered an instance of a conditional in its interpretation 'If he comes, I leave', but not in its interpretation 'When he comes, I leave'.6 The weaker definition has the advantage of encompassing a broader range of constructions crosslinguistically, about which it is possible to make significant crosslinguistic generalizations. It does, of course, also have the disadvantage that it becomes more difficult to isolate conditionals from other constructions: thus, in Mandarin, the sentence: (22)

Zhangsan he jiu, wo ma ta lit. 'Zhangsan drink wine, I scold him'

covers a wide range of possible relations between the two clauses ('If/when/because Zhangsan drinks wine, I scold him'), with little evidence for isolating a separate conditional meaning.7 This characterization also allows that other constructions may receive conditional interpretations, provided that this is not their basic meaning. Thus, appro82

Conditionals: a typology priate modification of the modality in concessive clauses can produce results that receive the same interpretation as conditional clauses with even, as in: (23)

Although he may look a fool, he's actually very intelligent

and (24)

Even if he looks a fool, he's actually very intelligent

Likewise, insertion of indefinite ever into temporal clauses can lead to interpretations identical to those of conditionals: (25)

Whenever he came late, he was scolded

and: (26)

If he came late, he was scolded

Note, incidentally, that neither of the last two sentences: (unlike the parallel version with just when) implies that he did ever come late, although with past time reference the sentences are not particularly coherent if the potential situation of his coming late was never realized; the potentiality is clearer with future time reference: (27)

Whenever/if he comes late, he will be scolded

3. CLAUSE ORDER The definition of the logical relation holding in a conditional construction, as given in section 2, also distinguishes between the two propositions or their linguistic reflection as clauses, i.e. protasis and apodosis: the conditional allows that the protasis may be false and the apodosis true, but not vice versa. (The causal relation from protasis to apodosis reinforces this distinction.) Greenberg (1963: 84-5) states the following Universal of Word Order 14 concerning the linear order of the two clauses: In conditional statements, the conditional clause [=protasis, BC] precedes the conclusion [=apodosis, BC] as the normal order in all languages. Work leading up to the present paper has uncovered no counterexamples to this generalization. Although many languages allow both orders, protasisapodosis and apodosis-protasis, many grammars note explicitly that the usual order is for the protasis to precede, and presumably the same will hold for many languages where the grammars are silent on this point. In some languages the protasis must precede the apodosis, in particular in languages with a rigid rule requiring the finite verb of the main clause to stand sentence-finally (e.g. Turkish). Since the positioning of protases in such languages can be viewed as just a special case of the general rule whereby subordinate clauses must precede main clauses, this does not necessarily say anything specific about conditional 83

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constructions. However, this same restriction to protasis-apodosis order is also found in some languages which do not have a strict subordinate-main clause order restriction, suggesting that there is indeed something special about conditional clauses in this respect, i.e. the preponderance of the protasis-apodosis order in languages with free clause order is not 'just statistical', but does reflect something significant about language. In Mandarin, the protasis must precede the apodosis, irrespective of whether either protasis or apodosis is marked overtly, e.g. (28)

(ruguo) Zhangsan he jiu, wo (jiu) ma ta lit. '(If) Zhangsan drink wine, I (then) scold him' i.e. 'if Zhangsan drinks wine, (then) I will scold him'

In Ngiyambaa, with past tense counterfactuals, both clauses have the same overt marking (with the clitic -ma), and the first must be interpreted as protasis, e.g.: (29)

Nginuu-ma-ni buraay giyi, ngindu-ma-ni yada gurawiyi lit. 'your-counterfactual-this child was, you-counterfactual-this well looked-after' i.e. 'if this child had been yours, you would have looked after it well' (Example from Donaldson 1980: 251-2)8

Given the observational universal that the protasis tends to precede the apodosis, it is interesting to try to come up with possible explanations for this state of affairs. The suggestions below are necessarily speculative, and it is not necessary that only one of them be the correct solution: possibly the interaction of all or some of these factors leads to the observed preferred clause order. Given that it seems to be commoner crosslinguistically for the protasis to be marked overtly as nonfactual than for the apodosis to be so marked (see section 4), placing the overtly marked protasis in front of the unmarked apodosis avoids the apodosis being interpreted as a factual statement. Thus, in English: (30)

If you translate this for me, I'll give you $100

it is clear from the outset that the speaker is not promising outright to give the addressee $100, but that this payment is contingent on the addressee performing the translation task. With the order: (31)

I'll give you $100 if you translate this for me

there is the potential danger that the first clause will be interpreted in isolation, before (or without) hearing the second clause. If this were the whole story, then some interesting predictions would follow. In particular, one would expect that in a language or in a construction where the apodosis is overtly marked as nonfactual it would be more likely for the apodosis to precede than in languages/constructions where the apodosis is not overtly marked for factuality. 84

Conditionals: a typology Unfortunately, I know of no evidence that this prediction is in fact borne out; rather, my current impression is that preposing of the protasis prevails even where the apodosis is marked for factuality. Moreover, in conditionally interpreted sentences where the protasis is not marked overtly as nonfactual, one might expect to find greater frequency of preposing of the apodosis (whether marked or not), since the protasis does not here serve a function of indicating nonfactuality overtly. Note, however, that in Mandarin, as mentioned above, the protasis necessarily precedes the apodosis, whether the protasis alone is marked for nonfactuality (by a conjunction such as ruguo 'if), whether the apodosis alone is marked (for instance by na and/or jlu 'then, in that case'), whether both are marked, or whether neither is marked. Likewise, in English one can have the order: (32)

Do that and I'll smash your face

as an equivalent to: (33)

If y ° u do that, I'll smash your face

even though the protasis in isolation appears to be an instruction to the addressee to carry out the action which it is in fact the speaker's intention to prevent; it is not possible to say: (34)

I'll smash your face and do that

with the same meaning. Thus, if overt indication of nonfactuality is at the root of the observed clause order, then this factor has been grammaticalized to such an extent that its original function is scarcely recognizable. A second possibility would be that the linear order of clauses reflects the temporal reference of the two clauses. It is indeed generally the case that the temporal reference of the protasis is located before, or at least not posterior to, that of the apodosis (see section 6). This explanation would suggest that if the temporal relation is reversed, the clause order should (at least statistically) shift. In section 6 are discussed conditionals where the temporal reference of the protasis follows that of the apodosis, constructions such as: (35)

If it will amuse you, I'll tell you a joke

The prediction is thus that the order: (36)

I'll tell you a joke, if it'll amuse you

should be more likely than: (37)

I'll tell you another joke, if that one amused you

(In (37) the protasis precedes the apodosis temporally.) This prediction now simply requires empirical testing. I doubt whether such testing will be easy, given the low textual frequency of conditionals where the temporal reference of the apodosis precedes that of the protasis, but at least the issue is clear. 85

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Thirdly, the observed linear order may reflect the cause and effect relation between the two clauses: since cause precedes effect (at least in our conceptualization of the world), it could be that this is mirrored iconically in the order of the clauses. Unfortunately for this hypothesis, it does not seem to be the case that causal clauses typically precede rather than follow their main clause (except, of course, in languages that have a syntactic requirement that all subordinate clauses precede their main clause). While the discrepancy between protases and causal clauses may be related to their different characteristic communicative dynamism (conditional clauses are more topical, causal clauses more rhematic), this just pushes the question one stage back: why is it that this communicative difference exists between conditional protases and causal clauses? The fourth suggestion is that made by Lehmann (1974), and relates directly to the structure of discourses containing conditional constructions. Lehmann notes that in any discourse it is necessary for the participants to gain common ground step by step. In this process of establishing common ground, a conditional protasis represents progress in its establishment in a disjunctive situation: there are two possibilities (namely, p and ~/?), and before communication can progress, it is necessary for the speaker to establish which of the disjuncts is to be considered; only then can the argumentation proceed. From this perspective, the linear order of the clauses is iconic to the sequence of steps in the argumentation. A similar idea has been presented and elaborated by Haiman (1978), who claims that conditionals (i.e. protases) are topics. Since topics tend crosslinguistically to occur sentence-initially, it would follow that conditional protases should also occur sentence-initially. In this connection it is worth citing Haiman's characterizations of conditionals and topics: A conditional clause [=protasis, BC] is (perhaps only hypothetically) a part of the knowledge shared by the speaker and his listener. As such, it constitutes the framework which has been selected for the following discourse. The topic represents the entity whose existence is agreed upon by the speaker and his audience. As such, it constitutes the framework which has been selected for the following discourse. (Haiman 1978: 583, 585) If this approach is correct, then it would still be the case that some degree of grammaticalization has taken place, since it is, of course, possible to have conditional protases in discourse that are not topical, as in: (38)

I will leave, if you pay me

in response to: (39)

Under what circumstances will you leave?

where the protasis is focus (and, like focus in general crosslinguistically, tends to occur sentence-finally).9 86

Conditionals: a typology 4. MARKERS OF PROTASIS AND APODOSIS In this section I am concerned with how a construction is marked overtly as being a conditional rather than some other formal or conceptual category. As we have already seen, it is possible for a construction to have a conditional interpretation even in the absence of any overt indication of conditionality, as for instance in Mandarin - but this seems to be quite exceptional across the languages of the world. Most languages mark either the protasis, or the apodosis, or both. It is important to note that what is at issue here is the category of conditional as a whole, irrespective of the degree of hypotheticality of the conditional. Thus, in English: (40)

If he had done that, we would have been all right

the use of the conditional in the apodosis we would have been all right indicates nonfactuality (indeed, the most likely interpretation is counterfactuality). However, (a) this does not in itself indicate explicitly that this proposition is dependent on some other conditional proposition, and, even more importantly, (b) in conditional constructions with lower hypotheticality, verb forms are used which do not in themselves indicate nonfactuality, as in: (41)

If he does that, we will be all right

where we will be all right could in isolation be a factual prediction. In all such examples, however, English indicates conditionality by the conjunction if, therefore this marker (which is part of the protasis) is the overt marker of conditionality. Overt marking of the protasis seems to be the commonest situation crosslinguistically, and languages like Mandarin and Ngiyambaa that do not mark the protasis overtly seem to be the exception rather than the rule.10 I know of no language where it is obligatory to mark the apodosis but impossible to mark the protasis, although Mandarin does allow as one alternative the construction where the protasis is unmarked and the apodosis marked (Zhangsdn he jiu, wd jiu ma ta). Overt marking of the protasis is frequently by means of conjunctions, such as English if, Maltese jekk and kieku (distinguished by degrees of hypotheticality - see section 5), Mandarin ruguo, Haya kd (Salone 1977: 151). But it may also be by verb form, as in Turkish gelirsem 'if I come', gelsem 'if I were to come' (where the verb form also encodes degrees of hypotheticality- Lewis 1967: 130), Hua -mamo and -hipana (distinguished by degrees of hypotheticality - Haiman 1980: 180-7). Other possibilities for marking the protasis seem to be more restricted, e.g. subject-verb (or subject-auxiliary) inversion in German and English: (42)

Hatte er das getan, ware ich gliicklich gewesen 'Had he done that, I would have been happy'

where the initial position of the verb in the first clause indicates conditionality. 87

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Many languages with overt marking of the protasis typically do not mark the apodosis. Although English can mark the apodosis explicitly with then, it is in fact rather unusual to do so; similarly in Russian with to (in Russian, the protasis is marked with esli 'if). In some languages, overt marking of the apodosis is much more frequent, for instance in German (with so) and in Bengali (Ferguson 1982); and overt marking of the apodosis is claimed to be obligatory for some native speakers of New Guinea Pidgin (Sankoff and Laberge 1973), the only language where I am aware of an obligatory apodosis marker. All cases known to me of overt apodosis marking involve particles, often (as pointed out by John Haiman) of pronominal origin, and therefore perhaps analysable as resumptive pronouns. One interesting observation, tying in with the observations in section 3 on the functional pressure to mark conditionals overtly for their nonfactuality, is that there seems to be some interplay between degree of overt marking in the protasis and degree of overt marking in the apodosis. Thus, in German, the use of so in the apodosis is more likely if the protasis uses inversion (less clearly marked for conditionality) than if it uses the conjunction wenn.

5. D E G R E E S OF HYPOTHETICALITY Accounts of conditional constructions, starting with traditional descriptions of the classical languages, typically make use of such oppositions as open versus closed conditions, or real versus unreal, or real (open) versus hypothetical versus counterfactual, referring to different degrees of hypotheticality of the truth of the propositions involved. What is characteristic of most of these accounts is that they assume a neat bipartite or tripartite division (according to language), with a clear-cut boundary between the two or three types. The view that I wish to expound in this section is that, in fact, hypotheticality is a continuum, with (perhaps) no clear-cut divisions, and that different languages simply distinguish different degrees of hypotheticality along this continuum, the choice of form often being determined by subjective evaluation rather than by truth-conditional semantics. This avoids, in particular, the contorted and often empty formulations attempting to distinguish between real (open) and hypothetical conditionals, formulations such as 'nothing is implied about the fulfilment or probability of fulfilment' versus 'only conceded as a supposition and may or may not be fulfilled' (Kennedy 1962: 98), where it is difficult to see any rigid difference between the range of the two definitions. By the term 'hypotheticality', I mean the degree of probability of realization of the situations referred to in the conditional, and more especially in the protasis. I shall use the convention that 'greater hypotheticality' means 'lower probability' and 'lower hypotheticality' means 'greater probability'. Thus a factual sentence would represent the lowest degree of hypotheticality, while a

Conditionals: a typology counterfactual clause would represent the highest degree. In section 21 have already argued that a conditional never involves factuality - or more accurately, that a conditional never expresses the factuality of either of its constituent propositions. That one or other of the propositions is true may be known independently of the conditional, for instance from the rest of the verbal context or from other sources, but this does not alter the crucial fact that the conditional itself does not express this factuality. In context, the sentence: (43)

If it's raining, we won't go to the park

may well receive the interpretation (44)

Since it's raining, we won't go to the park

but this is not part of its meaning. Somewhat more controversially, I will claim that conditionals are also incapable of expressing the counterfactuality of a proposition, despite the apparent counterfactuality of such examples as: (45)

If you had arrived on time, we'd have finished by now

which clearly receives a counterfactual interpretation (at least, under normal circumstances).11 The motivation for my claim will be the consideration of so-called counterfactual conditionals in English. The relevant evidence goes beyond that usually considered in treatments of conditionals in English (although English is one of the most thoroughly investigated languages from this viewpoint), and therefore comparable evidence is difficult to find in grammars of other languages. The provisional nature of the claim, therefore, should be understood: I am claiming that English lacks counterfactual conditionals, i.e. a conditional construction from which the falsity of either protasis or apodosis can be deduced logically. I suspect that the same may be true of other languages where a separate class of counterfactual conditionals is said to exist; this suspicion is, of course, open to disconfirmation, and I am in fact anxious that the relevant detailed work should be carried out on languages other than English which are said to have counterfactuals. In English, there are two candidates for counterfactuals. First, conditionals with the past tense (indicative or subjunctive) in the protasis and the conditional in the apodosis; and second, conditionals with the pluperfect in the protasis and the conditional perfect in the apodosis. For the first type, it is easy to show that counterfactuality can be cancelled. Imagine the following dialogue: A: Will you buy me a beer? B: If you gave me a kiss, I'd buy you a beer With this particular example it is unlikely that B's utterance would be interpreted as counterfactual, i.e. as indicating falsity of a proposition stating that 89

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B will buy A a beer. Indeed, this particular utterance is most likely to be used by B in order to induce A to kiss B, whereupon B will be committed to buying a beer for A. B could, of course, also have said: (46)

If you give me a kiss, I'll buy you a beer

but what is crucial is the possibility of the version cited in the dialogue. (The version in the dialogue is more hypothetical than its alternative, i.e. suggests a lower probability of A's kissing B, which in the given circumstances might be used by B to avoid too negative an aspersion on A's morals.) For the second type, it is easy to show that counterfactuality is not part of the meaning of the apodosis, as can be seen in the following example: (47)

(Even) if I had had a million dollars, I (still) wouldn't have given you the money you asked for

The most plausible interpretation for this sentence (especially if either the even or the still or both are included) is that the speaker did not give the money asked for, i.e. that the apodosis is true. It is harder to find convincing examples where the protasis is not necessarily false, and speaker judgements do seem to vary somewhat. For many speakers, however, the following example will serve: (48)

If the butler had done it, we would have found just the clues that we did in fact find12

The final clause of (48) makes it clear that we did in fact find the clues in question, i.e. the apodosis is true; the sentence also leaves open the possibility that the butler did indeed do it. Thus, this construction does not have counterfactuality as part of the meaning of either protasis or apodosis. It is interesting to speculate on why counterfactuality should be a stronger implicature with conditionals that have past time reference than with those that have future time reference, with those with present time reference occupying an intermediate position. Presumably, it is connected with the expectation that one should have greater certainty about past events than about future events, so that a past situation that is nonfactual will probably be counterfactual, whereas a future situation that is nonfactual is quite likely to be just left open. Given that the construction with the greatest degree of hypotheticality does not imply counterfactuality in its interpretation, one might wonder whether one can perhaps make the inverse correlation, namely that a situation that is interpreted as counterfactual must receive the construction with the highest degree of hypotheticality. Even this seems, however, not to be true, as can be seen in the following dialogue: A: Are we in Bolivia now? B: If Brasilia is the capital of Bolivia, then we're in Bolivia 90

Conditionals: a typology Assume that B's reply is in fact sarcastic, i.e. B knows that they are in Brasilia, therefore in Brazil, and is making fun of A's mistaken belief that they are in Bolivia. Then both the propositions 'Brasilia is the capital of Bolivia' and 'we're in Bolivia' are counterfactual, B knows that they are counterfactual, and moreover B believes that A knows that at least 'Brasilia is the capital of Bolivia' is counterfactual (otherwise the sarcasm would be lost). What is crucial about this example is that B's utterance leaves completely open whether or not Brasilia is the capital of Bolivia, and thus does not express counterfactuality; indeed the sarcasm resides precisely in the conflict between the openness of the protasis and the factual knowledge that Brasilia is not the capital of Bolivia. This example serves to emphasize the point that by choosing a given degree of hypotheticality within conditional constructions, the speaker expresses a certain degree of hypotheticality; this expressed degree of hypotheticality need not correspond to his actual belief, much less to the real world. We may now turn to the positive task of providing a framework for the description of degrees of hypotheticality across languages. It should be noted that there are some languages which make no distinction in terms of degrees of hypotheticality, for instance Mandarin, where Zhangsan he-le jiu, wo jiu ma ta can cover all of 'If Zhangsan has drunk wine, I'll scold him', 'If Zhangsan drank wine, I would scold him', 'If Zhangsan had drunk wine, I would have scolded him' (Mandarin also makes no distinctions of absolute tense). Similarly in Indonesian: (49)

saya mau pergi dengan kamu, kalau kamu naik kapal-terbang lit. 'I future go with you, if you mount airplane'

can mean 'I will go with you if you go by plane', 'I would go with you if you went by plane', or 'I would have gone with you if you had gone by plane', although it is also possible to distinguish different degrees of hypotheticality explicitly (Kahler 1965: 180-1; Dardjowidjojo 1978: 159). At least a two-way distinction in terms of degrees of hypotheticality seems to be common crosslinguistically, however, and some languages make a three-way distinction. First, it is useful to deal with a class of conditionals which are completely open, i.e. where the protasis is simply stated as a hypothesis without any claim whatsoever to the truth, falsity, or probability of the protasis. In actual discourse such conditionals seem to be very rare, but in English, at least, they do have some distinctive properties. In particular, in English such protases can contain a future tense (with will), although normally future tenses do not occur in protases in English, being replaced by the present except in highly restricted circumstances (see further, section 6). Usually, the proposition contained in the protasis has already been entered into the discourse, as in the following dialogue: A: The Universe won't come to an end for several million years yet

Bernard Comrie

B: If it won't come to an end for several million years yet, we'll still be able to go to Florida this winter It is important to note that B is simply accepting, for the purposes of the argument, the hypothesis that A's proposition is true. In fact, the BrasiliaBolivia dialogue above is another example of this kind of completely open conditional, where, however, B does not in fact accept the truth of the proposition 'Brasilia is the capital of Bolivia'. In completely open conditionals of this type, English simply uses the verb form that would be used in an independent clause expressing the same proposition, i.e. with a full range of temporal, aspectual, and modal distinctions. I am not aware of a sufficient range of detailed studies of other languages to be able to make any serious crosslinguistic comments on this construction. For the remaining conditionals, the distinctions come into play relating to the speaker's expressed evaluation of the probability of the situation referred to in the protasis. English here makes a two-way distinction between lower and greater hypotheticality. Lower hypotheticality involves the indicative without any backshifting in tense, i.e. the past tense is used only if there is indeed past time reference, as in: (50a) If you come tomorrow, you'll be able to join us on a picnic or: (50b) If the students come on Fridays, they have oral practice in Quechua or (with past time reference): (51)

If the students came on Fridays, they had oral practice in Quechua

Greater hypotheticality involves backshifting in tense, so that with future time reference one finds the past tense in the protasis (corresponding to the present tense in conditionals with lower hypotheticality) and the conditional in the apodosis (corresponding to the future in conditionals with lower hypotheticality): (52)

If you came tomorrow, you'd be able to join us on a picnic

The same forms are found with present time reference, as in: (53)

If the students came on Fridays, they would have oral practice in Quechua

With past time reference, one finds the pluperfect in the protasis and the conditional perfect in the apodosis, as in: (54)

If the students had come on Friday they would have had oral practice in Quechua.13

Similar, though not identical, distributions are found in many European languages. Thus French, German, Russian, and Latvian have indicative mood 92

Conditionals: a typology without backshifting in tense in the construction with lower hypotheticality, but use the following verb forms in the construction with greater hypotheticality: French employs the imperfect in the protasis and the conditional in the apodosis; German the past subjunctive or the conditional (i.e. form with wurde) in both clauses; Russian and Latvian the conditional in both clauses. In these languages, degrees of hypotheticality are indicated by choice of verb form, but some languages also indicate this by different conjunctions. Thus, in Maltese jekk 'if is used for lower hypotheticality and kieku for greater hypotheticality. Yapese has a distinction between faqdn raa (less hypothetical) and yugu raa or (goo)mangea (described as 'counterfactual' - Jensen 1977: 316-18). In Ngiyambaa, as already noted in section 3, greater hypotheticality (or counterfactuality?) is indicated by the clitic -ma in both clauses. Classical Greek seems to be unusual in having its marker for higher hypotheticality, an, only in the apodosis. Some languages make a three-way distinction in this area, as in the following Latin examples from Cicero: type I (indicative) Si vales, bene est 'If you are in good health, all is well'; type II (subjunctive without shift to past tense) Hanc vlam si asperam esse negem, mentiar 'If I were to deny that this road is rough, I should lie'; type III (subjunctive with shift to past tense) Si ad centensimum annum vixisset, senectutis earn suae paeniteret? 'If he had lived to his hundredth year, would he be regretting his old age?' (Kennedy 1962: 98-9). Similarly in Persian, again arranged in order of increasing hypotheticality: agar miravi, agarberavi, agarmirafti, respectively indicative, subjunctive, conditional (formally, a past tense) 'if you are/were going' (Windfuhr 1979: 92). 6. TIME REFERENCE In this section we shall be concerned with overt expression of time reference in conditionals, concentrating on those instances where the time reference of verb forms is different in a conditional from that found in other constructions. Two sets of time reference turn out to be particularly interesting here: time reference in conditionals with high hypotheticality (especially with nonfuture time reference), and time reference in conditionals with low hypotheticality and future time reference. I suspect that these two sets of conditionals are in fact the most basic, in the sense that they are the most used in actual discourse, and in that grammars of individual languages are more likely to require overt reference to these classes of conditionals. Grammars of many languages discuss only these two sets of conditionals, or at least restrict their examples to these two kinds. One frequent phenomenon crosslinguistically in conditionals with high hypotheticality is loss of tense distinctions. In an extreme form, this can be seen in Russian, which has a three-way tense distinction (past/present/future), but no tense distinction whatsoever in conditionals with high hypotheticality, 93

Bernard Comrie e.g.: (55)

Esli by ty prisel, ja byl by rad 'If you came/had come I would be/have been glad'

A less extreme neutralization is found in Latvian, where the usual three-way tense distinction (past/present/future) is reduced to a two-way opposition between past time reference (conditional perfect) and nonpast time reference (conditional): (56) (57)

Ja es butu aizgajis, jus mani nebutu redzejis 'If I had gone away, you would not have seen me' Es stradatu, ja vins man maksatu 'I would work if he paid me' (Examples from Fennell and Gelsen 1980: 188, 512)

English shows a similar tense reduction. In conditionals with low hypotheticality, the three-way distinction (past/present/future) is maintained - although the present/future opposition is neutralized in the protasis, it is retained in the apodosis, as in: (58)

If he comes (regularly), I run away

versus: (59)

If he comes (tomorrow), I'll run away

However, in the conditional with greater hypotheticality, the present/future opposition is neutralized: (60)

If (ever) he came, I would run away

and (61)

If he came (tomorrow), I would run away

One aspect of time reference that is common in Indo-European and European-area languages in conditionals with high hypotheticality is backshifting of tense, i.e. use of a morphologically past tense with present (or future) time reference and of a pluperfect with past time reference, as in English: (62)

If he came, I would run away

(63)

If he had come, I would have run away

Apparently, some varieties of English can even backshift a pluperfect to 'plupluperfect', a form that does not otherwise occur in English, as in: (64)

If he'd 've come, I'd 've run away

- although the analysis of this verb form in the protasis (had/'would have/of come?) is controversial. Backshifting of tense is not, however, restricted to 94

Conditionals: a typology these languages. Thus in Haya, in conditionals with high hypotheticality, present time reference is expressed by the recent past tense, while past time reference is expressed by a sequential combination of recent past tense and intermediate past tense markers (Salone 1977: 155-7). F ° r a more extended crosslinguistic study, see James (1982). The indication of time reference in protases of conditionals with low hypotheticality and future time reference is particularly complex crosslinguistically, as discussed in Comrie (1982). Basically, four types can be distinguished. In type one, the expected future tense is used, as in Latvian: (65)

Ja tu runasi (future), es tevi dzirdesu 'If you speak, I'll hear you'

In type two, the present indicative is used with future time reference, even in languages where there are heavy restrictions on this use of the present tense, as in English: (66)

If it rains tomorrow, I'll take an umbrella (cf. *it rains tomorrow)

In type three, present tense is used, but in a non-indicative mood, as in Armenian, where the present subjunctive is used: (67)

Yethe du gas (present subjunctive), yes ka-ganam 'If you come, I will go'

In the fourth type, a form is used which is neither present nor indicative, as in Portuguese, where the so-called future subjunctive appears: (68)

Se voce nao vier (future subjunctive), eu vou sair 'If you don't come, I will leave'

Note that in each of these examples, the apodosis remains in the future indicative (or whatever verb form is usual in the given language for expressing future time reference). In fact, the situation is more complex than these straightforward examples suggest, as can be seen by more detailed examination of English (as an example of type two) and Portuguese (as an example of type four). The situation outlined above, with use of the present indicative or the future subjunctive, holds only where the temporal reference of the protasis precedes or overlaps that of the apodosis. This is, as noted in section 3, the usual temporal relation between protasis and apodosis, but conditionals are perfectly possible where the time reference of the apodosis precedes that of the protasis. In this case, Portuguese disallows the future subjunctive, resorting instead either to the compound future indicative (with the auxiliary ir 'to go') or, preferably, to the compound future of the future subjunctive: (69)

Se isso vai/for machucar voce, eu nao fa?o 95

Bernard Comrie

'If this will hurt you, I won't do it' In English, with this temporal relation between the two clauses, the future indicative is used, but only if there is a causal link from the apodosis (as cause) to the protasis (as effect), as in: (70)

If it will amuse you, I'll tell you a joke

where my telling you a joke is the cause of your amusement (in addition to my desire to amuse you being the reason for my telling the joke, i.e. there is a bicausal relation). Where this causal relation is lacking, some means other than the future tense must be used to indicate future time reference, such as the going to construction, as in: (71)

If it's going to rain, I'll take my umbrella

7. CONCLUSIONS In this paper I have tried both to give a definition of conditionals applicable to natural language and to isolate the major parameters that are necessary for the description and typologization of conditionals crosslinguistically. The definition proposed for conditionals combines material implication with the relevance of a causal relation from the protasis to the apodosis. The parameters discussed are clause order, marking of conditionality, degrees of hypotheticality, and time reference. It was noted that the most common clause order both crosslinguistically and within individual languages is for the protasis to precede the apodosis, and that for some constructions this order is obligatory, even in languages which do not have a general rule requiring subordinate clauses to precede main clauses. Although it is possible to have conditionals where neither protasis nor apodosis is explicitly marked as being part of a conditional, it is usual for the protasis to be overtly marked; marking of the apodosis is less common, and marking of the apodosis alone is particularly rare. It was argued that the notion 'degrees of hypotheticality' defines a continuum, with different languages making a different number of overt distinctions along this continuum, and it was hypothesized that no language has a specific form to mark counterfactuals (as opposed to conditionals of high hypotheticality). Concerning time reference, some languages neutralize the range of oppositions of time reference in conditionals, while backshifting of tense (e.g. a formal past tense with present time reference) is found crosslinguistically in conditionals with high hypotheticality; the commonest kinds of conditionals in actual use seem to be those of low hypotheticality with future time reference and those of high hypotheticality with past time reference, and these seem also 96

Conditionals: a typology to be the kinds of conditionals which most often have idiosyncratic rules referring to them in grammars of languages. The examples discussed at the end of section 6, together with some of the other English examples discussed in the text, show how complex the parameters involved in conditionals can become in their interaction. It is to be hoped that more detailed studies of conditionals in a wider range of languages will enable us to see what universals, if any, lurk behind these more complex interactions. NOTES 1 I have benefited greatly from discussion with participants in the Conditionals Workshop, Stanford University, May 1982, and the Symposium on Conditionals and Cognitive Processes, Stanford University, December 1983. I have also benefited, more than citations in the text would suggest, from discussion with Noriko Akatsuka, John Haiman, Eric Kellerman, and Johan Van der Auwera, and from the comments of my panel discussant, Joseph H. Greenberg. 2 Note that distinguishing meaning from interpretation does not mean abandoning the attempt to account for interpretations, but rather that the search for an account of interpretations will appeal to a number of components in addition to meaning - a comprehensive account must incorporate theories of all of these components. I am thus sympathetic to the analysis of interpretations of conditionals (see, for instance, Johnson-Laird in this volume), although I believe this analysis will be more fruitful if meaning and interpretation are distinguished more systematically. 3 As pointed out to me by John Haiman, the meaning of unless (and equivalent conjunctions in other languages) is much narrower than that of 'if and only if ... not'. Contrast the acceptable It'll be dark tomorrow if and only if the sun doesn't rise with the bizarre It'll be dark tomorrow unless the sun rises. However, the characterization given in the text is part of the meaning of unless. 4 I am grateful to Eve E. Sweetser for impressing on me the distinction between the epistemic and speech act types. 5 This point was made by several participants in the Symposium. 6 For a different approach to the relation between conditionals and temporals, see Haiman (1978). While I agree that it is necessary to account for the similarities (up to identity) between conditionals and temporals in many languages, it is also necessary to account for the differences between them in many languages. 7 Mandarin examples throughout are taken from Li and Thompson (1982). Note that in German, unlike Mandarin, the homophony of temporal and conditional constructions does not extend to all tense/aspects; thus, Wenn er gestern ankam, war er zu spat can only be 'If he arrived yesterday he was late' ('When ...' would have to be a/?...). 8 John Haiman informs me, on the basis of unpublished fieldwork by Lee Brandson, that in Gende (East New Guinea Highlands), neither protasis nor apodosis is overtly marked as such, and that either clause order is possible. 9 While I find it plausible that conditional protases are prototypically topics, as claimed by Haiman (or perhaps given, as claimed by Akatsuka in this volume), I find it less plausible that conditional protases should be defined as topics, since, for the reasons given in section 2, I believe that the notion of material implication is also important to the definition of conditionals and to their separation from other clauses 97

Bernard Comrie that may have topic status (such as temporal clauses). 10 Since most grammars available to me of Australian languages do not discuss conditionals, it is possible that Ngiyambaa may evince a more widespread areal trait here. 11 Stephen R. Anderson points out to me that English conditionals with if only are necessarily counterfactual, e.g. If only I had a thousand dollars I'd buy a computer. Further investigation of such constructions may therefore lead to weakening of the claim in the text, unless the counterfactuality can be attributed to some element not part of the expression of conditionality (e.g. be predicted from the semantics of only). 12 For further discussion of such examples, see Davies (1979: 157-62). 13 In fact, English overall seems to have more than two degrees of hypotheticality for nonpast conditionals, since here double backshifting (pluperfect in protasis, conditional perfect in apodosis) may be used, e.g. // you had come next Wednesday, you would have met Grannie, which is more appropriate than If you came ... you would meet... if the addressee has already indicated inability to come on Wednesday (Dudman 1983: 38-9).

REFERENCES Comrie, Bernard. 1982. Future time reference in conditional protases. Australian Journal of Linguistics 2: 143-52. Dardjowidjojo, Soenjono. 1978. Sentence patterns of Indonesian. Honololu: University Press of Hawaii. Davies, Eitian C. 1979. On the semantics of syntax. London: Croom Helm. Donaldson, Tamsin. 1980. Ngiyambaa: the language of the Wangaaybuwan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dudman, V. H. 1983. Tense and time in English verb clusters of the primary pattern. Australian Journal of Linguistics 3: 25-44. Fennell, T. C. and H. Gelsen. 1980. A grammar of modern Latvian. The Hague: Mouton. Ferguson, Charles A. 1982. Conditionals in Bengali. Paper presented at the Conditionals Workshop, Stanford University, May 21-22. Greenberg, Joseph H. 1963. Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In Universals of language, ed. Joseph H. Greenberg, 73-113. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Haiman, John. 1978. Conditionals are topics. Language 54: 564-89. Haiman, John. 1980. Hua: a Papuan language of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea. Amsterdam: Benjamins. James, Deborah. 1982. Past tense and hypotheticality: a cross-linguistic study. Studies in Language 6: 375-403. Jensen, John T. 1977. Yapese reference grammar. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii. Kahler, Hans. 1965. Grammatik der Bahasa Indonesia, 2nd ed. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Kennedy, B. H. 1962. The shorter Latin primer, rev. edn. London: Longman. Lehmann, Christian. 1974. Prinzipien fur 'Universal 14'. In Linguistic Workshop II, ed. Hansjakob Seiler, 69-97. Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag. Lewis, Geoffrey L. 1967. Turkish grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Li, Charles N., and Sandra A. Thompson. 1982. Conditionals in Mandarin. Paper presented at the Conditionals Workshop, Stanford University, May 21-22. Quirk, Randolph, Sydney Greenbaum, Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik. 1972. A university grammar of English. London: Longman. Salone, Sukari. 1977. Conditionals. In Hay a grammatical structure, ed. Ernest R. Byarushengo, Alessandro Duranti, and Larry M. Hyman, 149-59. Los Angeles: Department 98

Conditionals: a typology of Linguistics, University of Southern California. Sankoff, Gillian and Suzanne Laberge, 1973. On the acquisition of native speakers by a language. Kivung 6: 32-43. Reprinted in Gillian Sankoff. 1980. The social life of language. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Windfuhr, Gernod L. 1979. Persian grammar. The Hague: Mouton.

99

PART II

PARTICULAR

STUDIES

ON THE INTERPRETATION OF 'DONKEY'-SENTENCES •

Tanya Reinhart Editors' note. Conditionals systematically affect the dependencies that may obtain between pronouns and their antecedents when they occur in the two different clauses of conditional sentences. Paradigmatic of such interactions are the 'donkey'-sentences which have preoccupied linguistic theory and philosophical accounts of reference and quantification for a considerable time. Reinhart's paper presents a syntactic and semantic account of such sentences. All indefinite noun phrases are taken to be bound by other quantifiers and operators. This resolves the problem of interaction and shows that the phenomenon can be generalized to a much wider class, including some plurals. 1. THE PROBLEM The so-called 'donkey'-sentences pose well-known problems both to the semantic theory of scope and to the theory of anaphora: u 1i)

a. If Max owns a donkey, he hates it b. If a vampire checks in, Lucie invites him to dinner

The pronoun in sentence (ia) can be anaphoric to a donkey, and the crucial point is that this is a case of bound-variable anaphora, rather than of pragmatic coreference. This can be observed if we compare such sentences with others having adverbial clauses, e.g.: (2)

a. When Max owned a donkey, he hated it b. Since a stranger came in with a donkey, we had to provide some hay for it

In the sentences of (2) the pronoun refers to a specific donkey. Although the antecedent is indefinite, it has a fixed value; hence, this is a case of pragmatic coreference. In the sentences of (1), on the other hand, there is no fixed value for, for example, a donkey that the pronoun can refer to. The value of the pronoun varies with the choice of value for a donkey, i.e. it behaves as a bound variable. The semantic problem is that under a standard interpretation of such sentences, as given in (3) for (ia), the pronoun is not in the scope of the quantifier which appears to bind it, so it cannot be bound: (3)

If (3x (x is a donkey and Max owns x)) then (Max hates x) 103

Tanya Reinhart (4)

*If Max owns every donkey he hates it

That, normally, quantified NPs in the position of a donkey in sentence (ia) cannot bind pronouns outside the (/"-clause, is shown also by the fact that the similar sentence in (4), with a universal quantifier, does not allow anaphora. The problem at issue is restricted to indefinite antecedents, or more generally, as we shall see later, to 'weak' NPs. A peculiar property of 'donkey'-sentences is that an alternative scope analysis exists in which the pronoun is in the scope of the binding quantifier, as in (5),for(ia): (5)

Vx (x is a donkey and Max owns x) (Max hates x) 'For every donkey, if Max owns it, he hates it'

In (5) the indefinite is interpreted as a universal, rather than an existential, quantifier, and this seems to yield correctly the truth conditions of (ia), since the sentence entails that Max hates every donkey he owns, if he owns any. If it turns out that Max has several donkeys and he only hates one of them, the sentence is false. (For a detailed defence of assuming such entailment see Heim 1982.) The same problem shows up also in relative clauses, as in (6): (6) (7) (8)

a. Every man who owns a donkey hates it b. Vx (x is a man and 3y (y is a donkey and x owns y)) (x hates y) Vx, Vy (x is a man and y is a donkey and x owns y) (x hates y) If a man owns a donkey, he hates it

In the standard scope analysis of (6a), given in (6b), the existential quantifier is embedded in the restrictive term of every, hence it cannot bind the pronoun. However, here too the indefinite NP can be interpreted as a universal rather than an existential quantifier, as in (7) (for every man x and every donkey y, if x owns y, x hates y), with the same entailment as before. In (7) the pronoun is bound by this quantifier, so anaphora is permitted. Note that the analysis in (7) also captures the truth conditions of the conditional in (8). Since this conditional contains two indefinite NPs, they are both translated as universal quantifiers. If the logical forms (LFs) (5) and (7) can be assumed for the sentences under consideration, the binding of the pronoun is no longer a semantic problem. However, the crucial problem is how such LFs can be derived from the surface structures of these sentences, as they appear to require operations which violate all known restrictions on semantic interpretation rules. The analysis for the 'donkey'-cases should explain how the indefinite becomes universally quantified, how it gets scope outside its clause, and what conditionals and relative clauses have in common (which explains their similarity in the case of 'donkey'-contexts). 104

On the interpretation of 'donkey'-sentences As we shall see in section 3, the answer to most of these questions is no longer a mystery, due to Heim's (1982) analysis of 'donkey'-contexts. Heim argues that indefinite NPs contain no quantifier, hence they can be bound by another operator, if they occur in its restrictive term at LF, as is the case with indefinites in both relative clauses and //-clauses. The universal force of the indefinites in the examples we examined follows, then, from the fact that they are bound by some other universal operator in the sentence. The LF (7) is, then, a case of pair quantification, where one universal operator binds two variables. However, questions arise when we consider cases where the operator available for binding the indefinite is not a universal, as in (9): (9)

a. Most women who have a dog talk to it b. Almost every woman who has a dog talks to it

A sentence like (9a) still entails that most women talk to every dog they have. However, the indefinite NP a dog here is not bound by a universal quantifier at LF, and the standard interpretation of the pair quantification derived from it does not yield the right truth condition. The universal force of the indefinites in such contexts is, then, independent of the operator in whose restrictive term it occurs. My question in this paper is: what is the source of this universal force? I argue that the answer follows from the set-interpretation of indefinite NPs, or 'weak' NPs in general. The universal entailment, then, is independent of the binding relations assumed by Heim, but this means that her analysis, which is crucial for explaining the anaphora in such cases, can be maintained. Although, as we shall see in section 2, the problem at issue is semantic and not pragmatic, the answer to the interpretation problem will be based on observing the behaviour of such NPs in discourse. 2. IS THE PROBLEM SEMANTIC OR PRAGMATIC? In view of the difficulties in interpreting 'donkey'-anaphora, a tempting move would be to argue that the pronouns in the 'donkey'-cases are not, in fact, bound variables, but are interpreted by some other coreference mechanism. An extensive critical survey of the various proposals along this line can be found in Heim (1982). Here we will consider only Evans's (1980) analysis, which seems the most promising. Evans argues for the existence of E-type pronoun interpretation, under which the pronoun is taken to refer to the object(s) which satisfy the clause containing a quantified NP (QNP). This type may be illustrated with (10): (10)

a. Lucie has many cats and they are so cute b. Every guest brought three bottles to the party. By midnight, they were (all) empty

Since the pronouns here occur outside the sentence containing their quantified 105

Tanya Reinhart antecedent, they cannot be in the QNP's scope. (Evans provides further arguments supporting this which will be mentioned in section 4.) The pronouns are construed, then, as referential, but their reference depends on the choice of value for the QNP in the first sentence. In (10a) the pronoun refers to (all) the cats that Lucie owns. Although Evans does not discuss this, we may assume that the same interpretation is available also when the indefinite is in the scope of another quantifier: in (iob) the pronoun refers to all the bottles which turn out to satisfy the first quantified proposition. In the 'donkey'-contexts, such as (11): (11)

Every guest who brought three bottles put them in the refrigerator

both the QNP antecedent and the pronoun are in the scope of another quantifier {every). The antecedent clause contains a variable bound by every. Hence, the relevant value selected for the pronouns is the bottles satisfying x brought three bottles and this value varies with the choice of value for x. Evans's basic intuition concerning the interpretation of E-type pronouns is, I believe, correct. In section 4 I argue that a way to capture this intuition is to view his E-type pronouns as set-pronouns (denoting maximal sets of their members). This enables us to avoid certain problems with interpreting Evans's proposal that were pointed out by Heim (1982). The crucial question which remains, however, is whether in the 'donkey'-cases the anaphora can be viewed, indeed, as a case of coreference, or whether the set-pronoun must, nevertheless, be interpreted as bound. Note, first, that some notion of binding is implicit in the analysis of why the interpretation of the pronoun is different in the 'donkey'-context (11) from its interpretation in the cross-sentential anaphora in (iob). (The pronouns here denote different sets: if there were ten guests who brought each exactly three bottles the pronoun in (iob) denotes thirty bottles while in (11) it denotes three bottles.) Suppose we assume Evans intends the pronoun to denote in such a case something like all bottles x brought. This pronoun interpretation is still dependent on the choice of value for the quantifier which binds x. What this means is that although the pronoun is clearly not bound by its antecedent, its interpretation, or the set it denotes, is, in some sense, bound by the quantifier every. Probably this is what Evans intends, but this is not a straightforward case of unbound anaphora, and the relevant sense of binding here needs to be explicated. Haik (1984) has observed that the relation between every and the pronoun in the 'donkey'-context obeys also surface structure restrictions typical of bound anaphora, which do not apply in the case of coreference, and these too need to be explained if we view the phenomenon as a case of pragmatic coreference. Two other properties of 'donkey'-type anaphora are not explained by a pragmatic E-type analysis. First, as we saw, this type is permitted only with indefinite NPs (or, as we shall see later, with all NPs with 'weak' determiners), and 106

On the interpretation of 'donkey'-sentences it is not clear how the E-type analysis can explain why the plural QNPs with a strong determiner in (12) do not allow anaphora: (12)

*Every critic who fell asleep during most 1 . i_ • • • i_ „, pieces, wrote enthusiastic reviews about all but two > \ .1 . L them. at least 20 per cent ofr i the (If, for some speakers, anaphora seems to be allowed here, it is only if the pronoun denotes the [common-noun] set of all pieces, or if it denotes a fixed set. This is a different type of anaphora, which need not concern us here.) If all that is going on in the 'donkey'-cases is a selection of objects satisfying the antecedent clause, clearly there are such objects established here and the pronoun should have been able to refer to them. Next, the distribution of 'donkey'-type anaphora is severely restricted and for such anaphora to be possible it is not sufficient that the antecedent and the pronoun be in the scope of another quantifier: (13)

*Every woman thought s[that she'd already met some man] when she saw him

The pronoun in (13) is in the scope of every. The antecedent clause contains a variable bound by every (the pronoun she). Still, the pronoun him cannot refer to the man satisfying x had met some man, varying with the choice of a woman: i.e. the 'donkey'-type anaphora where the choice of the pronoun varies with the choice of a man is impossible here. More generally, 'donkey'type anaphora is possible only when the antecedent is in the restrictive term of another operator. We may conclude that the 'donkey'-problems cannot be reduced to a purely pragmatic analysis of coreference. Haik (1984) provides an extremely interesting syntactic analysis of S-internal E-type anaphora in a wide range of cases. Her analysis keeps, in essence, Evans's intuitions, but introduces a mechanism for treating the pronouns as (indirectly) bound at surface structure by the QNP that has their antecedent in its scope. We should note, however, that this analysis cannot capture the last property of 'donkey'-anaphora we observed above - namely that it is possible only if the antecedent is in the restrictive term. To see that this is a crucial property that needs to be captured let us examine a few more cases: (14)

(15)

a. To show her his love, every knight who courted a lady committed suicide b. *To show her his love every knight sent roses to a lady /courted a lady patiently c. Every man who brought three bottles put them in the refrigerator d. *Every man who brought them put three bottles in the refrigerator e. *If someone brought them, he put three bottles in the refrigerator *Every man assumed that jokes about a lady in the party annoyed her 107

Tanya Reinhart

In all the examples above the indefinite antecedent does not c-command (or bind) the pronoun syntactically. In all of them, however, both the antecedent and the pronoun are in the scope of the every quantifier, or the conditional operator (which will be discussed in section 3). But only in (14a) and (14c) is the antecedent in the restrictive term of this operator, and these are the only cases which allow anaphora. (The specific, or wide-scope interpretation of the indefinite should, of course, be ignored in judging these examples.) The inappropriateness of anaphora in the other cases of (14) cannot be reduced to pragmatic considerations such as linear order (i.e. the fact that the pronoun precedes the antecedent), since on the one hand 'backward' anaphora with an indefinite antecedent is possible in (14a) but on the other hand 'forward' anaphora is blocked in (15). It turns out, however, that Haik's analysis allows anaphora equally in all these sentences, as well as in (13).3 The analysis of the semantic binding of the pronouns in 'donkey'-contexts must capture the two specific properties of the distribution of E-type anaphora S-internally that we observed in this section. As we saw, assuming E-type interpretation alone cannot do that, but in section 41 argue that a more explicit analysis of this type of interpretation explains the apparent universal force of the indefinite NPs in this context, which is independent of the issue of how they are bound. 3. HEIM'S ANALYSIS OF THE LOGICAL FORM OF 'DONKEY'-SENTENCES As we saw, the problem at issue is restricted to indefinite NPs which are traditionally interpreted as existential quantifiers. For this reason, scholarly attention has recently focused on the analysis of indefinite NPs. The most promising solution to the semantic problem stems from the observation that indefinite NPs are not, in fact, inherently existential quantifiers (Heim 1982; Kamp 1984). Heim's work is most explicitly related to surface structure, and I will therefore follow it here, focusing only on her LF analyses. The discussion is restricted to the logical syntax of these sentences. In the next section I examine their interpretation and the extensions necessary for the analysis to apply in the full range of cases. Heim's (1982) point of departure is that the indefinite article is not a quantifier, hence indefinite NPs are not quantified. Rather, they are interpreted as open formulae containing a variable that needs to be bound by some operator (e.g. man(x) for a man). The different interpretations of indefinites follow from the selection of the operator. It can be an available universal operator, an adverbial operator in the sentence, an existential operator introduced by the LF rules to bind the indefinite formula, or a 'discourse' operator. Let us see first how this works in the case of relative clauses, since the analysis of the conditionals is based on the same mechanism. 108

On the interpretation of 'donkey'-sentences Heim assumes LF formation rules similar to those assumed in the government and binding framework, following May (1977), the difference being only that unlike Quantifier-raising (QR), her rule of NP-raising adjoins to S any NP, regardless of its interpretation (excluding pronouns). This operation is restricted syntactically, as assumed for QR. The next rule applies specifically to quantifiers attaching them (out of the raised NP) to the dominating S. Some results are illustrated, with minor changes, in (16)—(18). (For ease of presentation I have written some variables in already at this stage. The binding of variables is obtained in Heim's analysis by an explicit indexing system, which I will not discuss.) Every man who, e} buys a car worships it => I. NP[Every man who} e{ buys a car]! s [e, worships it] =^> II. [Every man who] [a car]2 s[z\ buys e2]]! [ej worships it]

every

car (x) (17)

ey buys ex

Every man worships some car S every

NP,

A man (x) car (y) 109

ex worships ey

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(18)

We saw a man entering

we saw ex entering Sentences (16) and (17) contain a quantifier (every). The way the raising rules are defined, the higher S always dominates, in such cases, three constituents. The second of these is defined as the restrictive term of the quantifier, and the third as its nuclear scope. When a sentence is quantified, as in (16) and (17), a further LF rule named 'existential closure' applies to such structures adjoining a quantifier 3 to the nuclear scope of every quantifier. Applied to (17) it yields (19): (19) every

car (y)

ex worships ey

A structure like (19) yields the existential interpretation of indefinites. The same rule applies vacuously to the nuclear scope of (16, III), but there will be no variable it can bind there, since car(x) occurs in the restrictive term. Since the relative clause in (16) is the restrictive term of every, 3 cannot be inserted there. Hence, the only operator that can bind the indefinite in (16, III) is the universal operator every. This operator, thus, will bind both variables, and the LF-representation (20) (with a universal quantification over pairs) is obtained for the sentence. The system, thus, explicitly determines when an indefinite is interpreted as an existential, and when it is bound by another universal operator. (20)

Every x, y (man(x) & car(y) & x buys y) (x worships y) no

On the interpretation of 'donkey'-sentences In (18) no quantifier is present in the sentence, so neither existential closure nor binding to another quantifier can apply. In this case, it is assumed that the variable in the indefinite is bound by an abstract discourse operator. The indefinite may be viewed, then, as a 'discourse referent' or (roughly) as a specific indefinite. The LF (20) derived for (16) is the one which we examined in (7) of section 1. As we saw, this LF captures correctly the truth conditions of the sentence and allows the pronoun (it) of (16) to be bound. Heim's analysis, then, provides an explicit mechanism for deriving this LF from the surface structure of 'donkey'-sentences. Turning now to conditionals, the question is what binds the indefinite, as there is no overt operator in these sentences. Heim argues that conditionals contain an abstract sentential operator which she labels 'invisible necessity operator' and writes as D. In its force this operator is similar to the necessity operator - though they are not identical, since the conditional operator expresses a pragmatic rather than a logical necessity. It functions similarly to adverbial operators like always, invariably, or universally, which were analysed by Lewis (1975). Such adverbials may force an apparent universal interpretation of indefinite NPs as in (21): *iT . . . [ an old-fashioned critic hates an avant-garde 6 vpiece [Invariably J b. All old fashioned critics hate all avant-garde pieces (22)

a. [ Sometimes 1

,j

r

i_-

J

••

^

1

J

•

I Of an old-fashioned critic attacks an avant-garde piece b. Some old-fashioned critics attack some avant-garde pieces Sentence (21a) is similar in meaning to the universally quantified sentence (21b), though they are not precisely equivalent. Different sentential adverbials may force a different interpretation of the indefinites, as in (22a), where they are interpreted existentially, pretty much like (22b). Like the 'universal' sentential adverbs, the conditional operator forces a universal interpretation of indefinite NPs. In Heim's analysis this is a sentential operator which, like an adverbial operator, has the whole sentence in its scope. If a conditional sentence contains no adverbial operator, the conditional operator is realized as in (23b) (the precise LF of (23a) will be given shortly in (26)). However, other adverbials may fill the operator slot, as in (23d), in which case there is no independent conditional operator:4 (23)

a. If a man is happy, he talks to his dog b. • (if a man is happy, he talks to his dog) . \ if a man is happy, he talks to his dog A. FFJ 5 Almost always J in

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d. J OFTEN

1

r(

. ,

u

u

u ^

A

^

1 ALMOST ALWAYS J 0« a man is happy, he talks to his dog). In this analysis, then (as in Lewis's analysis), the if of the conditional has no interpretation; or, more generally, there is no independent conditional interpretation. The interpretation is dependent upon the sentential operator, and only if no other such operator is available in the sentence is the abstract conditional operator realized. The if in conditionals has, in this analysis, a purely syntactic role: it marks the restrictive term of the operator. The //"-clause of a conditional is always the restrictive term, regardless of its position in the sentence. This distinguishes conditionals from conjunctions (e.g. Always Max comes late and Lucie comes early), where no such requirement holds. The assumption that the conditional operator functions like a sentential adverbial operator, rather than originating in the //"-clause independently of other adverbial operators, is not without problems. One major problem is that the sentential adverbial operators allow indefinites to bind pronouns freely in the adverbial's scope as in (24b): (24)

a. * Lucie throws some dress away after she wears it once b. Always Lucie throws some dress away after she wears it once

In the case of 'bare' conditionals, anaphora is allowed only if the antecedent is in the //"-clause, as in (25b), but not otherwise, as in (25a): (25)

a. *Lucie kisses some guest if /ze talks about Hegel b. If some guest talks about Hegel, Lucie kisses him I Oft

I Lucie kisses some guest if he talks about Hegel

This fact seems to follow from Heim's analysis of the //"-clause as the restrictive term of the conditional operator. However, the problem is that if another sentential adverbial operator is added to (25a), as in (25c), anaphora is permitted. If the conditional operator is identical in interpretation and scope to the sentential adverbials, there is no explanation for why it cannot allow anaphora in the same way when it is realized independently in (25a). I believe that the conditional operator originates in the //"-clause and not in the matrix S-position, and the general condition allowing an operator to bind an indefinite NP is that it c-commands it at SS. In (24b) and (25c) the operator (always) c-commands the whole sentence, including the indefinite NP, but in (25a) it c-commands only the //"-clause, hence it cannot bind the antecedent outside it. This stresses the similarity between conditionals and relative clauses: in both cases the indefinite antecedent can occur only in the restrictive term, since it is only this part of the sentence which is c-commanded by the operator at SS. This would mean that the conditional operator is independent of the other 112

On the interpretation of 'donkey'-sentences adverbial operators, and, in contrast to Lewis's proposal, it is realized even if an adverbial operator is present. The problem of the interaction between this operator and other adverbial operators should be handled by whatever analysis handles similar interactions with universally quantified NPs, as e.g. in Often every guest talks about Hegel, or Sometimes every woman who likes a guest talks to him about Hegel. Heim's analysis of the scope of indefinites in conditionals, to which we now turn, is not crucially dependent upon the assumption. The conditional operator functions like a sentential adverbial operator. The LF assigned in this analysis to (26a) is (26c): (26)

a. If a mant owns a donkey2 hej hates it2 b.

donkey (y)

ej owns e2

c. • Vx y (man(x) & donkey(y) & x owns y) (x hates y) NP2 and NP2 are raised to the initial positions of the //"-clause by the standard NP-raising operation at LF that we observed above. The //-clause is the restrictive term of the necessity operator; hence no quantifier can be inserted there (the 3 in the nuclear scope of this example is vacuous, as it can bind nothing). The only operator that can bind both indefinites is, therefore, the conditional operator, which, as we saw, is similar in force to a universal operator. Hence we derive here the formula in (26c), which is similar to the universal quantification over pairs in (20). If the pronouns in the second clause are co-indexed with a man and a donkey they are translated as the same variables, hence they are both bound by the conditional operator and anaphora is permitted. Note that, unlike the universal quantifier, the conditional operator, or a

Tanya Reinhart sentential operator in general, does not bind independently an NP-variable in the sentence. It can only bind a variable in such sentences because of the specific properties of indefinite NPs which can 'attach themselves' to available operators. The pair quantification in (26c) is obtained because the //-clause happens to contain two indefinite NPs. If there is only one such NP the operator binds only one variable, as in (23a), repeated in (27): (27)

a. If a man is happy, he talks to his dog b . D x (man(x) & happy(x)) (x talks to x's dog)

In conclusion, we may note that Heim's analysis answers the questions raised in section 1, of how the indefinites get wide scope in 'donkey'-contexts, and of why this is possible both in conditional and in relative clauses. (We turn in the next section to the question of the universal entailment.) It also captures the properties of 'donkey'-anaphora we examined in section 2. As we saw in examples (12) and (4), such anaphora is possible only when the antecedent is indefinite, or existential. This is captured in this analysis since only these NPs lack an independent binding quantifier. If a universally quantified NP appears in a relative clause or in an //"-clause, it cannot be bound by the higher operator. Neither can it leave its clause to obtain wider scope, because of the clausal restrictions on QR (or NP-raising). Hence its scope is only this clause, and a pronoun outside this clause cannot be bound by it. The analysis also opens the way for capturing the fact we observed in (13)—(15), that 'donkey'-type anaphora is possible only when the antecedent is in the restrictive term of another operator. In Heim's analysis, whenever the indefinite NP occurs in the nuclear term (i.e. outside the restrictive term), the rule of existential closure inserts an 3 quantifier. The indefinite is, then, bound by this quantifier, and it cannot be bound by the sentential or universal operator. This may be illustrated with a sentence similar to (i4d): (28a) *Every guest who brought itx put a bottle! in the refrigerator (28b)

every N guest (y) who ey brought it ey put ex in the refrigerator In the LF (28b) of this sentence, 3 must be inserted, and since there is an indefinite N {a bottle) in its scope, this NP is bound by it. A bottle, then, 114

On the interpretation of 'donkey'-sentences cannot be bound by every. In the LF obtained, the pronoun it is outside the scope of the operator, hence it cannot be bound by it.5 4. WEAK NPs AND THE SOURCE OF THE UNIVERSAL FORCE Our next question is: what is the precise interpretation of the LFs derived by Heim's analysis? In the case of the LF (20) derived for (16) which is repeated in (29), not much more seems to be needed concerning the interpretation of the formula. Under any interpretation it appears to capture correctly the truth conditions of the sentence. The question arises, however, if we consider other strong quantifiers as binders, as in (30). (29) (30)

a. b. a. b. c. d.

Every man who buys a car2 worships it2 Every x, y (man(x) & car(y) & x buys y) (x worships y) Almost every man who buys a car2 worships it2 Almost every x, y (man(x) & car(y) & x buys y) (x worships y) Almost every (x, y) (man(x) & car(y) & x buys y) (x worships y) Almost every x, Vy (man(x) & car(y) & x buys y) (x worships y)

The LF that would be derived for (30a), if we apply Heim's analysis, is (30b), and the question is what does it mean? A pair interpretation, as in (30c), does not give the right truth conditions here, as has been pointed out in, among others, Kempson (1984). If there are ten car-buying men, one of which bought fifty cars and worshipped all of them, the others of which bought one car each and neglected to worship it, (30c) is true, since most man-car pairs enter the worship relation; but the original sentence (30a) is false under these conditions. What the sentence means, in fact, is that most car-buying men worship all the cars they bought, i.e. the truth conditions of the sentence are captured correctly by an LF like (3od) which contains a universal operator. ((30d) is the 'absorption' structure of Higginbotham and May 1984.) Roughly, a formula of the form almost every x, Vy, {cp, \p) is interpreted as almost every x, s.t. 3y 0:]Vy s.t. 3 x cp :\p].) This is, indeed, the analysis Heim intended for these cases. The puzzle here, however, is what is the source of the apparent universal force of the indefinite in this case, since no standard procedure can derive (3od) from (30b). More generally, it seems that indefinite NPs in the restrictive term of another quantifier always have a universal force, regardless of the semantics of the quantifier which binds them. A sentence with the form Qx who owns a donkeyx hates itx always entails x hates all the donkeys x owns, even if Q itself is not a universal quantifier (replace, e.g., Q with more than half, many or two). It is crucial, therefore, to explain this entailment, especially if we want to maintain that the indefinite (a donkey) here is bound by the Q at issue. Before addressing this question, we should look at another interpretation

Tanya Reinhart

problem which will eventually provide the clues for the answer. So far we have considered, following Heim, only singular indefinites as antecedents in 'donkey'-anaphora. In fact, the relevant distinction determining which NPs can serve as antecedents in 'donkey'-type anaphora is that between weak and strong NPs. This term will be used here to refer to NPs with weak or strong determiners in the sense of Barwise and Cooper (i981) or cardinal versus noncardinal determiners as defined by Keenan (forthcoming).6 All weak NPs can bind pronouns outside of their apparent scope, when they occur in the restrictive term of another quantifier. Some examples are given in (31):

(30

two several a. Every guests for dinner less than five vampire who was through with many invited them by midnight between ten and thirteen as many guests as you can imagine b. If a vampire invites more than fifty guests for dinner, they have a chance to survive

Clearly, in such examples the interpretation of the plural pronoun them varies with the choice of a vampire (each vampire might have invited a different set of guests to which the pronoun refers). Hence, it has the properties of bound anaphora. As we saw in (4) and (12), strong NPs cannot enter this type of anaphora relation. Heim's analysis must be extended, then, to hold for all weak NPs - which means that all weak NPs lack an inherent quantifier and, hence, can be bound by another operator in the sentence (or by an 3 operator). This, in fact, is a plausible extension, since an emerging agreement in studies of weak NPs is that the determiner in such cases is not a quantifier but a cardinality marker for the set defined by the NP. (Such an analysis was proposed originally by Bartsch 1973 and, informally, in Milsark 1974; it was recently developed independently by, for example, Higginbotham 1984; Scha 1984; Cormack and Kempson 1984; Keenan forthcoming; Lobner 1984.) The question, however, is how such NPs can be bound by another operator in the sentence. Once the full range of antecedents is considered, it becomes clear that the quantifier in the derived LFs for 'donkey'-sentences cannot bind an individual variable, as we have so far assumed. Since the NP bound by the universal or the conditional operator in example (31) is interpreted as a set, the quantifier index corresponding to this NP in the LF must be a set-variable. The same would be true in the case of a singular weak NP, as in (29), the only difference being that the cardinality of the set is (at least) 1. Consequently, the pronouns with the same index also refer to sets (or to each of their members). With this, then, we can turn to the question of what explains the apparent 116

On the interpretation of 'donkey'-sentences universal force of weak NPs in 'donkey'-contexts. (The same universal force shows up with plural weak NPs, e.g. Most men who have more than two dogs hate them entails that most of these men hate all the dogs they have.) The answer requires a closer look at the sets defined by weak NPs. A standard set analysis for weak NPs assumes that the weak NP itself denotes a set (which is a subset of the set defined by the noun interpretation). This is consistent with Heim's analysis where the open formula corresponds to the NP. So the NP in a sentence like (32a) can be analysed as in (32b): (32)

a. At least two vampires appeared b. X C {z I vampire (z)} and | X | ^ 2

(X is a subset of a set of individuals z with the vampire property, and the cardinality of X (i.e. the number of its members) is equal to or greater than 2.) The set X may be viewed as bound by something like Heim's discourse 3-operator, or stored at the discourse storage, which enables subsequent discourse to refer back to it. However, a closer look at the behaviour of weak NPs in discourse reveals that something more must be going on. As we saw in section 2, anaphora with weak NPs is possible also across sentences, where the pronoun cannot possibly be bound, as in (33): (33)

a. Two vampires appeared and Lucie chased them away b. Lucie has at least fifteen dogs, and Felix takes care of them

Given the analysis of weak NPs as sets with cardinality, we may say that the pronoun in such sentences refers to a set established in the previous sentence (as a discourse referent). It is clear, however, that in (33a) it does not refer to just any set of (at least) two vampires but, as observed by Evans (1980), to all the vampires argued to have appeared in the first sentence. Similarly, in (33b) Felix takes care of all of Lucie's dogs. As pointed out by Evans, the conjunction in example (33b) does not mean something like There exist (at least) fifteen dogs that Lucie owns and Felix takes care of, since the latter can be true if there are certain dogs which Lucie owns but which Felix does not take care of, while (33b) will be false under these conditions, since it entails that Felix takes care of all of Lucie's dogs. We see then that the apparent universal force of weak NPs in contexts of anaphora is not a peculiar property of 'donkey'-type cases where the antecedent is bound by another operator, but it is a general characteristic of these sorts of NPs and it must follow from their semantic analysis. To capture this, the sets defined by the weak NPs must be determined by their whole clause; for example, for (32a) it is the set in (34) which is stored for future discourse reference, and not just the set in (32b): (34)

X = {z I vampire(z) and z appeared} and | X | ^ 2

(X is the maximal set of individuals z with the vampire property who appeared 117

Tanya Reinhart and its cardinality is equal to or greater than 2.) Since X is defined as a maximal set, i.e. it contains all the vampires which appeared, if a pronoun refers back to this set, as in (33a), it refers to all its members, i.e. to all the objects satisfying the previous clause. I assume, then, that weak NPs are always interpreted as a set defined by the whole clause. In case the clause contains another quantified NP, as in Every neighbour has a dog, the set defined for the weak NP contains a variable bound by that quantifier: {z | dog(z) and x has z}. For this reason a pronoun can refer to this set only if it is in the scope of the operator which binds the variable in it. In other words, such sets are not available for discourse anaphora as, for example in * Every neighbour has a dog and I feed it. This analysis captures Evans's description of E-type pronouns as pronouns referring to all objects satisfying the antecedent's clause. However, it is not the pronouns which have this property: the pronouns here are standard setpronouns, i.e. pronouns referring to sets, and there are many other instances of such pronouns, for example in all cases of plurals. As such, their interpretation is determined by the interpretation of the antecedent, and if the antecedent is weak its interpretation is the set defined by the clause. This interpretation of weak NPs is, then, the source of the universal entailments in cases of anaphora with weak NPs, and the indefinite NP itself need not be universally quantified. The weak NPs in 'donkey'-sentences are analysed in precisely the same way: (35)

a. If Lucie has (any) children, Lucie spoils them b. X = {z children(z) and Lucie has z} and | X | ^ z c. • X(X = {z children(z) and Lucie has z} and | X | ^ z) (Lucie spoils X) d. *If Lucie has children she spoils them, but I can't stand them e. * Every man who owns a donkey left, and Felix had to take care of it The clause containing the NP children in (35a) is the //"-clause {Lucie has children), hence this NP is interpreted as the maximal set determined by this clause, as in (35b). However, the difference between a 'donkey'-sentence, such as (35a), and the case of discourse anaphora we examined in (33), is that this weak NP is bound, as we saw, by the conditional operator. In Heim's analysis, its index is copied into the conditional operator. Since the NP is interpreted as in (35b), this index is a set-index, and the pronoun with the same index is also a set-pronoun; hence the full analysis of (35a) is (35c). The fact that the weak NP in 'donkey'-contexts is bound explains why it cannot serve as an antecedent for discourse anaphora, as witnessed by (35d), a fact observed by Haik (1984). More generally, discourse anaphora with sets is possible only when the antecedent is not locally bound in the previous sentence, though it may be bound by a discourse 3 operator - for example, it 118

On the interpretation of 'donkey'-sentences is impossible also in (35e). This stresses further the point we observed in section 2, that a pragmatic E-type analysis alone is not sufficient to handle 'donkey'contexts.7 We can return now to the interpretation of the LFs derived by Heim's analysis for sentences like (30a), repeated in (36a): (36)

a. (Almost) every man who buys a car2 worhsips it2 b. (Almost) every x,y (man(x) and a car(y) and x buys y) (x worships y)-

c. (a car(y) and x buys y) => (Y = {z | car(z) and x buys z} and | Y | ^ 1) d. (almost) every (x,Y) (man(x) and Y = {z | car(z) and x buys (z)} and YI ^ 1) (x worships Y) (37) a. Most vampires who invited more than three guests2 for dinner were through with them2 by midnight b. most (x,Y) (vampires(x) and Y = {z | guest(z) and x invited z for dinner} and I Y I > 3) (x was through with Y by midnight) Sentence (36b) is just the indexed LF derived for (36a) by Heim's LF rules. What the indices on the quantifier mean is determined by the interpretation of the arguments they bind. First, the clause containing a car is interpreted as in (36c) (that this is a clause at LF can be checked in its derivation-tree (16) above). Y, then, is a set-variable and all other occurrences of y in the formula are replaced with the same set-variable, including the pronoun (we return shortly to what this means for the pronoun). The final analysis is, then, given in (36d) (for almost every pair consisting of a man x and the set of cars he buys Y, it is true that the man x worships the cars in the set Y). Example (37) illustrates the same with plural NPs. This analysis handles the problems with quantifiers like almost every that we observed in the discussion of (30): Y denotes the (maximal) set of cars bought by x, and the quantifier selects almost every pair of an individual x and a set Y (defined on x). If, as in our previous story, a given individual bought fifty cars, (x,Y) in this case still denotes only one pair consisting of one man and a set of fifty cars. The universal entailment that we observed there (that almost every man worships all the cars he buys) follows, then, from the set interpretation of the weakNP. 8 A further note is needed concerning the interpretation of the pronouns. The analysis assigns them set-variables, but it is obvious that each man in example (36d) worships individual cars and not a set of cars. This, however, is a general issue of interpreting set relations, and I will assume the general distributive convention (38) for all cases where an argument is a set-variable: (38)

V(Y) = df(Vz£Y)(iMz))

When the pronoun is plural, the decision whether this convention applies depends on the predicate, i.e. it does not apply when the predicate forces a collective interpretation: (36d) is then to be replaced by (39): 119

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(almost) every (x,Y) (man(x) and Y = {z | car(z) and x buys z} and IYI ^ 1) (VwsY (x worship w))

5. C O N C L U S I O N The results of this paper may be summarized as follows: 1.

Weak NPs can bind pronouns outside their apparent scope, when they occur in the restrictive term of another operator. Weak NPs may themselves be locally bound by other QNPs. Conditional contexts allow a bound-variable interpretation of pronouns with weak NP antecedents, whereas temporal or causal sentential connectives do not allow bound variables but only pragmatic coreference. The source of the universal force of the weak NPs bound by the conditional operator or other QNPs is the maximal set interpretation of the weak NP, determined by the whole restrictive clause, and pronouns refer to that set when in the scope of the binding operator.

2. 3.

4.

NOTES 1 I wish to thank Irene Heim for extensive discussions of ideas related to this paper. 2 I will only illustrate the problem here; for a survey of the extensive literature on this issue, as well as its history, see Heim (1982). 3 An apparent counterexample, cited both by Evans (1980) and by Haik, to my claim that 'donkey'-type anaphora is possible only when the antecedent is in the restrictive term of another operator, is the case of VP-conjunction: (i)

Every villager owns some sheep and feeds them at night (Evans 1980: 39)

This, however, is not a case of 'donkey'-type anaphora, but a straightforward bound anaphora, since the antecedent some sheep is permitted to bind the pronoun: it both has it in its scope and c-commands it. Given either my definition of c-command (e.g. Reinhart 1983) or its more recent statement in terms of maximal projections in Aoun and Sportich (1982), the relevant node for c-command here is the top VP (the maximal VP projection). That this is just a case of bound anaphora is witnessed by the fact that all quantifiers can bind pronouns from this position as in (ii): (ii)

a. Lucie read each book and wrote a review about it b. Felix kissed every woman and invited her to dance

(As we saw in (12) and in (4) 'strong' quantifiers, as in (ii), cannot bind pronouns in 'donkey'-type environments.) 4 In these examples, the capitals in (23d) represent sentential operators, as opposed to actual adverbs, matching the box in (23b). 5 The problem is, however, that an alternative scope analysis is possible for sentence (28) with 3 having wide scope over every (i.e. the NP bottle is raised by QR to the topmost position in the sentence). In this case, anaphora will not be blocked by Heim's analysis, though the sentence clearly has no anaphora interpretation. This, however, is an independent problem for theories assuming that the binding of pronoun variables is captured at LF. In fact, this binding is sensitive to surface structure properties which are lost at LF. In Reinhart (forthcoming) I argue that the binding mechanism 120

On the interpretation of 'donkey'-sentences proposed by Heim must apply at surface structure rather than at LF. Once this mechanism is established, anaphora in (28) will be blocked under any scope analysis by the general surface structure conditions that block binding in e.g. (iii), although QR permits assigning wide scope to every guest: (iii)

*Her husband annoyed every guest

6 As a test for deciding which NPs are weak and which are strong the reader may use f/zere-insertion contexts, which allow only weak NPs: (iv) There are

f five notes than twenty

vampires in the garden

exactly ten (v) f all 1 There are \ most \ vampires in the garden [ half of the J 7 One case of discourse anaphora which remains to be explained is that of (10b) in section 2, repeated in (vi): (vi)

Every guest brought three bottles to the party. By midnight, they were (all) empty

In such cases, where a plural weak antecedent is in the scope of another quantifier (but is not bound by it), the discourse pronoun refers to the union of the weak-NP sets for the values established for x(x is a guest). (So if there were ten guests the pronoun refers to thirty bottles.) 8 More work is needed for the cases where the head NP in the relative clause is, itself, weak, as in (vii). In such cases both weak NPs are bound by the discourse 3 operator: (vii)

Two men who found a vampire chased him away

REFERENCES Aoun, Joseph and Dominique Sportich. 1982. On the formal theory of government. The Linguistic Review 2,3:211-36.

Bartsch, Renate. 1973. The semantics and syntax of number and numbers. In Syntax and semantics 2, ed. John P. Kimball. New York and London: Seminar Press. Barwise, Jon and Robin Cooper. 1981. Generalized quantifiers and natural language. Linguistics and Philosophy 4: 159-219. Cormack, Annabel and Ruth, Kempson. 1984. Are indefinite NPs names, variables, or neither? Paper presented at the Fifth Groningen Round Table, June. Evans, Gareth. 1980. Pronouns. Linguistic Inquiry 11: 337-62. Haik, Isabelle. 1984. Indirect binding. Linguistic Inquiry 15: 185-224. Heim, Irene. 1982. The semantics of definite and indefinite noun phrases. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Higginbotham, Jim. 1984. Indefiniteness and predication. Paper prepared for the Fifth Groningen Round Table (appears in the Abstracts volume). Higginbotham, Jim and Robert May. 1984. Questions, quantifiers and crossing. The Linguistic Review 1: 41-80. Kamp, Hans. 1984. A theory of truth and semantic representation. In Truth, interpretation and information, ed. Jeroen Groenendijk, Theo Janssen and Martin Stokhof. GRASS 2. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. 121

Tanya Reinhart Keenan, Edward. Forthcoming. A (formal) semantic definition of indefinites. In The representation of indefiniteness, ed. Eric Reuland and Alice ter Meulen. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Kempson, Ruth. 1984. Weak crossover, logical form and pragmatics. Paper delivered at GLOW, Copenhagen, April. Lewis, David. 1975. Adverbs of quantification. In Formal semantics of natural language, ed. Edward Keenan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lobner, Sebastian. 1984. Indefinites, counting, and the background/foreground distinction. Paper presented at the Fifth Groningen Round Table, June. May, Robert. 1977. The grammar of quantification. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT. Distributed by Indiana Linguistics Club, Bloomington, Ind. Milsark, Gary. 1974. Existential sentences in English. Ph.D. dissertation, MIT. Reinhart, Tanya. 1983. Anaphora and semantic interpretation. London: Croom Helm; and (1985) Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Reinhart, Tanya. Forthcoming. A surface structure analysis of the donkey-problem. In The representation of indefiniteness, ed. Eric Reuland and Alice ter Meulen. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Scha, Remko. 1984. Distributive, collective and cumulative quantification. In Truth, interpretation and information, ed. Jeroen Groenendijk, Theo Janssen and Martin Stokhof. GRASS 2. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Stechow, Arnim von. 1980. Modification of noun phrases, a challenge for compositional semantics. Theoretical Linguistics 7: 57-109.

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GENERIC INFORMATION, CONDITIONAL CONTEXTS AND CONSTRAINTS • Alice ter Meulen Editors' note. The semantics of generic statements in conditional contexts is addressed, and a model-theoretic analysis is developed in the framework of Situation Semantics. Context-dependent interpretation, including tense and plural anaphora, is discussed for generic and episodic information. The paper is related to Barwise's by the formal framework, and to Reinhart's by addressing anaphora. It analyses Reilly's protogenerics and formulates some specific conditions for the interchangeability of conditionals and temporal adverbs. 1. INTRODUCTION This paper is concerned with the semantic interpretation of generic expressions in conditionals and with their interaction with temporal adverbs and tense, assuming Situation Semantics as a general framework for a model-theoretic semantics of natural language.1 As a theory of meaning and interpretation which attributes to the context of an utterance an important role in its interpretation, this recently developed semantic theory will provide new and fruitful concepts for analysing the use of generics in natural language and their role in structuring meaning as a relation between expressions and situations in the external world.2 The issues concerning generics are presented as informally as possible at first, to clarify the underlying intuitions. Reilly's notion of 'protogeneric' (this volume) is discussed as a form of contextually restricted generic expression and the general question is addressed of the conditions under which when and whenever are interchangeable with the conditional if-then without distortion of meaning. Conditionals and generics are shown to share an important semantic property: persistence of expressed information, or insensitivity to putative counterexamples. Generic interpretations of sentences result in the most common cases from the interaction between the tense and aspect and the interpretation of the subject noun phrase (NP). Hence the generic interpretation of an expression is not determined, at any lexical level, in isolation from its context. In section 2 I discuss, at first informally, which NPs may occur in a given VP-context when the sentence itself is interpreted as expressing information about a kind of entity but when the VP is neutral to the ontological level of the interpretation of the subject, be it kinds, sets of individuals, or stages of an individual (see 123

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Carlson 1979, 1982). The consequences of the variation of tense are studied subsequently in a context with a fixed subject NP. A model theoretic analysis of generically interpreted sentences is proposed in section 3, introducing some of the central concepts of Situation Semantics. Generic information is shown to be persistent, even in 'recalcitrant' situations, which demonstrates some of the usefulness of this semantics of natural language over the more traditional 'possible world' semantics. In section 4 the interaction of generic information with conditional contexts and various sentential temporal adverbs is discussed, and it is argued that the interchangeability of such adverbs with conditionals is quite restricted. Arguments are presented against the view, advocated by Reilly and many others, that the degree of subjective certainty a speaker may have concerning the truth of the antecedent of a conditional is a relevant condition for this interchangeability. Supposing that the world is one way or another is not the same thing as knowing or believing something about the world as it is, although the relation of conditionals and attitudes remains an interesting area for linguistic and philosophical research: unfortunately this lies outside the scope of the present paper. A brief discussion of conditional generics, i.e. generic interpretations of consequents of conditionals, concludes the paper. 2. WAYS OF EXPRESSING GENERIC INFORMATION NPs in generically interpreted sentences3 may be of four different kinds. Three are exhibited in the following sentences within a neutral VP-context.4 (1) (2) (3)

Donkeys are stubborn A donkey is stubborn The donkey is stubborn

The bare plural NP donkeys, the indefinite NP a donkey and the definite NP the donkey convey generic information when the predicate allows of a kind-level interpretation, denoting a property of kinds. Obviously these three sentences admit an interpretation which attributes a property to, respectively, a set of donkeys (possibly determined by context), any arbitrarily selected donkey to which no prior reference has been made, or to a donkey introduced at an earlier stage of the interpretation of preceding discourse. The point here is merely that sentences (i)-(3) may be used to express information about a kind of animal, rather than about any of the members of that kind. Such generic information is not directly descriptive of what happens to be the case in the situation in which it is used, or in any particular situation. If we assume that a sentence is interpreted by the set of situations in which it is true, not only may situations in which donkeys are manifesting stubborn behaviour be included in the interpretation of (i)-(3), but also situations that do not contain 124

Generic information, conditional contexts and constraints any donkey. Even in a situation in which a particular donkey exhibits unusually complaisant behaviour, we still adhere to the generic information about its kind. Although generic information is not directly descriptive of particular situations, its purpose is to classify such situations as being of a particular type and as entering into relations with other types of situations. The fourth example of a generically interpretable sentence contains a nominalized predicate: (4)

Being stubborn is characteristic of donkeys

in which the property referred to by the nominalization is correlated to the kind. Such correlations are often expressed by nominalizations, and by appealing to such correlations we come to understand metaphorical uses of language. Accepting a meaningful correlation between the property of being stubborn and the kind donkeys, we can call someone 'a donkey', meaning to attribute to him donkey-like stubbornness. The two properties are correlated in such a way that situations of a type fitting the one property are systematically correlated to the situations of a type fitting the other property or kind. This correlation is usually not symmetrical, but there is an anti-symmetrical dependency of the one property on the other.5 The correlations, which I will call 'constraints', may be specified as causal or explanatory connections between types of situations; or, as in (4), as a genetically inherent disposition of members to behave in a certain manner; or, perhaps more imaginatively, as a consequence of our typically Western way of stereotyping, which is inherent to our perspective and understanding of the world. It is difficult for anyone who uses the constraint to give meaning to the language to assess its nature. Getting attuned to a constraint is realizing that the situations we encounter exhibit certain regularities and learning to ignore some of their dissimilarities and variation. Eventually, due to one's lack of imagination of what variation could still be admitted within a pattern of regularities, one may have come to conceive of a constraint as a necessary and nomic connection between parts of the world, assuming that the world could never be otherwise. In this sense our prejudices and predispositions are also constraints upon which we act and which serve us to classify the situations we are in. But an outsider, who is not attuned to the same constraint or is perhaps not as finely attuned to it, mayconceive of the constraint as a merely contingent or accidental correlation, or as a constraint which is subject to special spaito-temporal restrictions. If a discrepancy arises between the understanding two speakers may have of the nature of the constraint they are attuned to, it must have some effects on the interpretation they give to each other's utterances and it must limit their understanding of what they are saying, and of each other's view of the world. Attunement to some constraints may be necessary conditions for knowing a language, whereas other constraints may have to be adhered to if one is considered to behave rationally within the language community. 125

Alice ter Meulen If examples (i)-(4) are interpreted by different sets of situations, they should all be compatible with situations containing donkeys, individuals realizing the kind, which are behaving stubbornly. The episodic or 'ephemeral' (Davidson's word) sentences like: (5) (6)

There are (some) stubborn donkeys Chiquita, Pedro's donkey, is being stubborn again

describe such situations directly. But situations without donkeys are compatible with generic information stated in these sentences. In fact, even when a particular donkey in a situation happens to behave well, which I will call a 'recalcitrant' situation, this remains compatible with the generic information. In general, generic interpretation does not preclude such recalcitrant situations, which render episodic information about individuals true. But recognizing a situation as a recalcitrant one presupposes adherence to the correlation expressed with generics, realizing that the current situation does not fit the general pattern. This is one reason why generic information cannot be expressed by universally quantified expressions about individuals, which convey episodic information about members of a kind. For instance: (7)

Every donkey is stubborn

either describes directly a contextually-determined set of donkeys which are all behaving stubbornly in a situation, which is the case when the universal quantifier is restricted to a contextually fixed domain, or, when there is no such restriction, it describes all situations, actual or otherwise, that contain donkeys, attributing stubbornness to them. But (7) is falsified by a situation in which a donkey does not behave stubbornly, i.e. by any situation which would be a recalcitrant one in the case of generic information. Generic information, contrary to a universal statement such as (7), is persistent in such recalcitrant situations. What it means for information to be persistent will be explained set-theoretically in the next section, when Situation Semantics is introduced and constraints can be defined precisely. The sentences (i)-(4) with the generic interpretations are all in the simple present tense. Indeed, this tense form is often indicative of habits or dispositions of the denotation of the subject NP, expressing these as a state of affairs, a stative situation in which no change occurs. Such generic interpretations of present tense statements are not directly descriptive of a present or actual situation, or of the discourse situation, but describe something in a 'timeless' way, true of no specific past, present or future moment. Of course, this does not mean that generic information cannot be restricted in applying only to particular space-time locations, or in special contexts, as I will discuss later. The progressive tense, indicative of changing situations and evolving time, is seldom used to express generic information. Only with explicit grading 126

Generic information, conditional contexts and constraints adverbs or verbs expressing gradual change can contexts be created which admit generic interpretations. Examples are: (8) (9)

Donkeys are becoming ever more stubborn Donkeys are getting stubborn when you beat them

More commonly, the progressive is used to convey episodic information about individuals (see Carlson 1982). However, sentence (8) may be interpreted generically as expressing the view that in comparing donkeys in the past and the present as to their stubbornness, the latter are more stubborn than the former. This remains true information even when a presently existing donkey is less stubborn than some donkey in the past, or even when one and the same donkey is growing more obedient. Similarly, (9) remains true even when beating a particular donkey does not make it more stubborn than it was before. On their episodic interpretation (8) and (9) state that some situation contains donkeys which are all increasingly stubborn, and the increase must occur in each donkey in that situation for these sentences to be true, i.e. they express universal information. As was remarked above, the timeless or 'eternal' character of generic information does not mean such information remains true for once and for all. As with all other parts of our knowledge about the world, it is permanently up for revision. Meeting too many recalcitrant situations may eventually weaken our attunement to a constraint we once held to be nomic and law-like. We may subsequently revise and refine a constraint, to adjust it to newly discovered special conditions or contextual restrictions, while salvaging the generic, meaning-giving relation between types of situations. Depending on the nature of the correlation, such adjustments may affect the meaning of what we say. Discovering new similarities among situations may also give rise to new constraints which replace older and coarser ones and which reorganize the world by classifying situations into a finer scheme or types (the jade-case). Or, in seeking deeper explanations of the correlations we recognize between types of situations, one, more universal, constraint may reorganize our information more efficiently. Besides the present tense, past and future tenses may well be used to express generic information, but there appears to be a strong preference for bare plural subject NPs in past and future contexts. Indefinite as well as definite NPs, as in (2) and (3), are interpreted episodically in tensed contexts as being about individual donkeys in past or future situations: (10) (11) (12) (13)

Donkeys will be stubborn when they are beaten Donkeys were stubborn A donkey was stubborn Some/all donkeys will be stubborn when they have been beaten

Sentences (10) and (11) are not directly descriptive of a future or past situation, but they express a correlation we now perceive between a kind of animal and 127

Alice ter Meulen future or past types of situations. Sentences (12) and (13), however, express episodic information about individual donkeys. Bare plurals referring to kinds are used in tensed and other intensional contexts for expressing generic information, as kinds are not constituents of particular situations but, rather, abstract objects in types of situations. Kinds serve in the first place to classify particular situations as being of a certain type. This is best illustrated by the fact that sentences (12) and (13) with indefinite determiners, in contrast to (10) and (11), allow a paraphrase with a tensed existential context without distorting their meaning: (14) (15)

There was a stubborn donkey There will be some donkeys which are stubborn when they have been beaten

It should be noticed further that (12) and (13) and their paraphrases (14) and (15) with non-universal, indefinite determiners are symmetrical; in this they contrast with the generic interpretations, which are always anti-symmetrical - as was shown above. Although the following sentences are perfectly acceptable: (16) (17)

There will be donkeys which are stubborn when they are beaten There were donkeys which were stubborn

and (10) and (11) entail them respectively, there is a subtle, but important loss of meaning, which is best brought out by an explicit comparative in their context. The generic information in (11), for instance, modified with an explicit comparative to: (11')

Donkeys were more stubborn than they are these days

implies that donkeys are nowadays less stubborn than donkeys in the past. It admits of an interpretation of the anaphor they as an entirely disjoint set of donkeys with respect to the set of donkeys interpreting its antecedent. None of the donkeys of that past time when they were stubborn may still be in existence. Sentence (17), on the contrary, when modified in a similar way to: (17')

There were donkeys which were more stubborn than they are (?) these days

does not necessarily compare donkeys of the past to our present donkeys, if it is at all acceptable. Here the comparison can only be carried out with respect to each individual donkey for its past and current degree of stubbornness. The anaphor they in (17) is interpreted as dependent upon the interpretation of the bare plural donkeys in such a way that the degree of stubbornness depends on the choice of donkey. For a comparison of kinds across situations 128

Generic information, conditional contexts and constraints the generic bare plural is required, whereas in an existential context the predicatively occurring bare plural NP, just like the other quantifiers which are acceptable in such contexts, is interpreted existentially and is dependent on the temporal location determined by the tense. The same point is supported by the following sentences: (18) (19)

Donkeys are less stubborn than they were There are donkeys which are less stubborn than they were

Only (18) compares at the kind-level, across types of situations. Sentence (19) compares only the stubbornness of some presently existing donkeys with their past behaviour in this respect. The plural pronoun they in (19) depends on the set of donkeys interpreting its antecedent. In (18) the anaphor is interpreted in a way which must take into account that the set of donkeys in a past situation which serves as reference set for the comparison may be completely disjoint from the set of donkeys in the present situation, so it cannot simply pick up its reference from the set interpreting the antecedent. Pending a formal and more explicit and descriptively adequate theory of plural anaphora, the main points that this is intended to demonstrate are that existential contexts never convey generic information and that tense in a generically interpreted sentence has no deictic force and does not serve to locate the interpretation of the subject NP in time. 3. KIND-TYPES, CONSTRAINTS AND CONDITIONALS After this informal exploration of the various ways in which natural language expresses generic information, the central notions need to be given precise content in a model-theoretic framework. For this purpose I adopt the Situation Semantics of Barwise and Perry (1983), which is developed with particular emphasis on context-dependent interpretation, and which employs partial functions and intensional properties as constituents of situations to present a new account of intensional contexts, scope and informational dependencies in natural language. A brief exposition of the theory is in order here (see also Barwise in this volume). Situations, so,Sj..., are sets of triples of the form:

(l,(Rn,Xl,...xn),pot> where / is a location in space-time, Rn an n-place relation, Xj . . . xn individuals (together called a constituent sequence) and pol is a polarity, either yes or no, affirming or denying that the relation holds between the mentioned individuals. Locations, relations, individuals and polarities are the primitives of the theory. Situation-types, S}, S2, . . . , are situations which contain indeterminates /, R, x for location, relation or individual, which are abstract objects that serve as place holders for the real objects. An anchor is a (possibly partial) function 129

Alice ter Meulen assigning real objects to the indeterminates in a situation-type. This provides the means to classify a real situation as being of a certain type. It is defined as: s0 is of type So iff for some anchor/, S0\f] is part of s0 where the 'part of notion between situations is just the inclusion relation between their constituent-sequences, i.e.: Sj is part ofs0 iff all constituent-sequences of Sj are constituent-sequences of s0 (preserving polarity, of course) Situations are organized into structures, which determine a number of important relations between them, according to the following definition. A structure of situations consists of a collection of situations, S, and a non-empty subcollection So satisfying the following conditions: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)

Every situation in So is coherent (i. e. no polarity conflicts, and everything is identical to itself) If s e So and s0 C s then soe S (parts of actual situations are factual) For any subset X C S there is an s in So such that every sn e X is part of 5 (every factual situation is part of an actual situation) S respects all constraints in S, which are relations between situationtypes in S

The situations in So are actual situations, and the situations in S are factual. This structure defines compatible sets of situations, and constraints determine further structure on these sets, giving rise to meaningful relations between situations in the structure. This general notion of a constraint will be illustrated further below. Persistence of information is analysed as a binary relation on collections of situations, respectively the collection of 'meaningful options' for a particular factual or actual situation and the collection of situations which are not 'precluded' by that situation. These notions are given the following definitions. Let s0 be of type So and s7 be of type Sj, then Sj is a meaningful option for s0 iff. for every anchor / for all indeterminates in So, if S0[f] is part of s0, then Sj\f] is part of s7, given the constraint C which correlates So and Sj in the structure of situations. The collection P of all meaningful options for s0 given C captures the information which is persistent relative to another collection of situations, namely the ones that are not precluded by s0, again given C. The precluded situations may be thought of as situations inaccessible from s0, in the structure of situations. It would require a revision in the structure or in its constraints to make such situations accessible to s0. The definition captures this formally. A situation s0 precludes a situation Sj if they are incompatible, which is a primitive notion in Situation Semantics, or if no anchor/such 130

Generic information, conditional contexts and constraints that S0[f] is part of s0 can be extended to an anchor/ such that Sj\f] is part of Sj. Let X stand for the collection of situations not precluded by s0, then the intersection PC\X= \[so]\c which is persistent in X, as for any s2, s2eX if Sj is part of s2 and s2 e \[so]\c then s2 e \[so]\c. Persistence in this sense is a kind of stability under extensions of the available information. Using this notion of persistence of information to give precise content to the claim, informally argued for above, that generic information is persistent in recalcitrant situations, we need first an appropriate characterization of kinds. Let So be the situation-type: So = at /: donkey, a; yes where /is a location indeterminate, and a indicates an individual indeterminate and let Sj be the situation-type: Sj = I: stubborn, a; yes which each capture similarities across situations at the individual-level. To raise these situation-types to the kind-level required for generic interpretations, Situation Semantics provides the general means to construct complex indeterminates or 'roles' from any situation-type. Let x be an individual indeterminate and Sn be a situation-type which contains x, then (jr, Sn) is a complex indeterminate, called a role. Having such a complex abstract object, a new definition of a kind-type can be formulated along the lines of object-types (Barwise and Perry 1983: 75). Just as situation-types classify situations, kind-types classify kinds which themselves classify situations. A kind-type is a situation-type K((x, Sn)) with exactly one complex indeterminate. This makes the definition of members of a kind which realize the kind-type quite straightforward. A kindtype K((x, Sn)) is realized by an individual a if the situation Sn[a] is factual, and if a realizes K((x, Sn)) then a is a member of the kind K.6 This definition constructs kinds as complex object-types and provides a very general method to abstract from similarities across situations consisting of individuals to the kinds the individuals are members of, giving a purely set-theoretic analysis of the relation of 'realization' between a kind and its members. Obviously, as the situation-types may be arbitrarily complex, this allows a bewildering variety of possible kinds. This should not worry the semanticist, whose task it is to clarify the nature of the objects interpreting natural language and their relations and dependencies, working within a programme to provide a theory of reasoning and inference that explains how information is obtained, preserved or lost in manipulations. Returning to the first example of a generic sentence (1), its interpretation can now be represented as follows. Let So and 57 be the two situation-types as defined above. K0((x, So)) represents the generic interpretation of the bare plural NP donkeys, and Kj((x, S})) the abstract property of being stubborn, i.e. the generic or state-of-affairs interpretation of the VP are stubborn. The

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sentence as a whole expresses a relation between these two kind-types Ko and *,: C = at lu: involve, Ko, Kj\ yes

where lu is taken to be the universal location, which, if we had not required that every situation or situation-type contain a location, could be dropped, making C an unlocated constraint (this is actually allowed in recent modifications of the theory). The primitive relation involve should not be taken to be descriptive in any sense. It merely states the correlation between the two kind-types, as abstract objects satisfying its argument places. Note that there is no requirement in C that Ko and Kj be realized simultaneously. C does not express any correlation at the episodic level, but only an abstract correlation between abstract objects. Constraints determine which situations in a given structure of situations are meaningful options, given a particular situation s0. Take s0 to be the situation in which Jackie, a dog, encounters Chiquita, a donkey, on a narrow mountain trail. If Jackie is attuned to C, i.e. if she has learned the connection between Ko and K} as a meaningful relation which is useful in determining one's actions, and if Jackie rightly assesses s0 to be of type S0, and realizes the applicability of C in this situation, then there are several possibilities she may choose from. First, guided by C, Jackie may return on her path, not even testing out whether Chiquita who realizes Ko will actually realize K} as well (situation s2). Or Jackie may start barking to see whether Chiquita will realize K} or not (situation s3). If, however, a recalcitrant situation arises, and Chiquita is not stubbornly standing on the path but moves away, then Jackie may pursue her way (situation s4). Now s2 and s3 are clearly meaningful options for Jackie in s0, given C. Even though Jackie draws two different conclusions from the situation s0 and her attunement to C, the two courses of action are equally employing the meaningful relation stated by C. Other constraints, but also moods or irrational preferences, may determine which course of action is to be followed, given such a choice. On the other hand, when s4 arises Jackie remains attuned to C; the generic information she adheres to is in no sense invalidated by this particular episode of complaisant donkey behaviour. In s4 Chiquita realizes Ko but not /C7, so it cannot be a meaningful option for s0. But s4 is not precluded by s0 either; the information that Chiquita is a donkey and that she is not stubborn is compatible at an episodic level. So in this case s0 is part of s4, s0 e U^]] c trivially, and by persistence of [[s^Hc in the collection of situations not precluded by C, s4 e \[so]\c. A general characterization of the important notion of a recalcitrant situation relative to a constraint is now straightforward. Let C be of the form: C = at lu: involve, S, Sf; yes

then a situation s is recalcitrant with respect to C when for some anchor / S[f] is part of s but for no extension f of/ S'\f] is part of s. When S and 132

Generic information, conditional contexts and constraints S' are kind-types, as in the above example, this means that s is recalcitrant with respect to C when some individual a realizes S in s but does not realize

S' ins. Similarly, conditionals generally persist in recalcitrant situations. They express information which is formalized as a constraint on a structure of situations, correlating particular situation-types without requiring that every situation which realizes the antecedent situation-type also realizes the consequent situation-type. This is discussed below under the nature of 'unless' conditions and nonmonotonic reasoning.

4. CONDITIONAL CONTEXTS AND TEMPORAL ADVERBIALS A conditional sentence expresses a particular correlation between the information contained in its antecedent //"-clause and its consequent then-clause. In this section I discuss generic interpretations of antecedents, illustrating how generic information can be put into conditionals, and how further conditions and contextual restrictions may determine special conditional constraints. The temporal adverbs when and whenever are shown to be used for locating the interpretation of sentences in time, thus conveying episodic information about what is happening, something for which conditionals are not ordinarily used. Putting sentence (2) into a conditional context: (20)

If a donkey is stubborn, Pedro beats it

the generic interpretation of the indefinite NP a donkey seems to be lost when (20) is interpreted as stating that every time something that realizes the donkeykind and realizes stubborness, i.e. an episode of a particular donkey behaving stubbornly, Pedro beats the donkey (not necessarily temporally overlapping situations). Under that interpretation (20) conveys universal episodic information correlating two situation-types in such a way that when a situation of the first type occurs, i.e. a particular episode of stubborn donkey behaviour, the second situation-type is instantiated as well. In general, episodic information in conditional contexts correlates all instantiations of two types of situations. This is often expressed by indicating the universal force of indefinite NPs in a conditional context, i.e. sentence (20) is about all donkeys which are stubborn and the anaphor refers to each one. This has provided the major motivation for the introduction of reference markers or discourse-referents in DRS-theory (seeKamp 1984). In contrast to the relation between (2) and (20), the generic interpretation of (1) is preserved when the sentence is put into a conditional context, as in(2i) 7 : (21)

If donkeys are stubborn, Pedro beats them 133

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Such conditionals may, however, have two quite different interpretations. Either (21) is interpreted episodically as expressing that all donkeys which behave stubbornly (once, twice, often or constantly) are beaten by Pedro. Or, when the antecedent is interpreted generically, Pedro beats donkeys no matter whether each donkey actually behaves stubbornly or not. Generic information in the antecedent of a conditional may serve to set special conditions on the types of situations which may interpret the consequence. The difference between the two interpretations of (21) may be clarified by considering their interaction with universal episodic sentences and temporal adverbs. Information equivalent to the first interpretation of (21) is expressed by the universal sentence: (22)

Every donkey that behaves stubbornly is beaten by Pedro

which, due to its present tense, still leaves open how often each donkey manifests stubborn behaviour and, furthermore, does not require that the stubborn behaviour occur as often or in any temporal relation to Pedro's beatings. The use of a temporal adverb as in (23), instead of the conditional in (20), does seem to require that the manifestations of stubborn behaviour and the beatings are in some way temporally related. (23)

When a donkey is stubborn, Pedro beats it

This would equally be required with a universal temporal adverb such as whenever, independently of the tense in the sentence. This shows that conditionals with indefinite NPs in subject position may be paraphrased with temporal adverbs, which only add the requirement of temporal relations to the situations described by the antecedents and consequents. The second, generic interpretation of (21) cannot be paraphrased by a universal sentence like (22), nor by temporal adverbs which universally quantify over situations at an episodic level. In accordance with the observations made in section 2 about existential contexts, (20) and (22) and the nongeneric interpretation of (21) convey the same information as the conditional existential in

(24)

IftherJ i s are

1 [ * d °" k e y l being stubborn, Pedro beats [ \ tnem

donkeys

The generic interpretation of (21) is not reducible to such a conditional existential expression, since the antecedent expresses a correlation between kindtypes, which is itself a condition which must be met by the structure of situations before the situation-type interpreting the consequent can be determined. Hence the conditional in (21) states a correlation between a constraint C, as formalized in the previous section, and a situation-type 57 of the form:

Sj = at/: beat,p,x; yes 134

Generic information, conditional contexts and constraints where the individual indeterminate x is anchored to any individual that realizes the kind-types in the antecedent. The conditional expresses a condition on possible extensions of anchors which determine the members of the kinds constructed by interpreting the antecedent. So on its generic interpretation (21) is of the form 'if C, then S/, where the antecedent constrains the situations of type Sj to respect the anchors and the correlation expressed by C. Suppose, for instance, that s7 is a situation in which Pedro is beating a donkey: 57[[beats, Pedro, a]\ yes [donkey, a]\ yes where a is a real individual, and Sj is of type S}, and for some anchor/, K0[f] is part of s7, since a is a member of the donkey-kind in s7. Notice that a does not have to behave stubbornly in s7, as the constraint C only correlates kindtypes and makes a situation like s2 a meaningful option for s7, which is not precluded by it, whereas s2 is: [stubborn, a]\ no So, on this generic interpretation of (21), Pedro does not beat a donkey just when it is behaving stubbornly, and the situations which interpret the consequent do not have to realize both kind-types correlated by the antecedent expressing the constraint - as long as it does not conflict with the anchors previously established. The atemporal character of generic information is analysed as a lack of temporal relation between the kind-types in C or between their realizations. Sentences with temporal adverbs, however, not only locate situations with respect to each other in time, but also seem to require overlap in time between each situation of the antecedent-type and a situation of the consequent-type, thus establishing a particular mapping between episodic situations. When sentences like (20) and (21) are used for counterfactuals, similar observations can be made: (25) (26)

If a donkey were stubborn, Pedro would beat it If donkeys were stubborn, Pedro would beat them

where (25) states an individual-level counterfactual and allows a paraphrase with temporal adverbs, and expresses information equivalent to a conditional existential with a counterfactual tense: 2 v( 7) u

xr.L f a stubborn donkey 1 _ , ... . If there were , , , . \. , Pedro would beat it a donkey being stubborn

But (26), on its generic interpretation, expresses in its antecedent a counterfactual constraint, presupposing that the structure of situations in which the current situation is contained does not respect the constraint: i.e. the discourse situation 135

Alice ter Meulen

is here not of the type described by the constraint, or it cannot provide an anchor for the situation-types in the constraint. Such information cannot be expressed by temporal adverbials, since they always locate the situations in time and impose a particular mapping between situations or dependencies between anchors for situation-types. Neither can conditional existential sentences convey such generic information, as they force predicative interpretations of bare NPs. From these observations and theoretical considerations the following conclusions can be drawn: 1.

2.

3. 4.

/ / i n a conditional: if S then Sf is interchangeable under preservation of its meaning with a temporal adverb when/whenever used as a sentential connective, if the head NP in S is an indefinite NP, independently of the tense in S or S'. Universal NPs with a restrictive relative clause that S express the same information as ifS' then S", where S' is S except for having an indefinite head NP, instead of the universal NP in S, living on the same head-noun interpretation, and S" contains an anaphor dependent on it. Conditional existential sentences convey only conditional episodic information. Generic interpretations of antecedents in conditionals are never reducible to sentences connected by temporal adverbials when or whenever.

Obviously, the interchangeability of conditionals and temporal adverbs used as sentential connectives is entirely independent of the degree of subjective certainty a speaker may have concerning the truth of the antecedent, or concerning the question whether the situation described by the antecedent actually occurs or will occur later. To discredit the surprisingly common idea that there is such a connection between certainty and conditionals, the following examples may suffice:8 (28) (29)

If two and two are four, Pedro beats a stubborn donkey When Chiquita is stubborn, Pedro beats her

In (28) a relatively uninformative sentence puts a liberal constraint on the situation-type described by the consequent. Such a sentence may be used to say that Pedro always beats stubborn donkeys, as the supposition in the antecedent is supposedly an 'eternal' truth of arithmetic, which most, if not all, structures of situations will respect. Sentence (29), on the other hand, might be considered true even though Chiquita never in her life behaves stubbornly. Contrary to Reilly's claim (this volume) that the interchangeability of conditionals and temporal adverbs increases with the degree of certainty a speaker has concerning the antecedent, (28) and (29) demonstrate that even the most certain of things may be supposed in the antecedent of a conditional, whereas situations which may never arise - and the speaker may well be aware of 136

Generic information, conditional contexts and constraints that - can be described in sentences connected with temporal adverbs. However, it may very well be the case that the order of acquisition of conditionals and temporal sentential adverbs is partly determined by the child's subjective certainty concerning the antecedent or first sentence. If this is the case, an explanation must be offered as to why and how eventually a child comes to recognize the irrelevance of this subjective factor in adult speech. Reilly introduces the interesting notion of a 'protogeneric', which is a general statement about familiar objects in distinctive contexts. The following sentences are given as examples of such protogenerics: (30) (31) (32) (33)

When rain comes, we put an umbrella on top of us We go to bed when it's dark When men have beards they look so handsome You eat medicine when you're sick

First, it should be noted that the antecedents and consequents in these sentences all state some more or less causal or reason-giving connection, requiring some temporal connection between the situations so described, further supported by the use of temporal adverbs. Also, all examples are in the present indicative tense, most commonly interpreted as habituals. Sentences (30) and (31) are clearly about a contextually determined set of individuals, the interpretation of the indexical we in the discourse situation. The correlation expressed is thus restricted to a particular contextual setting, which could be formalized by an additional restriction on anchors. If the correlation C between the antecedent and consequent of (30) is of the form: C = at /; involve, Sj, S2', yes the situation-types Sj and S2 must be anchored within the contextual setting, anchoring we to the speakers in the discourse situation. Given the temporal relation suggested by the content of the antecedents and consequents in (30) and (31), it is hard to give them a genuinely generic interpretation in which the temporal connection is not playing an important role. Instead, the correlation expressed seems to be of a universal nature: i.e. all rain-occasions are situations in which we put an umbrella up; or all darkness-situations make us go to bed. If this interpretation is correct, these sentences do not allow for recalcitrant situations, like the generic information in constraints. Protogenerics are in this respect lacking the force of generics, which correlate kindtypes and serve an important function in determining meaningful options and are preserved in recalcitrant situations. If we wear a raincoat and do not need an umbrella, or when we stay up late are situations which seem precluded by the temporal adverbs in (30) and (31), just as conditionals with indefinites would preclude them. In this context I would like to discuss briefly how the 'unless' conditions, which indicate what situations are precluded by a given correlation between 137

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situation-types, serve the function of constraining counterexamples to the universal sentences and conditionals, and how they are related to constraints which preclude situations. In more logical literature, and more recently in artificial intelligence research, it has frequently been pointed out that antecedents cannot be strengthened by arbitrary sentences while preserving the correlation between antecedent and consequent. Stalnaker (1975), among others, has developed a conditional logic in which addition of antecedents does not generally preserve validity (see also Barwise in this volume). The phenomenon is called 'nonmonotonic reasoning' and the much cherished example is: (34)

If I put sugar in my coffee, it will taste nice

Hence: (35)

If I put sugar and diesel oil in my coffee, it will taste nice

The antecedent in the first conditional determines on the one hand what situation-types may serve to interpret the consequent, by restricting the class of possible ones to the ones which are compatible with the antecedent situationtype in polarities and anchors. Putting sugar in my coffee to make it taste nice precludes a host of situations, not only adding diesel oil, but also situations in which I am allergic to sweetening, or in which the coffee is cold and bitter. Setting an antecedent for a conditional is introducing a new situation, and indicating what background assumptions should be maintained in using that antecedent in reasoning towards a new conclusion or in determining what situation-types may be correlated to its interpretation. Background assumptions most often play the role of precluding situations, and precluding other constraints or correlations between situation-types, or of determining a hierarchy of constraints which apply in a certain order to the current situation. Universal sentences do not admit of any exceptions, as I have argued above. But a conditional sentence determines a universal correlation between the situations conforming to its antecedent and its consequent. A counterexample to a conditional can only be accepted as such if it conforms not only to the situationtype of the antecedent but also to all the other assumptions and background constraints. Generic information, as a correlation between kind-types, tolerates putative counterexamples, since it does not require a universal correlation between realizations of each kind-type. It is adhered to even when its kind-types are not realized, or when some of their realizations do not provide instances of the correlation. In defending a conditional against a counterexample, one seeks to understand the situation described by the counterexample, to find reasons for precluding it as not conforming to the background assumptions. A constraint, however, does not need to be defended against recalcitrant situations, as it is persistent. To modify one's constraints requires much more than a simple counterexample which conforms to the antecedent and all of its background assumptions. It requires a change in the entire structure of situations 138

Generic information, conditional contexts and constraints in which one operates, and I doubt that constraints may be modified in isolation, as they form a closely knit network of meaningful relations which we impose on the situation in which we find ourselves. Contrary to the diesel oil example, we are all too often not aware of what situations are precluded by the constraints we go by. Perhaps the best strategy to convince someone to employ another constraint, or to modify his constraints, is to show that there are significant situations included in one's new constraint that are precluded by his and, furthermore, that the new constraint makes more sense or fits better with other constraints which are already shown to work well. Conditional statements are in general monotone in compatible situations which preserve background and anchors. Sentence (21), for instance, may be strengthened to: (36)

If donkeys are stubborn and slow, Pedro beats them

Also spatio-temporal restrictions may determine contextual settings for conditionals and for generic information that must be preserved in additional antecedents or new information. Witness: (37)

If donkeys are stubborn in Spain, Pedro beats them

which does not entail (21); nor does: (38)

If Spanish donkeys are stubborn, Pedro beats them

This indicates that the information contained in the generic interpretation of an antecedent is not in general preserved, i.e. is not persistent under arbitrary supersets of the interpretation of the VP or subject NP.9 To return to Reilly's examples of protogenerics, sentences (32) and (33) are importantly different from (30) and (31). Sentence (32) contains a bare plural NP as head, and (33) is based on the indexical you, but used in the sense of one, any arbitrary person. The correlation between men and the beards they grow, stated in (32), may be interpreted as generic information with a restrictive condition, to which I will return in the next section on conditional generics.

5. CONDITIONAL GENERICS In this section generic interpretations of consequents in conditionals are discussed, and a brief outline is presented of how nongeneric antecedents may serve to restrict such generic information in consequents, information which often is supported by anaphoric dependencies. The correlation between antecedent and consequent in conditional generics is importantly different from the constraints which generic antecedents may impose on the situation-types interpreting the consequent, as was discussed in the previous section. Again the 139

Alice ter Meulen

question of interchangeability of conditionals and temporal adverbs is considered, and it turns out that in conditional generics with only generically interpreted consequents the interchange is more liberal, due to their nongeneric antecedents. The following example is adopted from Carlson (1979), with a slight variation. (39)

Donkeys are stubborn, if they have green eyes

This is a conditional generic, in which the antecedent presents a condition for the generic interpretation of the consequent. In this example, the consequent, which, as it contains the head NP, must precede the antecedent containing the dependent anaphor, conveys generic information. In line with the analysis of generics proposed earlier, (39) is of the form: (39')

C, if So

where C is a constraint, correlating kind-types based on donkey and stubborn as properties in situation-types, and So is here a situation-type: So = at /: green eyes, x; yes have,y, x; yes where y is an individual indeterminate to be anchored by extending the anchors of individuals which realize the kind-type Ko, i.e. donkeys. So provides an additional restriction on individuals which realize the kind-types correlated in the constraint. This is why C in (39) is a conditional constraint. In Carlson (1979) it is argued that sentences like (39) with bare plural NPs as heads are interpreted as equivalent to: (40)

Donkeys that have green eyes are stubborn

where the restriction expressed in the antecedent is put into the relative clause restricting the head NP. Carlson also argues that (39) cannot be equivalent to a universal sentence or to an indefinite NP in a conditional existential context, as these would impose too strong interpretations on generics, which would not admit of recalcitrant situations. In the analysis in Situation Semantics it is easy to build this restriction directly into the kind-type, as follows: K2((x, S2))

where S2 is a situation-type S2 = at /: donkey, x; yes green eyes, y; yes have, x,y; yes with the constraint C, which represents the generic information in (40) as a correlation between kind-types K2 and Kh as defined above. This is a general method to construct kind-types out of any complex situation-type. lfs0 contains a particular green-eyed donkey which realizes both K2 and Kj, there are meaningful options to s0 in which it behaves stubbornly; but also, situations in which 140

Generic information, conditional contexts and constraints the donkey does not behave stubbornly are meaningful options to s0, since C would persist in such recalcitrant situations. In Farkas and Sugioka (1983) an interesting argument is put forward against Carlson's analysis, which also bears on the analysis outlined here, constructing kind-types from any complex situation-type. They show that, though the restrictive relative clause analysis seems to have an initial plausibility for simple sentences like (39), it cannot easily generalize to conjoined sentences with dependent anaphors: (41) (42)

Donkeys are stubborn, if/when they have green eyes and they are stupid if/when they have brown eyes *Donkeys that have green eyes are stubborn, and they are stupid, if/when they have brown eyes

When the restriction is in the antecedent of a conditional sentence, or in its temporal when-dause, a conjoined sentence S' with an anaphor dependent on the plural head NP in S is acceptable. But when the restriction is contained within a restrictive relative clause belonging to the head NP in S, no such coreferential dependency is possible if S' contains an incompatible restriction (assuming that donkeys cannot have both green and brown eyes). Farkas and Sugioka use this argument to support a translational semantic analysis of generics, with an adverbial generally quantifying over cases or instantiations of unbound variables of open formulae, containing the restriction in the antecedent of a nonmaterial conditional. Although I cannot subscribe to their analysis, as it makes episodic information bear on the truth of generic statements and I favour a direct semantic interpretation in set-theoretic models, their argument shows convincingly that anaphoric dependencies on kind-types should be independent of restrictions on the individuals realizing the kind-type for the interpretation of (41). Of course, the unacceptability of (42) is accounted for by the general requirement that in order to be interpretable conjoined expressions must contain compatible information. Note that the intended anaphoric dependency on the NP with the restrictive relative clause would be perfectly acceptable if the restriction in S' were compatible with S, as in: (43)

and they get worse, if/when you beat them

For the interpretation of (41) a method is needed for constructing entities by addition of simpler ones, which allows the joining of the kind-type and the situation-type of the restricting condition as independent constituents in a complex entity. Addition is defined in Barwise and Perry (1983) for situationtypes by their union of constituents. It is noticed (p. 91) that even though a situation s may be of type S and of type S", s is not necessarily of type S + S' as the anchors of the two situation-types may conflict on some value assigned to the common indeterminates. Since kind-types have been defined as special situation-types, the addition of a kind-type and a situation-type is 141

Alice ter Meulen simply their union of constituents: K + S. This can be a first argument in a constraint C, which represents the generic information about green-eyed donkeys and their stubbornness without having to appeal to complex kind-types. C = at /: involve, K0((x, So)) + S2, Kj((x, S 7 »; yes where So = at /: donkey, JC; yes S7 = at /: stubborn, JC; yes 52 = at /: donkey, JC; yes green eyes, y; yes have, JC, y;yes Similarly, the second conjunct of (41) expresses generic information restricted by an additional condition: C = at /: involve K0((x, So)) + S3, K4((x, S4)); yes where So is as defined above and 53 = at /: donkey, JC; yes brown eyes,y\ yes have,x,y\ yes 54 = at /: stupid, JC; yes (The co-indexing of the kind-type and the situation-type on which it is based is only a mnemonic aid, which has no further semantic significance.) Sentence (41) is now interpreted by a conjunction of C and C, and expresses generic information, persistent in recalcitrant situations; i.e., green-eyed donkeys that are never stubborn, or smart brown-eyed donkeys, cannot be counterexamples to (41). Although the difficult issues concerning the interpretation of the anaphora remain outside the scope of the present paper, the fact that C and C" have Ko as a constituent in common may serve as a first step towards a more satisfactory account of the interaction of the conditionals and plural anaphora for which Kamp (1984) provides the essential analytic tools (cf. Reinhart in this volume). In a conditional generic statement the generic NP is usually part of the consequent, as in (39). When it is contained in the antecedent the whole expression is interpreted more easily as a generic conditional, expressing a constraint on complex kind-types as in: (44)

If donkeys have green eyes, they are stubborn

The condition expressed in the antecedent of (44) can be represented by a complex kind-type (green-eyed donkeys) which serves as an antecedent for the anaphor in the consequent. This preferred generic interpretation of (44) is even stronger in the counterfactual: (45)

If donkeys had green eyes, they would be stubborn 142

Generic information, conditional contexts and constraints which, according to my intuitions, does not admit of a nongeneric interpretation of the antecedent, restricting the first argument in the constraint correlating donkeys and stubbornness by a situation-type. In conditional generics temporal adverbs can replace if in the antecedent without loss of meaning, as the antecedent expresses a universal condition ('all the ones that have green eyes'), which is episodic. This use of when in a restrictive condition on generics is often called the atemporal use (Carlson 1979). Especially when used with stative VPs it does not locate the situationtypes in space-time. In the case the restrictive clause with the temporal adverb expresses episodic information, the consequent, if it is to be interpreted generically, must contain a verb denoting gradual change: (46)

^Donkeys , I become 1 stubborn, ,, f when 1 they , get A * *.. older

Sentence (46) expresses a generic correlation, a constraint, between the degree of stubbornness and age. One could argue, however, that when here is not so much atemporal as omnitemporal. The conditional if is clearly unacceptable in such contexts of gradual change. The episodic antecedent of conditional generics hardly admits of existential paraphrase, as it prohibits the necessary anaphoric dependency. Sentence (39) is equivalent to the questionable: (39")

Donkeys are stubborn, if they are (the) ones with green eyes

Returning once more to Reilly's example (32) of a protogeneric: When men have beards, they look so handsome, it is, on a generic reading, a conditional generic analysed as: C = at /: involve, K0((x, So)) + S2, * , « * , S,»; yes where So = at /: man, x; yes S1; = at /: man,x; yes beard, y; yes have, x,y; yes S2 = at /: look handsome, x; yes So bearded men that do not look handsome are not precluded by C, but handsome looks are said to be meaningful options for any given bearded man. 6. CONCLUSIONS I have argued that there are various ways in natural language to express generic information. Generics serve primarily to form the basis of explanations, expectations of what the present situation may evolve into, and to determine the meaningful options for a given situation. Generic information can be represented set-theoretically as constraints on situation-types and kind-types. The initially guiding idea that generic information serves to classify parts of the 143

Alice ter Meulen world as being similar and stable under changes, even when the world does not conform to it and the fit is quite loose, was analysed by defining persistence of generic information in recalcitrant situations. Similarly, conditionals express information which persists in recalcitrant situations, if their antecedent admits of a generic interpretation. It was shown that conditional contexts differ from tensed contexts or temporal adverbials connecting sentences. The dynamics of interpretation consist not only of the more often studied cumulative gathering of information on a stable domain or a fixed world (see Veltman in this volume), but also, and equally important, of the preservation of information about the similarities in the world as it is changing. This paper has attempted to show how generic information and generics in conditional contexts serve the latter purpose. NOTES 1 This paper has profited from the comments and criticism of Greg Carlson, Elizabeth Traugott, Frank Veltman and Henk Zeevat, for which I am duly grateful. It has also profited much from Carlson's work on bare plurals and generic NPs, and from the insights of DRS-theory developed by Hans Kamp on anaphora and informational dependencies across discourse (Carlson 1979,1982; Kamp 1984). Of course, the views I outline remain entirely my own responsibility. 2 See Barwise and Perry (1983) and the issue of Linguistics and Philosophy of March 1985 for a valuable source of comments and criticism of Situation Semantics. 3 Sometimes, for example in Carlson (1982), nomic (or gnomic) sentences are distinguished from the generic NPs occurring in them. The terminology is somewhat simpler here: expression of any syntactic category may be interpreted generically, and hence convey generic information. Episodic information is contrasted with generic information in a close analogy to the individual-level and stage-level versus kind-level predicates of Carlson's analysis. 4 A VP-context is neutral if it is interpreted as a property that may be equally attributed to kinds, individuals or stages of individuals: e.g. be stubborn may describe a 'dispositional' property of kinds or individuals, which is not necessarily actually manifested in behaviour (stages). The argument in this paper does not hinge on so-called dispositional properties, since a nondispositional predicate like be grey would equally allow generic interpretations of (i)-(3). 5 This anti-symmetry concerns the following relation between properties. Let R be the intended correlation, and A be the subject NP being stubborn, and B the other NP donkeys in (4) then: R(A, B) and R(B, A) => A = B Predicative relations are generally not symmetric; neither are, obviously, conditional dependencies. 6 It is perhaps useful to compare this 'type-free' construction of new semantic entities from simpler ones with the atomic type-theory of Montague Grammar, which is also Carlson's framework. A detailed comparison of a fragment in both semantic theories would be required to convince anyone of the claimed advantages of Situation Semantics, but this must await another occasion. For the purposes of this paper, let me point out the following connections. In Situation Semantics properties are constituents of situation-types, whereas in PTQ, the fragment of Montague Grammar most often 144

Generic information, conditional contexts and constraints employed as a model, properties are extensionally interpreted to be sets of individuals or functions from possible worlds to these. The individuals in Situation Semantics are just the individuals of type e of PTQ; atomic entities and the polarities yes /no are identical to the truth values assigned to propositions of type t. Roles are doing the job of lambda-abstracts of PTQ, and anchoring roles amounts to lambda-conversion. The construction of kind-types might be comparable to type-lowering in Chierchia (1984), since it treats the complex indeterminate based on an 'individual-level' situation-type as if it were an individual-level entity itself. Situation Semantics allows entities of any complexity as constituents of situations, which is inherent to its type-free model theory. I argue in another paper that the fundamental distinction between properties and individuals that Situation Semantics adheres to is not necessary if one constructs individuals from properties, resulting in an even more type-free model theory. The complex issues concerning self-application and the avoidance of paradoxes cannot be addressed in this paper; but see Chierchia (1984) for detailed analysis. 7 The analysis of (1) assumes that sentences are interpreted as relations between the subject NP interpretation and the VP interpretation, rather than taking the latter to be the argument to the functor interpreting the former. I have in mind that the INFL node establishes this relation configurationally. 8 See Reilly (this volume) and also Stockwell, Schachter and Partee (1973) in support of this mistaken idea. 9 These facts about generics can be rendered as: (i) (ii)

DABandACA'J^DA'B D AB and B C B' £> D AB'

which tell those familiar with Generalized Quantifiers that the context-dependency of generics sets them apart from proper names or definite NPs as being neither (i) persistent, nor (ii) monotone-increasing. See van Benthem and ter Meulen (1985) for recent research in Generalized Quantifier Theory.

REFERENCES Barwise, Jon and John Perry. 1983. Situations and attitudes. Cambridge, Mass.: Bradford Books, MIT Press. Benthem, Johan van and Alice ter Meulen (eds.) 1985. Generalized quantifiers in natural language. GRASS 4, Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Carlson, Gregory. 1979. Generics and atemporal when. Linguistics and Philosophy 3: 49-98. Carlson, Gregory. 1982. Generic terms and generic sentences. Journal of Philosophical Logic 11: 145-81. Chierchia, Gennaro. 1984. Topics in the syntax and semantics of infinitives and gerunds. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Massachusetts. Farkas, Donka and Y. Sugioka. 1983. Restrictive if/when clauses. Linguistics and Philosophy 6: 225-58. Kamp, Hans. 1984. A semantic theory of truth and interpretation. In Truth, interpretation and information, ed. Jeroen Groenendijk, Theo Janssen and Martin Stokhof. GRASS 2, Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Stalnaker, Robert C. 1975. Indicative conditionals. Philosophia 5: 269-86. Stockwell, Robert, Paul Schachter and Barbara Partee. 1973. The major syntactic categories of English. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Linguistics and Philosophy. March 1985. Special issue on Situation Semantics.

145

DATA SEMANTICS AND THE PRAGMATICS OF INDICATIVE CONDITIONALS •

Frank Veltman Editors' note. This chapter proposes a clear criterion for a demarcation between the semantics and pragmatics of indicative conditionals, based on a dynamic logic known as data semantics and a relative notion of truth (for which it is criticized by Adams). Gricean maxims are given a central explanatory role in accounting for conditionals. As a model for information processing, data semantics shows similarities to Situation Semantics (see the chapters by Barwise and ter Meulen). Discussion of the interaction between modals and conditionals is also to be found in Greenberg's contribution. 1. INTRODUCTION Some arguments are logically valid but pragmatically incorrect.1 Others are pragmatically correct but logically invalid. Grice's Logic and conversation (1975) taught us to draw these distinctions, but unfortunately most of us draw them differently. What one calls a logically valid argument form with a few pragmatically incorrect instances is for another a logically invalid argument form with many pragmatically correct instances. For example, if you believe that indicative conditionals behave like material or strict implications, you will be ready to point out that the intuitively absurd argument.2 (1)

If Jones wins the election, Smith will retire to private life If Smith dies before the election, Jones will win it .'. If Smith dies before the election, he will retire to private life

is just a pragmatically incorrect instance of the logically valid Hypothetical Syllogism: (2)

If B then C If A then B .-.If A t h e n C

If, on the other hand, your favourite semantic theory attributes the logical properties of variably strict implications to indicative conditionals, in which 147

Frank Veltman case you will find the Hypothetical Syllogism logically invalid, you will maintain that the intuitively sound argument: (3)

If Jones wins the election, Smith will have to leave the White House If Smith goes on antagonizing his supporters, Jones will win the election .'. If Smith goes on antagonizing his supporters, he will have to leave the White House

is at best a pragmatically correct instance of this inference pattern.3 The literature on conditionals is full of examples like (1), put forward by one author as a clear-cut counterexample to a putative logical principle, only to be explained away by another author as an innocent pragmatic exception to an otherwise faultless semantic rule. The strategy described in connection with (3) is less frequently followed. Still, every now and then some author feels called upon to explain why a given inference pattern, in most cases a classical logical principle which 'as recent investigations show' is 'nevertheless' logically invalid, has for so long kept out of harm's way. Usually, the explanation offered involves a partial rehabilitation of the inference pattern concerned: although not logically valid, most of its instances turn out pragmatically sound. The issue is not just verbal. In most cases the 'pragmatic' arguments put forward by the one party are quite different in character from the 'semantic' arguments put forward by the other. That does not mean, however, that both parties put forward the same kind of pragmatic arguments, much less that they need have the same conception of semantics. Actually, the pragmatic differences are the least pronounced: most people working on conditionals agree that pragmatic theories begin where semantic theories end and that they should take the form of a theory of conversation a la Grice. But then - and this is typical for the field of conditionals - there is no consensus at all as to what form a semantic theory should take: that of a theory of truth? According to the majority of logicians, who take the classical standard of logical validity as the starting point of their investigations, yes. (Roughly: an argument is valid if and only if it is impossible for all its premises to be true while its conclusion is false.) No, answer the relevance logicians:4 truth preservation may be a necessary condition for the logical validity of an argument, but it is by no means sufficient (the premises of the argument must in addition be relevant to the conclusion). No, answer Adams et al.5, believing as they do that the proper explanation of validity is to be given in terms of probability rather than truth. (Roughly: an argument is valid if and only if it is impossible for all its premises to be probable while its conclusion is improbable.) And no, I shall answer in this paper. The proper explication of logical validity is this: an argument is valid if and only if it is impossible for all its premises to be true on the basis of the available evidence while its conclusion is not 148

Data semantics and the pragmatics of indicative conditionals true on that basis. Consequently, a semantic theory should supply an explication of what it means for a statement to be true on the basis of the available evidence. In this paper I will sketch such a semantic theory. The above remarks should have made clear, however, that there is little sense in discussing a semantic theory - if, at least, it presents a semantics for conditionals - without paying any attention to its ramifications for pragmatics. Therefore a good deal of this paper is devoted to pragmatic questions: if indicative conditionals do have the semantic properties ascribed to them here, what will their pragmatic properties be? Which logically invalid arguments will become pragmatically correct and which logically valid arguments will on pragmatic grounds become absurd? The answer to this question can be much less arbitrary than the literature suggests. Indeed, semantics and pragmatics can be so attuned that the dividing line between logical validity and pragmatic correctness is drawn exactly as a criterion of cancellability prescribes. 2. INFORMATION MODELS What does it mean for an English sentence, in particular an English conditional sentence, to be true on the basis of the available evidence? Following usual logical practice, I shall not try to answer this question directly but introduce a logical language L, the sentences of which will serve as formal 'translations' of English sentences. L is given by: (i)

a vocabulary consisting of countably many atomic sentences, two parentheses, three one-place operators ~~|, must, and may and three two-place operators A , v, and —>

(ii)

the formation rules that one would expect for a language with such a vocabulary

As usual the operators ~~|, v and A are meant as formal counterparts of English negation, disjunction and conjunction respectively. If A and B are formal translations of the English sentences A' and B', then (A-»B) is meant to be a formal translation of the indicative conditional with antecedent A' and consequent B'. The operator may represents the English expression 'it may be the case that', in its epistemic sense, and the operator must the expression 'it must be the case that', also in its epistemic sense. It will appear that the"semantic and pragmatic properties of indicative conditionals are closely tied up with the properties of these expressions. In presenting the semantics for L, I shall again follow usual practice and first specify the admissible models for L. Definition i. An information model (for L) is a triple (S, ^ , V) with the following properties:

(i)

S± 149

Frank Veltman (ii) (iii)

^ is a partial ordering of S; each maximal chain in (S, ^ ) contains a maximal element V is a function with domain S; (a) for each seS, Vs is a partial function assigning at most one of the values i or o to the atomic sentences of L; (b) if s ^ s ' , V s c Vs>; (c) if sis a maximal element of (S, ^ ) , Vs is total

The basic entities of an information model,6 the elements of S, are called (possible) information states: the speakers of the language L - one speaker at different times, or different speakers at the same time - can have different information about reality. For our purposes, all there is to know about any information state is covered by the relation ^ and the function V. V tells for each atomic sentence A and each information state s whether A is true on the basis of the evidence available at s, in which case VS(A) = i, or whether A is false on that basis, in which case VS(A) = o, or whether the evidence available at s does not allow any definite conclusion about the truth value of A, in which case VS(A) is undefined. The relation ^ determines the position of each information state among the others. In this connection it is particularly important to know, given the evidence at a certain information state, what the outcome of any further investigations might be. Whenever s ^ s', we say that it is possible for s to grow into s'. So understood, it will be clear why ^ is taken to be a partial order. The requirement that K s c ^ if s ^ s ' constrains the semantic properties of atomic sentences considerably: once an atomic sentence A has turned out to be true (or false) on the basis of the evidence, it will remain true (or false) whatever additional data may come to light. As we shall see in the next section, not every sentence of L is stable in this sense. Notice that it may very well be that s < s ' while V s = Vs>: accumulation of evidence need not necessarily mean that more atomic sentences get a definite truth value. (Suppose it is possible for s to grow into an information state where both the atomic sentence A and the atomic sentence B are true. It may very well be that this possibility is excluded once s has grown into s\ That does not mean, however, that it must be clear at s' which of the atomic sentences A and B is false.) If s is a maximal element of (S, ^ ) s is called a complete information state. The choice of terminology will do here as an explanation for the requirement that at maximal elements s the function Vs must assign a definite truth value to every atomic sentence. The requirement that each maximal chain in (S, ^ ) must contain a maximal element implies that every incomplete state can grow into a complete information state7 - in principle that is, not necessarily in practice. One of the maximal elements of (S, ^ ) is rather special. At that point, say s0, the information is not only complete, but also correct: the evidence available at s0 is derived from the actual world. Since the speakers of the language L cannot but get their data from the actual world, they will always be in an information state that can grow into s0.8 However, as long as their 150

Data semantics and the pragmatics of indicative conditionals data are incomplete, they do not exactly know what the actual world is like. That is where the information states that cannot grow into s0 come in: a speaker may at a given point have to reckon with the possibility that further investigations will bring him in such an information state even if this does not in fact happen. Notice that the information models (5, ^ , V) are so defined that it may very well occur that for a given atomic sentence A and an information state s the following holds: (i)

f o r n o s ' ^ s , VS.(A) = o

(ii)

VS(A) is undefined

From (i) it follows that VS>(A) = i for every complete s' ^ s . So it may very well occur that a certain atomic sentence A is not true on the basis of the evidence available at s, while on the other hand it is impossible for s to grow into an information state at which A will turn out false. Indeed, s will inevitably grow into an information state at which A is true. One may wonder whether we should allow this. Wouldn't it be plausible to call A true on the basis of the evidence available at s? Shouldn't we demand that VS(A) = i if for no s' ^ s, VS.(A) = o? I do not think so. I think it would blur an important distinction - that between direct and indirect evidence - if one were to maintain that it is solely on the basis of the evidence available at s that the sentence A is true. Someone in the information state s is not directly aquainted with the state of affairs described by A. His data at best constitute indirect evidence for the truth of A: A must be true, all right, but it may take quite some time before this is definitely shown. 3. SEMANTIC STABILITY AND INSTABILITY Let M = (S, ^ , V) be an information model, s an information state in S and A a sentence of L. In the sequel 'Mlh5A' abbreviates 'A is true (in M) on the basis of the evidence available at s', and 'MSHI A' abbreviates 'A is false (in M) on the basis of the evidence available at s.' Definition 2. Let M = {S, ^ , V) be a model and s an information state. If A is atomic, then Aflh5AiffVs(A) = i Ms-UAiffVs(A) = o Mlh s nAiffM s HIA Af s HnAiffMI|- s A M\\-Smay A iff for some information state s' ^ s, M\\-s> A Mf\\ may A iff for no information state s' ^ s, M||-s< A M\\-Smust A iff for no information state s' ^ s, M SHIA M fWmust A iff for some information state s' ^ s, MSHIA

Frank Veltman Mlh s AABiffM|h s AandMlh 5 £ M s HIAABiffM s HIAorM s HIB Mlh s AvBiffMlh s AorMlh s B M s HIAvBiffM s HIAandM_||B Mlhs A—>B iff for no information state s' ^ s , M\\-s> A and MSHIB Ms-\\ A—>B iff for some information state s' ^ s , M\\-s> A andM s HIB In discussing this definition I shall often refer to the following information states: Information state i. You are presented with two little boxes, box i and box 2. The boxes are closed but you know that together they contain three marbles, a blue one, a yellow one and a red one, and that each box contains at least one of them. Information state 2. As 1, except that in addition you know that the blue marble is in box 1. (Where the other two marbles are remains a secret.)

3.1 May Suppose you are in information state 1. Somebody says: 'The blue marble may be in box 2.' Would you agree? Suppose you are in information state 2. Somebody says: 'The blue marble may be in box 2.' Would you still agree? According to definition 2, your answer to the first question should be 'Yes', and to the second question 'No'. Definition 2 says that a sentence of the form may A is true on the basis of the evidence available at a given information state s as long as it is possible for s to grow into an information state s' where, on the basis of the then available evidence, A is true; and that such a sentence is false on the basis of the evidence available at s if and only if this possibility is excluded. In information state 1 you must still reckon with the possibility that the blue marble will turn out to be in box 2. Therefore the sentence The blue marble may be in box 2 is true on the basis of the evidence available there. In information state 2 you do not have to reckon with this possibility anymore. Once you know that the blue marble is in box 1, it is wrong to maintain that it may nevertheless be in box 2. At most, you can say that it might have been in box 2. Unlike atomic sentences, the truth of sentences of the form may A need not be stable. They will often be true on the basis of limited evidence only to become false as soon as new evidence becomes available. Once their falsity has been established, however, it has been established for good. In terms of the following definition: sentences of the form may A, though in general not T-stable, are at least F-stable. Definition 3. Let A be a sentence. 152

Data semantics and the pragmatics of indicative conditionals A is T-stable iff for every model M = (S, ^ , V) and information state s € S, if M lhs A then M lhS' A for every information state s' ^ s A is F-stable iff for every model M = (S, ^ , V) and information state s € S, if MSHIA then MSHIA for every information state s' ^ s A is stable iff A is both T-stable and F-stable The theory of may developed here differs widely from those developed within the framework of possible world semantics. It renders the sentence: (4) The blue marble is in box 1 and it may not be there contradictory, just like: (5)

The blue marble is in box 1 and it isn't

According to all other theories (4) is a pragmatic absurdity rather than a logical contradiction: (4) can be perfectly true although nobody can ever sincerely assert it. Is there any evidence in favour of this claim, that sentences like (4) are pragmatically rather than logically absurd? I am afraid not. The only empirical support which it could conceivably get should consist in an informal example which shows that the apparent inconsistency of sentences of the form A/\may~~\A can sometimes be cancelled. I am pretty sure, however, that no such example will ever be found. Anyone asserting a sentence like (4) fails to fulfil the conversational maxim of quality, as for example Groenendijk and Stokhof (1975) are ready to explain. (Roughly: by asserting the right-hand conjunct The blue marble may not be in box /, the speaker indicates that the sentence The blue marble is not in box 1 is consistent with everything he believes. But according to the maxim of quality he is not allowed to assert the left-hand conjunct if he does not believe that the blue marble is in box 1.) So if there is any example showing that the apparent inconsistency of these sentences can really be cancelled, it must be one in which the speaker indicates (either explicitly or implicitly, but at least in a way clear enough to the hearer) that he is stating something he does not himself believe, but that he is doing so for some good reason, i.e. one which can be reconciled with the overall Cooperative Principle. I am afraid that no hearer will ever be found who is able to detect what good reason that might be. That it is impossible to breach the maxim of quality and yet observe the overall Cooperative Principle has been noticed before.9 For example, Gazdar (1979: 46) notices that an implicature arising from the maxim of quality 'differs from those arising from the other maxims because it cannot be intelligibly cancelled'. Yet the only conclusion which is usually drawn is that the maxim of quality has a privileged position among the other maxims. Everybody seems to accept, if reluctantly, that the criterion of cancellability offers at best a sufficient condition for calling something pragmatic instead of logical. 153

Frank Veltman The one argument I have to offer in favour of the position that sentences of the form A A may ~~|A are logically rather than pragmatically absurd is highly theoretical. Consider the following (re)formulation of the maxim of quality: Do not assert a sentence A unless A is true on the basis of the evidence at your disposal. Notice that every sentence which owes its pragmatic absurdity simply and solely to the fact that it can never be asserted without violating this maxim is also absurd for semantic reasons - for dflta-semantic reasons at least. Hence the question of cancellability need not arise. By doing data semantics instead of the usual truth-conditional semantics, we have, so to speak, annexed part of what was always called pragmatics. As a consequence, the border between logical and pragmatic-but-not-logical inconsistency and that between logical and pragmatic-but-not-logical validity has been redrawn. Actually, it seems that now cancellability can serve as a condition which an argument must satisfy in order to be classified as pragmatically but not logically valid. 3.2 Must I already hinted at the truth condition for the operator must near the end of section 2. According to definition 2, a sentence of the form must A is true on the basis of the available evidence if and only if no additional evidence could make A false. Hence, if one keeps on gathering more information, A will inevitably, sooner or later, turn out true. As long as A could yet turn out false, must A is false. It is worth noting that in many cases this analysis renders a sentence of the form must A weaker than A itself. If an atomic sentence A is true on the basis of the available evidence, then must A is true on that basis as well. But must A can be true on the basis of the evidence without A being true on that basis. In the latter case the data constitute at best indirect evidence for A, in the first case direct evidence. That must A is weaker than A on many occasions has been noticed by a number of authors. Karttunen (1972: 12) illustrates this with the following examples: (6)

John must have left

(7)

John has left

His informal explanation fits in neatly with my formal analysis: Intuitively, (6) makes a weaker claim than (7). In general, one would use (6), the epistemic must, only in circumstances where it is not yet an established fact that John has left. In (6), the speaker indicates that he has no first hand evidence about John's departure, and neither has it been reported to him by trustworthy sources. Instead (6) seems to say that the truth of John has left in some way logically follows from other facts the speaker knows and some reasonable assumptions that he is willing to 154

Data semantics and the pragmatics of indicative conditionals entertain. A man who has actually seen John leave or has read about it in the newspaper would not ordinarily assert (6), since he is in the position to make the stronger claim in (7). Similar remarks can be found in Groenendijk and Stokhof (1975), Kratzer (1977), and Lyons (1977).10 Still, despite the unanimity on this point, no theory has yet been proposed which actually predicts that on many occasions must A is a logical consequence of A. Most theories treat may and must as epistemic modalities and, depending on whether the underlying epistemic notion is knowledge or belief, must A turns out to be either stronger than A or independent of it. Notice that sentences of the form must A are T-stable though they are not in general F-stable. Consider, for example, the sentence: (8)

Either the yellow or the red marble must be in box 2

For all you know in information state 1 it may very well be that the blue marble is in box 2 while both the yellow and the red marble are in box 1. Hence it is not the case that either the yellow or the red one must be in box 2. But as soon as you are told that the blue marble is in box 1 this is different. At least one of the marbles is in box 2 and it cannot be the blue one. So it must be the yellow one or the red one.

3-3 K According to definition 2, a sentence of the form A—>B is true on the basis of the evidence available at a given information state s if and only if s cannot grow into an information state s' at which A is true on the basis of available evidence and B is false. If, by any chance, further investigations should reveal that A is true, they will also reveal that B is true. Furthermore, it is stated that A—> B is false on the basis of the evidence available at a certain information state s if and only if it is still possible for s to grow into an information state at which A is true and B false on the basis of the available evidence. As a consequence, we find that sentences of the form A—>B are not in general F-stable. Consider the sentence: (9)

If the yellow marble is in box 1, the red one is in box 2

Again, the evidence available in information state 1 allows for the possibility that both the yellow and the red marble are in box 1. So on the basis of the limited evidence available there, (9) is false: it is not so that if the yellow marble is in box 1, the red one is in box 2. In information state 2, however, (9) is not false any more. Once you know that the blue marble is in box 1, you can be sure that if the yellow marble happens to be in box 1, the red one will turn out to be in box 2. 155

Frank Veltman Now consider the negation of (9): (10)

It is not so that if the yellow marble is in box 1, the red one is in box 2

This sentence is true on the basis of the evidence available at information state 1 - at least if we apply definition 2 to it. Suppose you are in information state 1 and somebody - Mrs S. - asserts (9): 'If the yellow marble is in box 1, the red marble is in box 2.' Would it be appropriate, then, to reply like this: 'No, you are wrong, it may very well be that both the yellow and the red marble are in box 1. So it is not the case that if the yellow marble is in box 1, the red one is in box 2'? Such a reply would only under very special circumstances be correct. Only when you know for certain that Mrs S. is not better informed than yourself, because only then can you be sure that she is mistaken. Certainly, for all you know (in information state 1), sentence (9) is false and sentence (10) is true, but sentence (9) is not F-stable and sentence (10) is not T-stable. If by any chance the blue marble should be in box 1 and if Mrs S. should know this, then what she says is true on the basis of the evidence available to her. So perhaps she is better informed than yourself; perhaps she is telling you something about the marbles you did not yet know. Therefore, instead of denying the truth of her statement you'd better ask her on what evidence it is based. In normal conversation every statement is meant to convey some new information, and only when this new information is incompatible with some T-stable sentence that is true on the basis of the evidence gathered may one raise doubts about it - as when you are in information state 2 and Mrs S. says, 'Maybe the yellow marble is in box 1 and if so, the red one is in box 1 too.' However, even in this case it would be inappropriate to reply with a simple denial: 'No, it may very well be that the yellow marble is in box 1 and the red one is in box 2.' Again, such a sentence is not T-stable; it might owe its truth to a lack of information on your part - that is certainly what Mrs S. will think. So what you will have to reply is something much stronger: 'No, it cannot be that the yellow and the red marble are both in box 1. So if the yellow marble is in box 1, the red one isn't.' These considerations may help us to understand some of the peculiarities of negated conditionals. For one thing, they explain why a conditional statement A—> B is so often refuted with a counterconditional A—»~~|B rather than with a negated conditional ~1(A—>B). But they do so without thereby equating sentences of the form A—»~|B with sentences of the form ~~|(A—» B). On the account given here, ~~|(A—>B) is not logically equivalent to A—>~~|B, as it would be if —> behaved as Stalnaker (1968) and Adams (1975) predict. Nor is it equivalent to A A ~~|B as it would be if —• behaved like material implication. We find that ~~|(A—»B) is equivalent to may (A A ~]B). There 156

Data semantics and the pragmatics of indicative conditionals is nothing wrong in believing both (n)

It is not the case that if Jones wins the election, Smith will retire to private life

(suppose Smith dies before the election) and (12)

It is not the case that if Jones wins the election, Smith won't retire

(suppose Smith does not die before the election) Moreover, neither of these beliefs would commit one to the belief that (13)

Jones will win the election

Jones may win the election, that is the only thing one can say about it. Let A be F-stable and suppose that A is false on the basis of the available evidence. Then according to definition 2, A—>B is true on the basis of the evidence for any sentence B. Similarly, if B is T-stable and true on the basis of the available evidence then A—»B is true on the basis of the evidence for any sentence A. In other words, the present treatment of conditionals does not meet the requirement that a sentence of the form A—>B should never be true unless the antecedent A is somehow 'relevant' to the consequent B. The well-known 'paradoxes' of material implication turn out logically valid. We find, for example, that from a logical point of view, there is nothing wrong with: (14)

The blue marble is in box 1 .'. If the blue marble is in box 2, it is in box 1

If you do find it difficult to accept the validity of this argument, please read the conclusion once more without losing sight of the premise. The argument does not run like: (15)

The blue marble is in box 1 .'. If the blue marble had been in box 2, it would have been in box 1

Or perhaps it helps to compare (14) with: (16)

The blue marble is in box 1 '. The blue marble is in box 1, if it is anywhere at all

(Anywhere . . . , then why not try box 2?) If this does not help either, the reader is referred to section 4.2 where I shall argue that (14), though logically valid, is nevertheless pragmatically incorrect. By now it will be clear that the logic attributed to indicative conditionals by the theory presented here cannot easily be fitted into the spectrum formed by the theories proposed so far. One more example: the principle of modus 157

Frank Veltman tollens, which holds both in classical and in intuitionistic logic, and also in the systems of strict and variably strict implication, and even in such a weak system as the system of relevance logic, fails. It is not generally so that one can conclude ~~|A from A—»B and ~~1B. The closest approximation available is this: if B is F-stable then must ~|A follows from A—>B and ~~|B. If B is not F-stable even this weakened version of modus tollens fails. Consider, for example, the premises A—>(B—>C) and ~1(B—>C), where A, B and C are three distinct atomic sentences. Neither A nor must ~~|A follow from these sentences, we only have that may "~|A is true on the basis of the available evidence if A—> (B—> C) and ~~|(B—> C) are. (Suppose you are in information state i. Then for all you know it may very well be that neither the yellow nor the blue marble is in box 2. So it is not the case that if the yellow marble isn't in box 2, the blue one is. However, if the red marble happens to be in box 1 things are different. Indeed, if the red marble is in box 1, then if the yellow marble isn't in box 2 the blue one is. Now, by an application of modus tollens, it would follow from the italicized sentences that the red marble isn't in box 1, but obviously it may very well be there.) So we find that in certain respects data logic is weaker than the weakest logic in the literature: modus tollens is not always valid. In other respects, however, it is at least as strong as any of the others: we saw that A—> B follows from B, at least if B is T-stable. In yet other respects it lies somewhere inbetween: we saw that ~1(A—> B) is equivalent to may (A A "IB), which is exactly what one would find if —> were the implication and may the possibility operator of one of the Lewis systems.11 The arguments which on my account are logically invalid cannot easily be explained away as 'just' pragmatically unsound. Notoriously difficult (for those who believe that indicative conditionals behave like material implications) are, for example, the schemes ~~|(A—»B)/.'. A and ( A A B ) — » C / . ' . (A—>C) v (B—>C). So far, no satisfactory pragmatic explanation has been offered for the fact that many instances of these inference patterns seem anomalous. On the other hand, those who think that my theory is too strong, that too many of the wrong arguments come out valid, can produce a lot of intuitive counterexamples to make their point. Here I am the one who has to produce the good reasons for saying that these are 'just' pragmatically unsound instances of valid argument forms. I shall turn to this in section 4.2. (For more information on the logic of —> the reader is referred to Veltman 1985.) 3.4 Conjunction, disjunction and negation I trust that the truth and falsity conditions for sentences of the form ~~|A, A A B, and A v B do not need any further explanation.12 The reader will have noticed that sentences of the form A v ~~1A are not always true on the basis of the available evidence: the Principle of Excluded Middle does not generally 158

Data semantics and the pragmatics of indicative conditionals hold. That does not mean, however, that sentences of the form A v ~~|A can be false on the basis of the available evidence: must (A v ~~]A) is logically valid. Besides, we get a Principle of Excluded Muddle in return. No matter what the exact evidence is, the sentence must A v must ~~]A v (may A A may ~~|A) is always true on the basis of it. In the sequel, I shall sometimes discriminate between the sentences which contain no operators other than ~1, v and A, and the other ones by calling the former descriptive and the latter nondescriptive. All descriptive sentences are stable, most nondescriptive sentences are not. Intuitively, the difference between these two kinds of sentence amounts to this: by uttering a descriptive sentence a speaker only informs his audience of the evidence he already has. By uttering a nondescriptive sentence he also expresses his expectations about the outcome of further investigations. Notice that at complete information states s the following holds: Mlh 5 AorM s HIA Aflr- s A->BiffMI|- s AorMlh s B

M\\-smayAif£M\\-sA M\\-smustAffiM\\-sA In other words, it does not make much sense to use the phrases if-then, must and may in a context where the information is complete. If-then gets the meaning of the material implication while the meaning of both must and may boils down to that of the empty operator. However, in such a context there is no need to use nondescriptive sentences; the information is complete, so what good could speculations on the outcome of further investigations possibly be? A few remarks are due here on the relation between the relative notions 'true/false on the basis of the available evidence' and the absolute notions 'true' and 'false'. Indeed, the reader may have wondered whether these notions are related at all. Wouldn't it be better to say that definition 2 deals with the notions of verification and falsification rather than the notions of truth and falsity? After all, it is obvious that nothing is verified or falsified except on the basis of evidence. But it is far from obvious that this evidence, or rather the availability of it, could make a difference to the truth value of the sentence concerned. Truth and falsity depend only on the facts of the case and not on information one may have gathered.13 The absolute notions of truth and falsity can be defined in terms of the relative notions as follows: a sentence is true/false if and only if it is true/false on the basis of the evidence that will be available when the data are complete. In formulae: MH-AiffMlhSoA MHIAiffMSoHIA 159

Frank Veltman Here s0 is the rather special information state discussed near the end of section 2: the information state in which any speaker, if he should ever get there, would be acquainted with all the facts that constitute reality. Hence, it is indeed the facts and nothing but the facts that determine whether a sentence is true or false in the absolute sense. We saw, however, that there are many sentences for which the absolute notions of truth and falsity make little sense. There is a lot to learn from what is in fact the case, but not which sentences may be true or must be true or will be true if only . . . . There is no way to decide the question whether the red and the yellow marble may both be in box 1 by just opening the boxes. A question like that can only be judged in the light of what may be the case: the possibilities left open by the facts as far as they are known. Given the possibilities left open by the facts known in information state 2, the yellow and the red marbles cannot both be in box 1. The sentence The yellow and red marbles may both be in box 1 is false on the basis of the evidence available in information state 2. Now, I have no objections against replacing this phrase by another one - 'falsified by the available evidence' or 'refutable in information state 2', whatever you like. The real issue is, I think, which notions are fundamental: the absolute notions of truth and falsity or the relative ones, whatever you call them. In this paper we are exploring the idea that the relative notions are fundamental. So far it has proved fairly fruitful: it has enabled us to draw the distinction between direct and indirect evidence and that between stable and unstable sentences - important distinctions it would seem, even in purely logical matters. 4. PRAGMATIC CORRECTNESS AND INCORRECTNESS Recall the Principle of Excluded Muddle: must B v must "~|B v (may B A may ~~|B) is a logical law. This means that the possible contexts in which a conditional with antecedent A and consequent C can be uttered all fall into the nine categories in table 1. Claim: Assume that A and C are descriptive sentences. Then the only contexts in which a speaker can assert A—> C without violating any conversational maxim are the ones in category 5. In other words, an indicative conditional statement with a descriptive antecedent and consequent will normally implicate that neither the truth nor the falsity of its antecedent or consequent are definitely established. The claim itself is not new.14 What is new is the straightforward proof of it. Consider first the contexts fitting into category 2, 3 or 6. In such contexts the sentence A—> C is false on the basis of the evidence available to the speaker - it is left to the reader to check this with the help of definition 2. So anyone who says A—>C in one of these contexts is saying something for which he lacks adequate evidence, which according to the maxim of quality (the one 160

Data semantics and the pragmatics of indicative conditionals Table 1. The square of modal possibilities i. must A mustC

3. must A

2. must A mayC

must ~"|C

may ~~|C

4. may A may ~lA mustC 7. must ~|A mustC

5. may A may ~lA may C may ~\C 8. must~\A mayC may i C

6. may A may ~\A must ~|C 9. must~\A must ~\C

Note: Read the table as follows: in category 1 must A is true on the basis of the evidence available to the speaker and must C, too, etc.

formulated in section 3.1) he is not supposed to do. Anyone who knows, or at least could have known, that A cannot be true, and who therefore falls within one of the categories 7, 8 or 9 could, according to definition 2, truthfully assert that A—>C. But if he did so he would be sinning against the maxims of quantity and manner. By definition 2, must ~~|A is stronger and therefore more informative than A—>C. Apart from that, it is also less wordy. So if he said must ~~\A he would be being more helpful. The only remaining categories are 1 and 4, in both of which the speaker knows that C must be the case. Again: must C is both stronger and less wordy than A—>C. If the speaker were to state A—>C, he would not be telling us all he knows, and that in too many words. So, indicative conditionals are typically uttered in contexts fitting in category 5, the centre of table 1. This is not to say, of course, that any conditional statement will automatically be correct when uttered in such a context. For one thing, in such a context the sentence A—>C cannot be true on the basis of the available evidence unless the antecedent A is somehow 'relevant' to the consequent C. Let C be any descriptive sentence - for example, The red marble is in box 1. Suppose you do not know whether C - maybe the red marble is in box 1, maybe not. Likewise, let A be any descriptive sentence - It is raining in Ipanema. Again, you do not know whether A - maybe it is raining in Ipanema, maybe not. Now consider A—>C: If it is raining in Ipanema, the red marble is in box 1. Clearly, there must be some noncoincidental connection between A and C if it is really to be so that no additional evidence can establish the truth of A without establishing that C must be true; how on earth could the weather condition in Ipanema have anything to do with the position of the marbles? In section 2.2 we noted that definition 2 itself does not guarantee that a conditional is true on the basis of the available evidence only if its antecedent is relevant to its consequent. We can now see why this does not matter too much. Pragmatic constraints ensure that an indicative conditional will normally 161

Frank Veltman be asserted only in circumstances where this requirement is fulfilled. Those contexts in which definition 2 makes a conditional true without the antecedent being relevant to the consequent are contexts in which so much is known about the truth and falsity of either of these that it cannot be asserted without violating some conversational maxim. 4.1 Odd conditionals Should conditionals never be uttered in other circumstances than the ones fitting in category 5, just because this violates one or the other conversational maxim? Of course not. There are plenty of good occasions for doing just this, only it must be clear to the hearer that a maxim has been overruled and why. Contexts fitting into 2, 3 and 6 are not among these occasions. There the conditional is false on the basis of the evidence available to the speaker and, as we noticed in section 3.1, any violation of the maxim of quality is incompatible with the overall Cooperative Principle.15 But the literature is full of ifs and thens with the most eccentric things in between and all those I know fit quite neatly in that part of table 1 formed by the categories 1, 4, 8 and 9. In fact this categorization is of great help when we want to classify the figures of speech beginning with if. All of the examples which go (17)

If..., I'll eat my hat

belong to category 9: the speaker is clearly not intending to eat his hat and the hearer is expected to complete the (weakened version of) modus tollens for himself, which gives (18)

It cannot be the case t h a t . . .

Why say (17) rather than (18)? Surely in order to make the claim that the antecedent is as definitely false as the applied modus tollens is valid. The same rhetoric occurs in constructions like: (19)

If..., I am a Dutchman

(20)

If..., I am the Empress of China16

(21)

I'll be hanged, if . . .

which all implicate the falsity of their antecedents (unless of course the speaker could be a Dutchman, or the Empress of China, or sentenced to death). There are also plenty of examples of which the antecedent is trivially true and the hearer is supposed to apply modus ponens:17 (22)

She is on the wrong side of thirty, if she is a day

(23)

If there is one thing I cannot stand, it is getting caught in the rush-hour traffic 162

Data semantics and the pragmatics of indicative conditionals It will be clear that these examples belong to category i. Category 4 is the most diverse. In addition to examples where if is used for purely rhetorical reasons, as in: (24)

This is the best book of the month, if not of the year

it also contains examples where //"serves as an opting out device: (25)

There is coffee in the pot, if you want some

(26)

If there is anything you need, my name is Marcia

(27)

I paid back that fiver, if you remember

(28)

If I may interrupt you, you're wanted on the telephone

Let us first discuss (24). The speaker supposes that the hearer is well aware of the trivial truth that this book will certainly be the best of the month if it is the best of the year. In formulae, the hearer is supposed to know that B ^ C. From this, together with what the speaker tells him, ~~|B-^ C, he could (by data-logical means), conclude must C: this must be the best book of the month. Just as in the above examples the speaker intends the hearer to draw this conclusion. Example (25) works differently. The hearer knows that the speaker is not in a position to know whether he (the hearer) wants some coffee or not. From this he can infer that the conditional is asserted in one of the categories 4, 5 or 6. It cannot be category 6, for then the statement would be false on the basis of information available to the speaker. For the same reason it cannot be category 5 (unless the speaker happens to be a genie who could just make coffee in the pot on command - but let us assume that the hearer knows he is not). So the only possibility left is category 4: there must be coffee in the pot. To what good purpose - if any - does the speaker prefer the if-iorm to the statement that there is coffee in the pot? I think that the speaker in simply asserting the consequent would run the risk of defying the maxim of relevance, by saying something which does not interest the hearer at all. With the antecedent the speaker indicates that he is well aware of this: it provides a condition under which the consequent will be interesting. The examples (27) and (28) show that it is not always the maxim of relevance that is involved. In (27) the speaker indicates with the antecedent that he is opting out of the maxim of quantity;18 to account for (28) we must appeal to a maxim of politeness.19-20 Also in category 8 one can breach the conversational maxims to good effect: (29)

If it does not rain tomorrow, then it is going to pour (given as a summary of a dismal weather forecast)

(30)

If I don't beat him, then I'll thrash him (a boxer boasting before his fight) 163

Frank Veltman Both (29) and (30) convey that their antecedent will turn out false, but they leave their consequent undecided. The reader will be able to work out these implicatures himself ((29) and (30) both mirror example (24)). I have not been able to find any good (idiomatic) conditionals fitting into category 7. Nor can I offer a satisfactory explanation why there aren't any. A rather unsatisfactory explanation runs like this: saying A—> C and conveying by this both the more informative must ~|A and the more informative must C involves violating the maxim of quantity not once but twice. It could be asking too much of a hearer to expect him to work this out. The examples discussed above must look odd, if not perplexing, to those who hold the view that a conditional statement cannot be true unless the antecedent and the consequent are in some sense 'causally' connected. How could any causal chain ever bridge the gap between the antecedent she is a day and the consequent she is on the wrong side of thirty of (22); or that between the antecedent there is anything you need and the consequent my name is Marcia of (26)? Given that how the dots are filled in is irrelevant to the truth of if . . . , I'll eat my hat as long as they are filled in with something which is false, what could such a sentence express if not a simple truth-functional connection between the antecedent and the consequent? These examples suggest that the ifoi natural language could be ambiguous: usually it expresses a causal connection, but in some exceptional cases it does not. I do not think that this is the right way to see it. One of the advantages of the data-semantic approach is that we can uphold the idea of an unambiguous if. The //"that enables a speaker (in information state 1) to formulate the general constraint that the blue marble is in box 2 if the other two are in box 1 is the very same if that enables him (in information state 2) to say that the blue marble is in box 1 if it is anywhere at all. 4.2 A test for pragmatic correctness Consider the following well-known example. (31)

If there is sugar in the coffee, then it will taste good .'. If there is sugar in the coffee and diesel-oil as well, then it will taste good

This argument sounds suspicious. In fact, it is often claimed that it is quite possible to accept the premise while rejecting the conclusion. So it would seem that (31) provides a clear-cut counterexample to the Principle of Strengthening the Antecedent. But is it really so clear-cut? Compare (31) with (32): (32)

Maybe there is diesel-oil in the coffee If there is sugar in the coffee, then it will taste good •". If there is sugar in the coffee and diesel-oil as well, then it will taste good 164

Data semantics and the pragmatics of indicative conditionals Would those speakers who accept the premise of (31) while rejecting its conclusion also be prepared to accept the premises of (32)? I do not think so. Sugared coffee which may contain diesel-oil as well does not in general taste good. Yet the difference between (31) and (32) is very small: it is a conversational implicature of the conclusion of (31) that the coffee may well contain diesel-oil (along with other things you usually take in your coffee). All we did to get (32) was to add this implicature as a second premise to the original argument. The same trick can be applied to example (1). There the conclusion implicates that Smith may die before the election: (33)

Maybe Smith dies before the election If Jones wins the election, Smith will retire to private life If Smith dies before the election, Jones will win it .'. If Smith dies before the election, he will retire to private life

Again, once you reckon with the implicatures of the conclusion, the premises of the original argument turn out unacceptable. Given the possibility of Smith's demise, it is not the case that if Jones wins the election Smith will retire. It may very well be that Jones wins the election and that Smith does not retire because he died. From a data-logical point of view (31) and (1) are perfectly in order: if the premises are true on the basis of the available evidence, then so is the conclusion. But unfortunately the premises of these arguments cannot be true on the basis of the available evidence if one takes the pragmatic implicatures of the conclusion into account. That is why they lack any cogency. I would suggest generalizing these examples as a test for the pragmatic correctness of an argument: any argument of which the premises cannot hold if one takes the implicatures of the conclusion into account is pragmatically unsound. The purpose of an argument is to convince others of its conclusion. You want to persuade someone to accept something he would perhaps rather not accept by showing that it logically follows from something he is willing to accept. In a way the conclusion comes first, together with all its implicatures, and the premises are brought in later when it appears that the conclusion is not taken for granted. But then, of course, it will not help if you bring in premises that are incompatible with the implicatures of the conclusion - unless you also say that in asserting the conclusion you have violated the conversational maxims. There is one more argument which I have claimed to be pragmatically incorrect rather than logically invalid, and for which the above test yields the right result:21 consider (14) on page 157. The conclusion implicates that The blue marble may not be in box 1. If we add this to the premise The blue marble is in box 1 we get a data-semantic contradiction. Hence (14) is pragmatically incorrect. But (16), which is of the same form as (14), is without fault. For its conclusion The blue marble is in box 1, if it is anywhere at all does not 165

Frank Veltman implicate that the blue marble may not be in box i (the conclusion belongs to category i rather than category 5). Note that no instance of the argument form C/.'. A—>C will pass our test unless its conclusion is an odd conditional belonging to category 1 or category 4. In this respect the argument form C/A •". A—>C differs from argument forms like the Hypothetical Syllogism B^> C, A-+ B / . \ A-> C and the Principle of Strengthening the Antecedent A-> C/.*. (A A B ) ^ C , which have many pragmatically correct instances with conclusions belonging to category 5. Yet, even if this so-called paradox of implication had no correct instances at all, it would still not follow that it is logically invalid rather than pragmatically unsound.

NOTES 1 This paper overlaps in some passages with Veltman (1981). I am grateful to Ernest Adams, Mark Cobler, Jon Dorling, Fred Landman, Michael Morreau, Stanley Peters, Marjorie Pigge and Alice ter Meulen for comments, corrections, suggestions, discussions, translations, criticism, and help. Throughout this paper I shall assume that the reader is familiar with Grice (1975). 2 This example is drawn from Adams (1975). 3 This strategy is followed in Stalnaker (1976). 4 See in particular Anderson and Belnap (1975). 5 See Adams (1975) and also Cooper (1978). 6 The information models defined here closely resemble the Kripke models for intuitionistic logic. See Kripke (1965). Formally, the main difference with intuitionistic logic lies in the treatment of negation. See Thomason (1969) for still another treatment of negation within this framework. 7 Actually, the assumption is somewhat stronger; it excludes the possibility of there being any sequence of successive information states that does not ultimately end in an information state that is complete. I have made this stronger assumption just for technical convenience. As far as logic is concerned, it does not make any difference which one you make. In fact, from a logical point of view, you might even make the still weaker assumption that for each seS and each atomic sentence A there is an s' ^ s such that Vs> (A) is defined. 8 I am ready to admit that the word information as it occurs in the phrase 'information state' is not used in its ordinary sense. Perhaps it would be better to speak of 'evidence states'. 9 Cases of irony and metaphor will perhaps be considered as counterexamples to this claim. But I think these phenomena are best explained as involving an apparent infringement of the maxim of quality. In short: since a literal interpretation of an ironical or metaphorical statement is out of the question, as it would immediately lead to the conclusion that the speaker is breaching the maxim of quality, the hearer tries to reinterpret the words of the speaker in such a way that they can yet be reconciled with this maxim - the maxim of quality itself. Cases like these must be clearly distinguished from cases where the hearer ultimately concludes that a maxim - any maxim other than the maxim of quality - has really been overruled, albeit in a manner that can be reconciled with the supposition that at least the overall Cooperative Principle - but not the maxim in question - has been observed. 166

Data semantics and the pragmatics of indicative conditionals 10 A nice illustration of the differences between must A and A is given by Akatsuka (this volume). Compare / am hungry with / must be hungry and you are hungry with you must be hungry. 11 I mean the C. I. Lewis systems here: see Hughes and Cresswell (1972). 12 This does not mean that they are above suspicion; for a defence, see Veltman (1981). 13 These critical remarks were made by Stanley Peters in his discussion of my talk at the Stanford Symposium on Conditionals. 14 Already in Strawson (1952: 88) we find the remark that 'the hypothetical statement carries the implication either of uncertainty about, or disbelief in, the fulfilment of both the antecedent and consequent'. See also Stalnaker (1976) and Gazdar (1979). 15 The statement He is a fine friend, if he is really telling all these lies belongs - after reinterpretation - to category 5. Compare note 9. 16 Unlike Akatsuka (this volume), I do not think that a special truth value must be introduced to account for the rhetorical force of sentences like this one. 17 Note that within our framework modus ponens takes the form A, A—»C/.'. must C. (A conditional sentence A - » C with descriptive A and C is true on the basis of the available evidence if and only if any further data which supply direct evidence for A supply at least indirect evidence for C.) 18 Admittedly, this remark leaves a lot of questions concerning the example (27) open. For one thing, it is unclear why English speakers prefer (27) to the sentence I paid back that fiver, if you don't remember. Given our explanation for (25), one would expect things to be the other way round - as they are when one uses in case instead of if. {In case you don't remember, I paid back that fiver sounds better than In case you remember, . . . ) Only if the antecedent contains a negation can one safely say that it provides a condition under which the consequent would be informative. 19 Many of the examples discussed in this section have been taken from Lauerbach (1979). For a further discussion of, in particular, examples involving a maxim of politeness, the reader is referred to pp. 240-50 of Lauerbach's book. 20 English allows both clause orders antecedent-consequent and consequent-antecedent. From the examples given so far, it appears that this is so even for conditionals that implicate the truth of their consequent. Notice, however, that one cannot overtly mark the consequent with then in some of these conditionals without affecting their original impact. This is particularly so for conditionals where if is used as an opting out device, witness // / may interrupt you, then you are wanted on the telephone. In Dutch and German changing the word order in the consequent has the same effect: it seems obligatory to give the consequent the word order of a single main clause (finite verb second) when 'if is used as an opting out device, while in all other cases with the antecedent preceding the consequent the verb of the consequent gets second position with respect to the antecedent clause and thus precedes the subject of the consequent. This means that the whole conditional construction is treated as a single main clause with the antecedent taking the front adverbial position. 21 See Cooper (1978: ch. 8) for many other examples. REFERENCES Adams, Ernest W. 1975. The logic of conditionals: an application of probability to deductive logic. Dordrecht: Reidel. Anderson, Alan R. and Nuel D. Belnap, Jr. 1975. Entailment, VOL. I. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Cooper, WilliamS. 1978. Foundations of logico-linguistics. Dordrecht: Reidel. Gazdar, Gerald. 1979. Pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. 167

Frank Veltman Grice, H. Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. Syntax and semantics, VOL. 3, Speech acts, ed. Peter Cole and Jerrold M. Morgan, 64-75. New York: Academic Press. Groenendijk, Jeroen and Martin Stokhof. 1975. Modality and conversational information. Theoretical Linguistics 2: 61-112. Hughes, G. E. and M. J. Cresswell. 1972. An introduction to modal logic, 2nd edn. London: Methuen. Karttunen, Lauri. 1972. Possible and must. In Syntax and semantics /, ed. John P. Kimball, 1-20. New York: Seminar Press. Kratzer, Angelika. 1977. What 'must' and 'can' must and can mean. Linguistics and Philosophy 1:337-55. Kripke, Saul A. 1965. Semantical analysis of intuitionistic logic 1. In Formal systems and recursive functions, ed. J. N. Crossley and M. A. E. Dummett, 92-130. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Lauerbach, Gerda. 1979. Form und Funktion englischer Konditionalsdtze mit 'if. Tubingen: Niemeyer. Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics, VOL. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stalnaker, Robert C. 1968. A theory of conditionals. In Studies in logical theory, ed. N. Rescher, 98-112. American Philosophical Quarterly monograph series, no. 2. Oxford: Blackwell. Stalnaker, Robert C. 1976. Indicative conditionals. In Language in focus, ed. A. Kasher, 179-96. Dordrecht: Reidel. Strawson, P. F. 1952. Introduction to logical theory. London: Methuen. Thomason, Richmond H. 1969. A semantical study of constructible falsity. Zeitschrift fur mathematische Logik und Grundlagen der Mathematik 15: 247-57. Veltman, Frank. 1981. Data semantics. Reprinted 1984 in Information, interpretation and inference, ed. Jeroen Groenendijk, Theo Janssen and Martin Stokhof, 43-65. Dordrecht: Foris Publications. Veltman, Frank. 1985. Logics for conditionals. Doctoral dissertation, University of Amsterdam.

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REMARKS ON THE SEMANTICS AND PRAGMATICS OF CONDITIONALS Ernest W. Adams Editors' note. Emphasizing truth as a property of sentences, Adams criticizes relative conceptions of truth such as are developed in Veltman's contribution, for overemphasizing the distinction between semantics and pragmatics. A probabilistic semantics for conditionals that includes pragmatic considerations and maxims can account for the kinematics of belief and model the dynamics of belief change appropriately, without relying on relativized truth definitions. Some similar aspects of the dynamics of belief are also discussed by Akatsuka, Fillenbaum and Greenberg. The first part of this chapter will discuss aspects of Veltman's chapter in this volume 'Data semantics and the pragmatics of indicative conditionals', and particularly his semantics for conditionals, while the second will comment on more general methodological issues having to do with relations between three seemingly disparate theories: (i) Grice's theories of meaning and conversational implicature, (2) the Bayesian theory of decision making, and (3) my own probabilistic theory of conditionals. The discussion of Veltman's chapter will presuppose familiarity with technical aspects of the theory presented there. The central concept of Veltman's theory is that of a sentence being true in an information state in an information model, which is a ternary relation between sentences, information states, and information models. What we want to ask is how this ternary relation is related to the property of truth, which is what Tarski (1944) insists the sort of truth that satisfies Convention T must be. Looking ahead to pragmatic matters, to be commented on later, we shall also want to insist that what is important for those purposes is the property of truth, and not truth relative to this or that abstractly defined model. The usual way of transforming relative definitions of truth, such as truth in a model or truth in a possible world, into definitions of truth simpliciter is to stipulate that sentences (or propositions or statements, these distinctions need not concern us here) have the property of truth if and only if they are true in the actual model or possible world. There is nothing to object to in this, assuming that we can distinguish clearly between atomic and non-atomic sentences, that we are only interested in the truth conditions of non-atomic sentences, and that these can be defined recursively in terms of the truth 169

Ernest W. Adams conditions of their parts (i.e., we are only concerned with the recursive clauses of truth definitions). It should be kept in mind, however, that taking these things for granted begs a myriad of logical questions which have concerned most of the leading logicians from Aristotle to the present day. But let them be begged: we must still ask how Veltman's definition of truth in an information state in an information model might be 'derelativized' to yield a definition of truth simpliciter. I would suggest the following as a natural generalization of the method of defining truth as a property from relativized truth definitions, which might apply to Veltman's theory: a sentence may be stipulated to be true simpliciter if and only if it is true in some information state in the actual information model. To explain this suggestion in detail would not only require us to enter into the complexities of the information state and model concepts, but also to explain how what I have here called the 'actual' information model might be distinguished among all possible such models. There is not space for such a discussion here, and I will confine myself to suggesting that the actual information model (or an actual information model) must be one whose valuation function only assigns the value i to true atomic sentences and the value o to false ones. This stipulation would at least imply that atomic sentences must satisfy Convention T, and hence the most basic 'criterion of material adequacy' would be satisfied by Veltman's theory of truth in its application to atomic sentences. The question of whether this criterion of adequacy is also satisfied in application to non-atomic sentences is more delicate, but I am now going to argue, not that Tarski's criterion is not satisfied, but rather that Veltman's theory does not meet what might be called a 'pragmatic criterion of adequacy' when it applies to conditionals. The following example is described in embryo in Adams (1975). A diner, D, is seated at a table with a plate of nonpoisonous mushrooms before him that he is thinking of eating (D is not sure that the mushrooms are nonpoison ous) and an observer, O, who thinks the mushrooms are poisonous, is standing looking at him. O has a 'thought' that he expresses to himself as: Ot: If D eats the mushrooms he will be poisoned and wishing to inform D he says to him the sentence: Os: If you eat the mushrooms you will be poisoned Hearing this in turn instils in D's mind the thought which he expresses to himself as: D t : If I eat the mushrooms I will be poisoned and in virtue of coming to believe this, D decides not to eat the mushrooms. It is intuitively evident that as formulated here all of the conditional sentences O t , O s , and D t express the same proposition, though it will later be important 170

Remarks on the semantics and pragmatics of conditionals that O's and D's reasons for thinking and saying these things may be quite different. However, let us now consider their truth as characterized in Veltman's theory, augmented by my stipulation concerning the derelativization of the truth concept. It follows immediately from the truth conditions of conditionals that are assumed in Veltman's theory that the three conditionals just described would have to be true. This is because D did not eat the mushrooms, and because in application to conditionals whose parts are atomic sentences, Veltman's theory yields the same truth conditions as apply to the material conditional. The fact is that by a not uninteresting circuitous route Veltman arrives at the same conclusions about simple conditionals (ones whose parts are atomic formulae or boolean combinations of them) as does Grice (1975) and which Lewis (1976) also accepts for indicative conditionals. Now I want to argue that any theory of truth such as Veltman's that entails that the proposition which D expresses to himself as D t is true, fails to satisfy a requirement of adequacy which I would hold to be part of the rationale of logic: for specifiable reasons and in specifiable circumstances, persons should wish to accept propositions held to be true and to avoid accepting ones held to be false. Vague as this is - and I will not attempt a more careful statement here - it is at least intuitively plausible that this requirement is not met in D's situation. Whatever other requirements of adequacy may be met in defining truth in such a way that D t turns out to be true in this situation, D certainly would not have wished to accept D t , since accepting it led him not to eat the mushrooms when in fact they were not poisonous. One may argue that meeting the foregoing pragmatic requirement should be part of the rationale of logic as a normative theory, which purports to explain how persons ought to reason. Logic formulates principles whose rationale is to guide persons who follow them to true conclusions and to help them to avoid falsehood. But what if the conclusions like D t that are baptized 'true' in some logical theory are ones which persons would in fact not wish to accept? In such a case I would say that persons will be well advised to ignore theory, since it has no rationale. To follow theory in such circumstances would be like following prescriptions for playing a game, the following of which could be expected to lead to unwanted consequences. The foregoing applies to a much wider range of theories than Veltman's. Orthodox logic's material conditional analysis of conditionals clearly fails to satisfy the pragmatic requirement of adequacy, and I suspect that it is the intuitive recognition of this by students and teachers alike that leads them to treat the theory as no more than an artificial formalism, not to be applied to the practical problems of life. A similar, though somewhat weaker, criticism applies to many non-orthodox theories of conditionals, such as ordered possible worlds theories, 'relevance' theories, causal or necessary condition theories, and most of the amazing host of ad hoc theories that have been excogitated 171

Ernest W. Adams to try to account for the unwelcome counterexamples to the orthodox theory. It is not so much that these theories fail to meet the pragmatic requirement as that no effort has been made to demonstrate that they do meet it. In the absence of such an effort, the presumption is against them. (Can it be argued that it is to the diner's interest to reject D t on the grounds that in the nearest possible world in which he eats the mushrooms he will not be poisoned?) Note too that the pragmatic requirement explains the importance of insisting that truth should be a property. It is to D's interest to accept D t if it is true simpliciter, and it will be of no concern to him which models or possible worlds or information models it is true in unless he knows which among them is the actual one. In fact, one may wonder what practical interest D could have in any world other than the actual one. This could have to do with logical validity, which leads to a couple of asides on Veltman's characterization of this concept before we turn to the more important topic of pragmatics. In a generalized sense, Veltman's is a kind of truth value gap theory in that it allows that sentences may be neither true nor false in certain information states and models. This means that the definitions of logical validity must be modified to take this into account. Veltman's definition closely parallels that of three-valued logic in which the only 'designated' truth value is 'truth' (as against truth together with neither truth nor falsehood): i.e., an inference is valid in this theory if its conclusion is true in all information states and models in which all of its premises are true. Given trivalence together with this definition of logical validity, we have the standard consequence that the Principle of the Excluded Middle is not valid: i.e., 'A v - A ' is not a logical consequence of the empty set of premises. Without attempting to develop this point in detail, I want to raise a query as to whether this definition meets another pragmatic requirement of adequacy, this time not for definitions of truth but rather for definitions of validity. The requirement is that persons should have good reason to reason in accord with principles held to be valid. In particular, when they have good reason to accept the premises of such inferences and they know that the inferences are valid, this knowledge should give them good reason to accept their conclusions. The requirement defined here is not the same as the pragmatic criterion of adequacy for truth definitions and I have no argument to show that Veltman's definition fails to meet the requirement. However, I feel that it is desirable that an argument be given that such a non-orthodox validity definition as Veltman's does meet the requirement, for if it fails to do so it loses its rationale as a characterization of how persons should reason. But now we must turn to pragmatics. As will by now be evident, I use 'pragmatics' in an enlarged sense, according to which the distinction between semantics and pragmatics is an artificial one because definitions of key semantic notions such as truth are required to meet pragmatic criteria of adequacy. Of course, this merely returns to the more traditional philosophical sense of pragmatism, which stresses the practical 172

Remarks on the semantics and pragmatics of conditionals utility of holding true beliefs and which relates it to the 'contextual factors' that are currently regarded as specifically pragmatic because it is dependent on the contexts in which beliefs are held and acted upon or uttered. The current usage of 'pragmatics' focuses on utterance largely independent of belief and acceptance, but I can't be sure how important that is so far as concerns the interpretation of Veltman's theory, and it may be that I have been unduly critical in the above comments on the 'semantical' aspect of the theory in tacitly assuming that is the only aspect of the theory that has to do with belief and action. In any event, interpreting his 'pragmatics' as having implications for belief and action, i.e., as having utilitarian implications, there is much in that aspect of the theory which seems to me extremely good. I will point out just one of what I regard as the theory's excellences in this respect, and raise a methodological query. It seems to me absolutely right to relate the conditions of correct utterance of conditionals to what I would call 'practical modalities', namely the musts and mays that are discussed in their connection with conditionals in section 3 of Veltman's paper. These are intrinsically epistemic ideas, as Veltman stresses, and I am inclined to regard the expression of a practical may as describing a possibility that can't be neglected under given circumstances. Veltman's theory admirably captures Strawson's intuition that the expression of a hypothetical carries the implication of uncertainty concerning its antecedent, and I see it as having great potential for dealing with the sadly neglected topic of enthymemes involving conditionals, which are common patterns of reasoning which don't conform to this or that formal theory of validity. This leads to the methodological query. Why, given that the practical modalities in Veltman's theory are epistemic notions, as is indeed the whole theory since it is based on the idea of an information state, are these ideas not quantified probabilistically in the way that is now usual? The probabilistic formulation would also naturally accommodate two things which don't fit in so easily with the 'static' approach to semantics. One is that for the so-called unstable sentences of Veltman's theory their truth values may change within a single information model. Value change is something more commonly associated with probability than with truth, and this suggests that what Veltman labels 'truth' may really be something like 'qualitative probability' by another name. But making the probabilities explicit and quantitative would have several advantages, one of which for me would be to make it possible to link Veltman's theory with my efforts to account for enthymematic reasoning involving conditionals along probabilistic lines (Adams 1983). The other, and I think greater, advantage of an explicit probabilistic formulation would be that it would link up the theory more naturally with the actions whose practical utility is involved in pragmatic criteria of adequacy of definitions of truth and validity. In what follows I will turn from explicit consideration of Veltman's theory to unsystematic speculations on the 173

Ernest W. Adams link between utterance, acceptance and action, which I am suggesting the quantitative formulation would make possible and which involves aspects of Gricean theory, of Bayesian decision theory, and my own theory of conditionals. This will be discussed primarily with reference to the 'semiotic situation' (with apologies to Professors Barwise and Perry) involving the Diner, the Observer and the mushrooms previously described. I think an adequate semiotics should be able to account for, and link, each of four stages in the 'process' involving the Observer, the Diner and the mushrooms, as follows: (I) O having the thought he expresses to himself as Ot: If D eats the mushrooms he will be poisoned (II) O uttering the sentence Os: If you eat the mushrooms you will be poisoned (III) D 'accepting' O's statement and coming to the belief he expresses to himself as D t : If I eat the mushrooms I will be poisoned (IV) D deciding not to eat the mushrooms. Of course there is more to the story than this - for instance, D might initially have asked the question D q : If I eat the mushrooms will I be poisoned? and D's decision will in turn have consequences; but we may for now concentrate just on the four given stages. It is in explaining their causal connections that the different theories mentioned above are involved, and we work backwards, beginning with the link between D's thinking D t and his deciding not to eat the mushrooms. Bayesian decision theory (see Jeffrey 1983) is involved in explaining how D's thinking D t led him to decide not to eat the mushrooms. Very roughly, this decision is determined by two factors: D's desires, particularly those for the pleasant experience of eating nonpoisonous mushrooms and for not being poisoned by poisonous ones, and his 'conditional degrees of belief as to the chances of any of these consequences following if he eats the mushrooms. In this case we can assume that being poisoned is overwhelmingly undesirable, and the most important degree of belief 'factor' is D's regarding the chances of his being poisoned if he eats the mushrooms as high. Though it would be overly simple to hold that the sentence that D expresses as D t means that this probability is high, the two are clearly connected, since D's coming to hold the belief he expresses as D t also led him to regard the chances in this way and not eat the mushrooms. It is in explaining the connection between the 'content' of D t and the probability, that my own theory of conditionals (Adams 1975,1981) enters, though I cannot pursue this matter in detail here. The next causal link, moving backwards, is between O's utterance expressed by Os and D's coming to the belief D t , and it is in explaining this that Grjce's 174

Remarks on the semantics and pragmatics of conditionals theory of meaning (Grice 1969) comes into play. O's utterance is an assertive speech act, the primary intention of which is to elicit a 'response' in D, and which employs certain means to achieve this end. Here we may assume that O's intention was just to induce D to hold the belief expressed as D t . According to Grice's analysis, part of the means employed to bring this about is that D should come to realize that this is what O intends him to think. This of course is the point at which the meaning of the sentence Os comes into play, since D's understanding of it is what enables him to recognize what it is that O wants him to think (of course the sentence Os has various nonstandard usages, such as in irony and so on, but we can put those aside here). However, just getting D to recognize that O wants him to come to accept Dt is not enough by itself to explain D's acceptance (that doesn't give D a 'reason' for holding this belief), and to complete the explanation we must bring in other factors. Very generally, we must take into account belief kinematics such as is discussed in Jeffrey (1983: ch. 11), since that is what is involved when D changes from not thinking D t to thinking it. Passing over issues of great complexity, the sort of belief change described in this theory must be brought about by giving the believer 'rational reasons' for changing his or her mind, and in D's case they could not be his recognition of O's intentions alone. What might provide such 'sufficient reasons' would be D's coming to think that O himself holds the belief expressed as O t , and moreover for reasons that D would accept. One supposes that what O hopes for in uttering Os is that D will come to think that O believes Ot and for good reasons: O hopes that D will think he is sincere and 'well-informed'. Of course it is extremely difficult to explain what it is that might make D think O is sincere and well-informed, and I will only say that it seems to me most likely that this involves D's general belief that O values his credibility - the very thing O needs if the primary intentions of his speech acts are to have a chance of being realized - and O wouldn't risk that in a situation in which a lie or rash assertion could easily be found out. Moving back to the step from O's having the thought he expresses to himself as Ot to his asserting O s, we may not say that the thought causes the utterance, but it is clearly part of the explanation for it. We may imagine that another important factor in the explanation is O's desire to be helpful (e.g. by responding to the question D q ), and it is here that Grice's conversational maxims enter the picture. Again issues of great complexity are involved, and the only one I will select to comment on has to do with the nature of the help that D seeks and O offers. We might be inclined to think that what D really wants is just to be told what to do - to eat or not to eat the mushrooms - and that O is helping him by telling him in an oblique way not to eat the mushrooms. That might be the case in this situation, but there is a more interesting possibility. What D wants is to be placed in possession of information that will enable 175

Ernest W. Adams him to make up his own mind whether or not to eat the mushrooms, and that is what O provides him with in asserting Os. Though D presumably wants to avoid being poisoned, O cannot be certain of this (D might be hoping to experience some sort of ritual purification involving a bit of mushroom poisoning), and whichever result D wants - to be poisoned or not - O helps him to choose between eating the mushrooms or not when he offers him the information Os. The way in which this 'ethically neutral' information helps D to make his decision has already been commented on (in the step from stage III to stage IV), but a special remark may be made about the character of this sort of information, which is not of the 'ruling out of possibilities' type. What is essential to the help that is given D in telling him Os is that D comes to think that the chances of his being poisoned if he eats the mushrooms are high. A conditional probability becomes high, though nothing is ruled out with complete certainty, and that isn't important so far as concerns D's decision. Reflecting on this shows the mistakenness of Grice's claim that asserting the conditional Os in circumstances in which O has good reason to think that D won't eat the mushrooms (in fact what gives O good reason to think it is that he knows he is going to assert Os) violates a maxim of quality. This is because, though both are true, saying to D that he wouldn't eat the mushrooms would give information of a much poorer quality than the conditional, since it wouldn't provide what D wants, namely information that will help him make up his own mind whether or not to eat the mushrooms. Factual claims may function to provide information of the conventionally conceived 'ruling out of possibilities' sort (and that is what Grice presupposes in his theory of conversation), but here I am at least in general agreement with the ordered possible worlds theorists that conditionals are not factual in any simple sense. All of the foregoing is terribly sketchy and I would not want to have to defend it in any of its details. However, I feel more confident of the Tightness of the general approach, and in particular of the claim that an adequate semiotic theory must involve aspects of speech act theory and of Bayesian decision and belief change theory - and this must involve the probabilities of conditionals when assertions and thoughts are expressed by them. The problem is to work out the details, for as I see it, it is only by doing so that we will put ourselves in a position to choose between rival analyses of conditionals and other controversial forms. That is the fundamental import of the view that the distinction between semantics and pragmatics is an artificial one, and the test of such a composite theory of speech and action must be its ability to account for semiotic processes such as those just discussed. This cannot be further developed here, but I will end by describing a kind of 'test' semiotic situation due to Vann Mcgee (1984), which involves a striking counterexample to modus ponens, and which an adequate theory should be able to explain. Except for noting that the situation shows the untenability of the 'inference warrant' theory of conditionals (Toulmin 1958: 99), I will eschew comment. 176

Remarks on the semantics and pragmatics of conditionals Imagine two persons, A and B, looking into the murky waters of a shallow lake whose depth they cannot judge. They dimly make out two forms swimming near the bottom and A says to B There are two large fish. B agrees and adds Yes, and if they are fish then if they have lungs they are lungfish. But neither concludes by modus ponens that If they have lungs they are lungfish. Whatever the formulists may claim, modus ponens is not the universal bedrock of reasoning that many have supposed it to be.

REFERENCES Adams, Ernest. 1975. The logic of conditionals: an application ofprobability to deductive logic. Dordrecht: Reidel. Adams, Ernest. 1981. Truth, proof, and conditionals. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 10:340-53. Adams, Ernest. 1983. Probabilistic enthymemes. Journal of Pragmatics 7: 283-95. Grice, H. Paul. 1969. Utterers' meanings and intentions. Philosophical Review 78: 147-77Grice, H. Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Syntax and semantics, VOL 3, Speech acts, ed. Peter Cole and Jerry Morgan. New York: Academic Press. Jeffrey, Richard. 1983. The logic of decision, 2nd edn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lewis, David. 1976. Probabilities of conditionals and conditional probabilities. Philosophical Review 85: 297-315. Mcgee, Vann. 1984. A counterexample to modus ponens. Journal of Philosophy 82: 462-71. Tarski, Alfred. 1944. The semantic conception of truth. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 4. Toulmin, Stephen. 1958. The uses of argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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THE USE OF CONDITIONALS IN INDUCEMENTS AND DETERRENTS •

Samuel Fillenbaum Editors' note. Using data from a variety of experimental tasks, Fillenbaum discusses threats, bribes, and promises phrased both conditionally and disjunctively in terms of interrelations between propositional content, speaker attitude, speech act and linguistic structure. These topics are also of concern to Akatsuka, Greenberg, Haiman, Konig, and especially Van der Auwera. 1. INTRODUCTION I shall be concerned with the use of conditionals in inducements, conditional promises and bribes, and their use in deterrents, conditional threats and warnings.1 This paper will examine the logic and possible phrasing of such conditionals the principal function of which is purposive, i.e., constitutes an attempt on the part of the speaker to get the addressee to do something (// you fix the car I'll give you $100) or to refrain from doing something (// you come any closer I'll shoot). It is hoped that the account to be developed here will provide an analysis for this special class of speech act conditionals, and serve in some measure as a model for approaching the study of other sorts of conditionals; also that some of the kinds of considerations that emerge as critical here, e.g. the importance of knowledge of the contents of the p and q propositions involved in the conditional, will be of more general relevance. Conditional promises and threats clearly involve something more than the statement of a contingency between the p and q propositions involved, more even than the statement of some causal connection between these propositions. Conditional promises and threats are essentially tied to their perlocutionary effects on the addressee (Ad). The point of a conditional promise is not merely to inform Ad of the good consequences to Ad of some action, but, rather, to try to enforce that action by a (tacit) offer of these consequences. The point of a conditional threat is not merely to tell Ad of the negative consequences to Ad resulting from action on his or her part, but, rather, to deter Ad from that action by warning of such consequences. An inducement or deterrent really amounts to a speaker's request to Ad to do or not do certain things, together with information spelling out consequences for Ad designed to enforce the request. Principally, I shall be interested in determining when inducements 179

Samuel Fillenbaum and deterrents may or may not be phrased with if, and and or. It is hoped that this will reveal how these operators are used, as well as exhibiting something of the role of incentives in persuasive communication. In the frame If p, q we may represent recognition of incentives starkly by a 'plus' or 'minus' sign on the q proposition, thus symbolizing something that the Ad wants or does not want to happen. If, indeed, recognition of the incentives offered is critical to the understanding of conditional promises and threats, this suggests that recognition of the content of the q proposition is indispensable because, among other things, this will permit Ad to determine the signing and extremity of signing of the q proposition. While most attention here will be directed to the role of the rewards and punishments offered, knowledge of the p proposition that permits the Ad to assess its signing and the extremity of that signing is also highly relevant. Indeed, the relation between the p and q propositions with regard to sign and degree will determine the plausibility of any attempt at inducing or deterring action, and therefore presumably the outcome of any such attempt. From the perspective of the psychologist, let me make two kinds of comments, first something substantive and then something more methodological. The role of rewards and punishments as 'regulators of human conduct' has a long history outside of psychology proper. Within psychology, substantively and conceptually, there has been enormous concern with the ways in which rewards and punishments may be used in seeking to control and modify action and behaviour. And, in so far as incentives are verbally offered, psychologists, although hardly any would use the terminology, have been concerned with what speech act theorists might call the perlocutionary effects of an utterance on the target or addressee. So, in this area the substantive concerns of the psychologist and of the speech act philosopher readily come together (although the conceptual frameworks within which they work may differ). I have already pointed out that Ad's ability to recognize the nature and extremity of the incentive being offered requires - indeed takes for granted - an understanding of the content of the q proposition. Knowledge of semantic content is thus absolutely essential if Ad is to be able to determine whether the speaker is trying to get him to do something (the content of/?) or is trying to deter him from doing that. Very likely, propositional content figures in additional ways in the proper understanding of these and other conditionals.2 Historically, in the study of conditionals by psychologists, especially with regard to the understanding of conditionals in reasoning and inferential tasks, the dominant tendency has been to purge conditionals of semantic content as much as possible. Attempts have been made to come as close as possible to the syntactic frame If p, q, with p and q often quite arbitrary and unrelated, as if they were almost dummy propositions. More recently, even in this domain, matters of substantive semantic content have been addressed, and, more generally, there has come to be much concern with semantic memory, world know180

The use of conditionals in inducements and deterrents ledge and assumptions about communicative conventions which affect understanding (on these matters see Fillenbaum 1977b, 1978). The present chapter, as will be obvious, is in this latter mode. Now to the methodological comment: I think it is part of the professional formation, or perhaps deformation, of psychologists that they try to get data or information in various ways from subjects other than themselves. Psychologists want to fiddle with things experimentally, to manipulate things, to see what does or does not make a difference, and so on. Indeed, with regard to the study of conditionals, there are all sorts of ways to investigate how such sentences are understood and used. It is perfectly possible to ask people to make judgements of equivalence - whether or not two sentences are the same in meaning. It is perfectly possible to give people sentences, ask them for paraphrases, and to examine properties of their productions. It is perfectly possible to give people sentences and ask them to classify or categorize them, specifying the kinds of categories to be employed. It is perfectly possible to give people pairs of sentences and to ask whether, under normal circumstances, given the first one would infer the second. It is perfectly possible to have people memorize sentences and then to look at their performance on a recognition task, with particular attention to the systematic errors made. All of the above tasks, as well as others (e.g. procedures looking at response latencies) have indeed been used in the study of conditionals (see Fillenbaum 1978). I want to consider the overall shape of the results yielded by such techniques with regard to inducements and deterrents in particular, and to see what sort of an account these results demand. The analysis will seek to interpret the phenomena in terms of pragmatic factors such as the context in which inducements and deterrents are offered, as well as their communicative function as attempts to control the behaviour of Ad, a function which depends on certain assumptions held in common between the speaker (Sp) and Ad. Some suggestions will be made about inferences that may be drawn from inducements and deterrents phrased as conditionals, and the relation holding between inducements and deterrents phrased as conditional sentences, conjunctive sentences and disjunctive sentences. Essentially, all this concerns the relation between the logical form and the illocutionary force of certain kinds of sentences that figure importantly in attempts at manipulating the behaviour of others. I shall be concerned with one class of purposive uses of the conditional. What is said explicitly appears to involve a causal connection. Given If p, q, p on your part will be the cause of q on my part. What is implicit and primary, however, is a purposive or an intentional notion because q on my part is really being 'offered' to get something done or not done with regard to p on your part. This purposive or intentional notion is what defines an inducement or deterrent as such. I shall try to show that the relations holding among propositions phrased with if, and, and or are systematically affected 181

Samuel Fillenbaum as a function of whether a conditional promise or conditional threat is involved. Further, while proper understanding of both inducements and deterrents requires inferences that go beyond what is said explicitly, deterrents appear to require additional inferences at yet one extra remove. The data to be mentioned briefly are based mainly on the use of an inference task, a paraphrasing task, a judgement task where subjects were required to decide whether or not sentences were equivalent in meaning and, finally, a sentence classification or description task. A full account of the tasks, analyses, and results may be found in Fillenbaum (1976, 1978); here only the barest summary is given. 2. DATA AND INTERPRETATION 2.1 Inferences: proposition and obverse First a word about the results yielded by the inference task. Subjects were required to indicate whether or not the second of a pair of sentences was 'a reasonable, natural sort of inference' given the first sentence. The relation between the sentences in a pair was always that between a sentence and its obverse, i.e. between If p, q {If you fix the car I'll give you $100) and If not p, not q {If you don t fix the car I wont give you $100) or / / not p, q {If you don't shut up I'll scream) and If p, not q {If you shut up I won't scream). The inferences subjects draw from inducements and deterrents reveal their understanding of such statements and their appreciation of various consequences of different actions on their part. With regard both to conditional promises and conditional threats, subjects very readily accepted the 'fallacious' inference from a proposition to its obverse, with average acceptance values ranging between 80 per cent and 90 per cent. It did not seem to make any real difference whether an inducement or deterrent was involved - subjects were very prone to commit the fallacy of the denied antecedent in both cases. How may we account for such results? A Gricean explanation (Grice 1967, 1975) in terms of conversational assumptions readily suggests itself and appears plausible. Why, offered an inducement of the form Ifp, q+, might Ad believe that If notp, notq-\- follows? Consider that the inducement q+ is being offered to get Ad to do p. In so far as obtaining q+ is contingent upon doing p, the inducement would lose all force if that contingency were eliminated. If q+ were to come about whether or not Ad did p, the conditionally of the inducement which defines it as such, rather than as a simple straightforward offer of a good outcome, would be lost, and the statement would have no point. If Sp is going to give Ad $100 regardless of what Ad does, then there is no reason for Ad to modify his or her behaviour one way or the other. The argument concerning deterrents is exactly parallel. In so far as Ad believes that Sp is sincere, Ad must assume that the outcomes offered will be differential 182

The use of conditionals in inducements and deterrents and contingent upon his or her own action, which Sp is seeking to control through the inducement or deterrent offered. The 'conversational implicature' follows quite directly if Ad assumes that Sp is conforming to the maxim of quantity in saying no less than is appropriate to the circumstances. So in this context, the 'fallacious' invited inference is not only plausible, but not to make it would appear at best foolish, if not perverse. 2.2 Inferences: if not and unless We have just seen that in the case of a proposition and its obverse (e.g. the relation between Ifp, q and If not p, not q) inducements and deterrents behave in a very similar fashion, the invited inference being accepted overwhelmingly; and I have indicated why this ought to be so in terms of a Gricean conversational analysis. Now I want to look at another case involving inducements and deterrents, those phrased with if not and unless, where they behave rather differently with regard to the acceptability of invited inferences. For deterrents (conditional threats), if not and unless propositions are seen as very tightly related (following from each other 86 per cent and 90 per cent of the time, respectively). For inducements (conditional promises), the relationship is considerably weaker {if not and unless propositions follow from each other only 52 per cent and 59 per cent of the time, respectively).3 How can one explain these results, which reveal substantial and significant differences between deterrents and inducements? Propositions phrased with if not and unless often appear intimately related, if not equivalent. However, compelling arguments have been offered by Geis (1973) against the identification of unless with if not. Rather, Geis offers as a gloss for Unless p, q something like 'under all circumstances except p, q' or 'in any event other than p, q\ Why should if not and unless statements, nevertheless, often appear to be intimately related? Recourse to a principle of invited inference may help toward providing an explanation. Start with: (1)

Ifnotp,q

which readily invites the inference of its obverse: (2)

Ifp,notq

Taken together (1) and (2) license: (3)

Only if p, not q

and: (4)

Only if not p,q

both of which are consistent and compatible with Geis's gloss of unless as: (5)

'under all circumstances except p, q' 183

Samuel Fillenbaum with (4) doing this directly and (3) doing it indirectly by focusing on the only circumstance,/?, under which q would not result. Which of these is the preferred understanding of unless propositions? Fillenbaum (1976) gives some reasons in terms of behaviour under sentence negation for choosing (3) Only if p, not q, whereas Clark and Clark (1977: 457) opt for (4) Only if not p, q. Perhaps consideration of the results from the invited inference task may allow us to decide between these alternatives, and also reveal something about the kinds of knowledge involved in, and necessary for, understanding. First consider conditional threats or warnings (If notp, q-) where an utterance such as If you don't give me your money I'll kill you can readily be paraphrased as, or license the inference to, Unless you give me your money I'll kill you. On the rendering of unless as: (3')

Only if p, not q -

the unless phrasing leads to such an interpretation as Only if you give me your money, I won't kill you which quite directly specifies what Sp wants Ad to do and also indicates this as the unique condition under which q- will not occur. On this account the unless version is indeed very close to the original phrasing with if not, where Sp is trying to get Ad to do p and seeks to enforce that action by the threat of q—. On the rendering of Unless p, q— as: (4')

Only if not p, q -

the unless phrasing leads to such an interpretation as Only if you don't give me your money, I will kill you. Sp would seem to be concerned with the variety of circumstances where q— will hold rather than the unique circumstance under which it doesn't hold, which in fact Sp is trying to bring about. So on this rendering, the if not and unless versions do appear different in some respects, and should not overwhelmingly be regarded the one as leading to the other. The fact that they are so regarded therefore argues against (4') Only if not p, q- and supports (3') Only if p, not q-, on which account the results are as expected, as the more appropriate rendering of unless. Next consider inducements or conditional promises (If not p, q+), where a sentence such as / / you don't give me a ticket I'll give you $20 does not seem to be quite properly paraphrased by Unless you give me a ticket I'll give you $20. The latter sentence seems to suggest that in the ordinary run of things Sp would give Ad the $20 and only a ticket could prevent Sp from doing that, something strange and not to be expected, given our knowledge of the ways of the world. In contrast, the source promise makes it clear that the bribe is being offered just to avoid a ticket and has very much the force of Only if you don't give me a ticket will I give you $20, rather than Only if you give me a ticket won't I give you $20. On the Clarks' account where Unless p,q+ is glossed as; (4")

Only if not p, q+ 184

The use of conditionals in inducements and deterrents the unless sentence should be understood as Only if you don't give me a ticket will I give you $20 which does indeed appear to be a proper or close rendering of the original or source inducement. Hence, if this is right, one might expect inducements phrased as Unless p,q+ and If not p, q+ to be acceptable inferences from each other. The fact that this is often not the case would thus seem to tell against the Clarks' account. On Fillenbaum's account where Unless p,q+ is glossed as (3")

Only if p, not q+

the unless sentence should be understood as Only if you give me a ticket won't I give you $20 which I have suggested above in important respects misrepresents the source inducement. So, on this account, one might expect inducements phrased as Unless p, q+ and If not p, q+ often not to be acceptable inferences from each other. This is what was found, and may be taken as providing some measure of support for Fillenbaum's account. Thus in the context both of threats and promises as attempts to control or manipulate behaviour, the rendering of unless as (3) Only ifp, not q seems to be the more appropriate one.4 The main point of the foregoing is not that it provides any definitive grounds for choosing the one account for unless over the other, although it may be of some suggestive value on that score, nor that it provides any sort of adequate or complete analysis of why the relation between if not and unless is much closer for deterrents than inducements, although the findings are consistent with the suggestions that I have offered. Rather, it should be of interest because it again highlights the role of our knowledge of the ways of the world in interpretation and understanding. One does not generally assume that good things will be offered without special reason, and that only some action on the part of Ad might choke off the flow from the cornucopia (the traffic ticket example). Further, it suggests that communicative strategies may affect both phrasing and understanding. Thus, if Unless p, q is glossed as 'in all circumstances other than/?, q, and if 'all circumstances other than/?' would characteristically constitute a much larger set than p, then given the choice between Only if p, not q and Only if not p, q as renderings of unless, the former may come to be preferred just because it specifies things more precisely and specifically by using the language of (the unique) exception. 2.3 The phrasing of inducements and deterrents with if, and, and or Now consider the relations holding among inducements and deterrents phrased with if, and and or, and how these relations are systematically affected, depending on whether an inducement or deterrent is involved. To justify this interest in the phrasing of inducements and deterrents as conjunctives and disjunctives, a word is first needed on the results yielded by the paraphrase task for all sorts of conditionals. Both conditional promises and conditional threats were 185

Samuel Fillenbaum Table I. The phrasing of inducements and deterrents Promises

Threats

If you fix the car I'll give you $100

If you come any closer I'll shoot

(2)pANDq+ (3) p OR not q+ (4) *not p OR q+

(2)pANDq(3) *p OR not q (4) not p OR q -

Note: The ' + ' or ' —' sign indicates desirability or undesirability of q for the addressee and * indicates that the paraphrase is not acceptable and in some ways strange.

quite commonly paraphrased with arcd-statements, and were just about the only kinds of conditionals that elicited such paraphrases. Conditional promises were very rarely paraphrased with or-sentences, while conditional threats were very often paraphrased as disjunctives. This was especially common if they involved a negatively stated antecedent proposition (thus statements like / / you don't shut up, I'll hit you were more often than not paraphrased as something like Shut up or I'll hit you). A conditional promise phrased with if (If you fix the car I'll give you $100) can readily be paraphrased with and (Fix the car and I'll give you $100). The same holds for a conditional threat (// you come any closer Fll shoot may be paraphrased with and as Come any closer and Fll shoot). But what happens when one attempts to phrase or paraphrase these as disjunctives? In the case of the conditional promise, one might paraphrase If you fix the car I'll give you $100 as Fix the car or I won't give you $100. While this is acceptable and coherent as an attempt to elicit a particular action, it appears to differ from its source sentence in one important respect: the source sentence is a conditional promise while the disjunctive paraphrase above is really a sort of conditional threat, involving the conditional withholding of an incentive as contrasted with its conditional offer in the //"phrasing. If, on the other hand, one negates the first proposition in an attempt at a disjunctive paraphrase, one gets Don't fix the car or I'll give you $100 which is not an acceptable paraphrase of the source //"sentence. Moreover, it is strange and almost incoherent to boot (why this should be will be discussed below). Now, how about phrasing a deterrent disjunctively? Negating the first proposition yields Don't come any closer or I'll shoot which is coherent and a perfectly acceptable paraphrase of / / you come any closer I'll shoot. On the other hand, negating the second proposition leads to Come any closer or I won't shoot which is both unacceptable as a paraphrase and a somewhat strange and puzzling statement. Thus, in paraphrases with or, inducements and deterrents behave very differently. This is laid out for reference in table 1. The results from the equivalence judgement task are completely consistent 186

The use of conditionals in inducements and deterrents with expectation. In this task subjects were given pairs of sentences, the first one always phrased with if and the second phrased with either and or or, and if the latter, either the first or second proposition was negated. For both inducements and deterrents, conjunctive sentences were overwhelmingly judged equivalent to their partners phrased with if. The results with disjunctives were very different, depending on whether an inducement or deterrent was involved. For inducements, a version with or which negated the second proposition was characteristically accepted as equivalent to the //"version, while one that negated the first proposition was characteristically judged to differ in meaning from the if version. On the other hand, for deterrents, a version with or which negated the second proposition was characteristically rejected as different in meaning from the //"version, while one that negated the first proposition was overwhelmingly judged as equivalent in meaning to its //"version. The results from the description or sentence classification task yielded findings consistent with those noted above. Subjects were given a series of sentences and asked to classify each as a threat, warning, promise, or none of these (NOT). The sentences which involved inducements and deterrents were phrased as //"-sentences, as awd-sentences and as or-sentences with negation on either the first or second proposition. Phrased as conditionals or conjunctives, inducements were characteristically described as promises, and deterrents as threats or warnings. However, in the disjunctive phrasings the sign of the consequences came to have a striking, differential effect. For inducements phrased as disjunctives, if the first proposition is negated, sentences are classified as NOT over half the time; if the second proposition is negated then these sentences are characteristically regarded as threats or warnings, seldom as promises. Deterrents phrased as disjunctives with the first proposition negated are characteristically classified as threats or warnings; if the second proposition is negated over half of the descriptions fall into the NOT category. Overall, the results yielded by the various procedures are consistent and sensible. Clearly, the sign of the q proposition can make a critical difference. Inducements and deterrents behave very similarly when phrased with if and and, but differ consistently in some important respects when phrased with or. It seems difficult to phrase a conditional promise with or. When one attempts to phrase it disjunctively, with negation on the second proposition, it becomes a sort of conditional threat of the withdrawal of a positive incentive. It is perhaps worth noting that an inducement statement phrased as a conditional (// you fix the car I'll give you $100) is characteristically judged equivalent in meaning to a disjunctive version with the second proposition negated (Fix the car or I won't give you $100). At the same time, the former statement is generally regarded as a promise and the latter as a threat or warning. A considerable semantic and pragmatic subtlety is revealed in these judgements. It is as though our subjects are saying that If p, q+ and p or not q+ are equivalent because they both amount to attempts to get Ad to do p, but that

Samuel Fillenbaum they differ in that the if version tries to do this by promising an incentive while the or version seeks to do it by threatening the withdrawal of that incentive. Here I have presented some data or phenomena; what is needed now is an analysis that accounts for the ways in which inducements and deterrents may or may not be phrased, and which exhibits some of the implicit rules that govern the purposive use of conditionals as well as revealing how expectations about consequences affect the form and phrasing of such conditionals. I shall try to sketch out such an analysis, working mainly from the point of view of Ad, just because inducements or deterrents are 'essentially tied' to perlocutionary effects. They constitute attempts to get Ad to do something or refrain from doing something via 'enforcers', positive or negative incentives which are explicitly spelt out. Begin with the simple (perhaps tautological) assumption that Ad wants to get good outcomes and to avoid bad outcomes. Assume further that Ad has the requisite knowledge that allows him or her to recognize the properties of the outcome that is actually being offered (i.e. to determine the sign and extremity of signing of the q proposition). Then an inducement will be effective in so far as Ad wants q+ enough to do something, /?, in exchange (with p not too costly, or at least less costly than q+ is valuable). A deterrent will be effective in so far as Ad wants to avoid q— enough to not do something, p, in exchange (with p not too valuable, or at least less valuable than q— is costly). With this in mind, consider the phrasing of inducements and deterrents with if, and, and or. 2.4 Interpretation of inducements and deterrents phrased as conditionals First consider the if phrasing. An inducement phrased with if will have the form If p, q+. Recognizing q+ for what it is, viz. that it is positively signed and is therefore desirable, Ad might employ a legitimate argument form, modus ponens, and affirm the antecedent; Ad wants g+, Ad has just been told that tf P* <7+ holds, so Ad does p and q+ will follow. Note that even in this case Ad must go beyond what is said, i.e. Ad must recognize that Sp wants him or her not just to notice the contingency between p and q+ but also to act, and enact p (for which Ad is being offered the incentive or bribe of q+).5 A deterrent phrased with Z/7 will have the form If p, q-. Recognizing q— for what it is, viz. that it is negatively signed, and wishing to avoid it, what is Ad to do? By enacting p, Ad will get just what is not wanted. So a direct use of modus ponens is out. But by conforming to Gricean maxims, Ad will readily lapse, or better, rise into a 'fallacious' invited inference, namely / / not p, not q— will be inferred from If p, q—. If Ad then commits something amounting to modus ponens, not q—, the desired outcome is reached. Given that the invited inference here is very seductive (and indeed, as reported earlier, 188

The use of conditionals in inducements and deterrents overwhelmingly seduces our subjects), and given that reasoning conforming to modus ponens is quite easy for subjects (see Wason and Johnson-Laird 1972), the above seems a plausible account. With regard to conditional promises (inducements) and conditional threats (deterrents), the important point may not so much be that a deterrent involves an extra inferential step beyond what is required for an inducement (via a Gricean-sanctioned invited inference), but rather that both deterrents and inducements can be explained only on some theory of indirect speech acts. This theory needs to show how an addressee can or must understand an explicitly phrased conditional, or conjunctive or disjunctive, as amounting to a request to do or not do p (enforced by means of the incentive offered in q). I do not know of any such account for inducements or deterrents corresponding to, or analogous to, the account developed for requests and categorical promises, e.g. in Searle (1969). Perhaps the 'account of categorical promises . . . can easily be extended to deal with hypothetical ones' (1969: 56), but this still needs to be done. (See some comments and suggestions on this issue in Van der Auwera, this volume.) Among other things, such an analysis will have to take into account the ways in which Ad's wanting or not wanting q will get Ad to do or refrain from doing p. A Gricean notion of 'relevance' may operate here, since the content of the p proposition is particularly relevant for Sp and that of the q proposition for Ad, with the conditional nexus or link between p and q providing a device to mesh the separate goals and desires of Sp and Ad. 2.5 Interpretation of inducements and deterrents phrased as conjunctives and disjunctives Next consider the and phrasing. The formsp and q+ and/? and q— are presumably understood with and as an ordered or asymmetric causal or causal-temporal operator which directly exhibits the consequences of doing p, whether these be positive or negative. So in the first case, wanting q+ you do /?, and in the second case, wanting to avoid q- you refrain from doing p. Finally, consider the or phrasing, which is perhaps the most interesting and revealing case. Used in the context of inducements or deterrents, the form p or q involves an asymmetric use of or with the force of otherwise. If an inducement or deterrent is to be appropriately phrased as a disjunctive, it must begin with a command that explicitly expresses what Sp wants Ad to do, and then it must present, as an alternative, the relatively bad outcome which will result from not going along with the command. Only if the second proposition has a negative force, either q— or not q+, can it serve to make Ad take the other alternative, and thus function adequately as an inducement or deterrent. First consider inducements or conditional promises phrased disjunctively, say a source promise of the form If p, q+ which is phrased as p or not q+ 189

Samuel Fillenbaum (Fix the car or I won't give you $100). This disjunctive version is sensible: Ad wants q+ so will not wish to take the second alternative, not q+\ thus there is an incentive to take the first alternative, p. Next consider a rendering of If p, q+ with or that negates the first proposition, namely Not p or q+ (Don't fix the car or I'll give you $100). This is puzzling and almost incoherent, and in any case must be ineffective. Since you want q+, that constitutes a desirable alternative, and there is no reason at all to choose the other alternative, not p. An inducement of the form Not p or q+ is additionally strange in that it appears to command not p in circumstances where you as Ad will generally know that Sp really wants to elicit p. So this is a case where Sp appears to be commanding or requesting an action that Sp does not want, and offering as an alternative, to enforce this request, something that Ad does want. Such a statement is incoherent and useless as an inducement, and at the very least is in violation of Grice's maxim of manner (which, among other things, requires Sp to avoid obscurity). Certainly such a statement may appear at first to be incoherent or perverse and to violate all sorts of assumptions governing the logic of conversation, even the very basic assumption of a cooperative speaker. But just because such an assumption is absolutely basic, it may force a reinterpretation of the apparently incoherent or perverse statement. Let me comment on this issue in terms of an example offered by Van der Auwera (this volume) which essentially represents the same case and problem. Open the window or I'll kiss you would appear to be an incoherent and ineffective inducement to open the window, based on the usual assumption that being kissed is desirable. This would have the force of p or q+ and, both in terms of my account and in terms of Van der Auwera's analysis, should be ineffective in moving Ad to take the first alternative: But hearing this statement, I am very much driven to identifying the speaker as a Grendel monster rather than a Marlene Dietrich (or locating the utterance in a scenario where a little girl is talking to a little boy who is at an age and stage where there is nothing worse than being kissed by a little girl). Thus, if we modify the assumption that being kissed is desirable to the assumption that being kissed is terrible, this becomes a fairly conventional deterrent phrased in a disjunctive form porq- (for analysis of that see below). Thus, given a choice between regarding some statement as perverse and incoherent with the usual interpretation as to the meaning and signing of q, and having it coherent and sensible with an extraordinary interpretation, which may require an unusual or very special scenario or contextualization, we may be very much tempted by the latter alternative, and we may embrace that temptation. This may be yet further testimony to the great robustness of our assumptions about the cooperativeness of speakers, and of the richness of our knowledge of the world, as well as our ingenuity in marshalling that knowledge in an attempt to make sense of things and put things into a coherent framework - all of which goes far beyond issues of strictly semantic knowledge. 190

The use of conditionals in inducements and deterrents After this aside, and before turning to deterrents phrased as disjunctives, one additional comment is warranted on why it is difficult, if not impossible, to phrase conditional promises disjunctively. If a promise is to remain a promise when phrased disjunctively, then the second proposition in the or sentence must have a positive force, i.e. it must be either q+ or not q-. But if the second proposition has such a positive force, then it loses any incentive value to getting Ad to take the first alternative. Since Ad can always advantageously take the second or positive alternative, such statements cannot serve as sensible or plausible inducements to get Ad to take the first alternative. Now look at deterrents phrased disjunctively. As has already been pointed out, the first disjunct amounts to an imperative and the second disjunct is a statement of consequences for Ad, whose role it is to enforce the first disjunct, i.e. to get Ad to obey the order by choosing the first disjunct. So consider a source threat of the form If p, q— which is phrased Not p or q— (Don't come any closer or I'll shoot). You as Ad are being presented with two alternatives, one of which will come about - you are to choose. You don't want q~, by hypothesis, so there is some incentive to take the other alternative, not p. And everything seems sensible and reasonable enough in this version where the first proposition is negated. But what happens if the second proposition is negated in a disjunctive form, resulting in p or not q— (Come (any) closer or I won't shoot)? Since you want to avoid q—, not q— constitutes a desirable alternative and there is no reason to take the first disjunct, p. Indeed, a deterrent of the form p or not q- is additionally strange in that it seems to command p as an alternative in circumstances where you as Ad will generally know that Sp is really trying to elicit not p. The whole point of a deterrent is to get Ad to choose the first disjunct desired by Sp by offering as an alternative in the second disjunct consequences that are unacceptable to Ad. Therefore, a threat of the form p or not q- where Sp commands an action he does not want and offers as an alternative something that Ad does want, must appear incoherent and useless. The argument here is exactly parallel to that concerning inducements, and the same comment also holds here about our strong proclivity to contextualize apparently incoherent statements so as to make them coherent and sensible. 2.6 Disjunctive phrasing reveals whether an utterance is an inducement or deterrent In all the foregoing I have assumed that an understanding of the q proposition will permit Ad to determine its signing and the extremity of that signing, and thus to know whether Sp is trying to induce or deter Ad from doing something, as embodied in the p proposition. But on occasion, at least to a third-party audience, matters may be quite opaque or obscure as to whether an inducement or deterrent is being offered. I should like to point out that while both the 191

Samuel Fillenbaum phrasings with //"and and maintain this opacity, the phrasing with or can provide a diagnostic frame to indicate what is in fact involved. Consider the following example: Professor to student: If you date my daughter you will get a C in the course or Date my daughter and you will get a C in the coursed Is Sp trying to get Ad, who is an F student, to date his daughter offering the C (up)grade as an inducement or bribe, or is Sp trying to deter Ad, who is an A student, from dating Sp's daughter by threatening to give the C as a (down) grade? As an outsider one cannot tell from the if and and versions (although presumably Ad, who is privy to all sorts of additional knowledge about Ad's own status, knows). But now consider the possible disjunctive phrasings: If Sp says Date my daughter or you wont get a C in the course, it has to be an (attempt at) inducement, of the legitimate form p or not q+ (and we may infer that Ad is a D or F student). Whereas if Sp says Don't date my daughter or you will get a C in the course it has to be a conditional threat or deterrent of the legitimate form Not p or q- (and Ad must be a B or A student). The general point is that given the assumption of a cooperative speaker who is producing something that is sensible and coherent, and given knowledge of how inducements and deterrents may be phrased disjunctively - and that they have to be phrased differently as disjunctives - the particular disjunctive phrasing employed will reveal or betray the nature of the speech act involved. 2.7 Knowledge of q is not enough; p also counts With regard to the understanding of inducements and deterrents, however phrased, I have concentrated so far on the understanding of the q proposition which permits Ad to determine its sign and thus further to determine whether Sp is trying to induce Ad to do something or to deter Ad from doing it. But as has already been hinted, and as must in any case be obvious, for a promise or threat to be plausible it is not sufficient simply that the q proposition be appropriately signed, positively or negatively, for Ad. The sign and the extremity of the signing of the p proposition and the relation between the values of the signs of the p and q propositions must also be considered. If you do that I'll give you $100 may be a commonplace sort of inducement with p as a sort of dummy proposition of unspecified or zero sign; but matters become quite different if p is (extremely) negatively signed for Ad. Thus if that is break your mother's arm, the resulting If you break your mother's arm I'll give you $100 is ludicrous and presumably ineffective as an inducement, just because of the disproportion between the extreme cost of the act being demanded of Ad and the moderate value of the incentive being offered. If Sp believes Ad to be some sort of utilitarian who weighs the costs and values of various courses of action, then for an inducement to be effective for Ad the absolute positive value of q needs to be greater than the absolute negative value of p. In the case of a deterrent, the absolute negative value of q needs 192

The use of conditionals in inducements and deterrents to be greater than the absolute positive value of p. In general, inducements or threats that involve a disproportion in value are not likely to be effective, and therefore are not likely to be offered by Sp with realistic hopes of getting his or her way. Examples are cases in which the action being sought has a greater cost than the value of the incentive being offered, or where the action being forbidden has a greater value than the cost of the punishment being threatened. Such inducements and deterrents are not likely to be encountered under normal circumstances and, if encountered, presumably ought to be regarded as strange or extraordinary. Any such assessment of relative values and costs obviously requires that people understand the contents of the p and q propositions sufficiently to be able to do just that. This again means going far beyond treating p and q as dummy propositions in some syntactic frame or inferential schema. In fact, people are sensitive to 'felicity' conditions on inducements and deterrents, i.e. conditions that must be met if an inducement or deterrent is to be pragmatically appropriate or plausible (the work I mention briefly below can be found fully reported in Fillenbaum 1977a). Subjects judged certain patterns of signing to represent more or less normal sentences, whereas others were regarded as strange or extraordinary. Thus, sentences of the form / / p—, q++ (If you get up very early I'll take you fishing) and ///?+, q— (// you goof off any more I'll fire you) which may be taken to represent fairly common, ordinary sorts of inducements and deterrents were judged to be normal or ordinary on the average 87 per cent and 80 per cent of the time, respectively. Sentences of the form If p—, q+ (If you break your mother's arm Til give you $100) and ///?+ + , q— (If you save the child's life I'll spit in your face) seem perverse and presumably ought to be ineffective in controlling the behaviour of Ad, since the reward offered in the inducement is much less than the cost involved, and since the punishment offered in the deterrent is far less than the positive value of the act being forbidden. Indeed, sentences of these kinds were on the average judged extraordinary 75 per cent and 60 per cent of the time, respectively. Other results were also consistent with a general condition on the pragmatic plausibility of inducements and deterrents in terms of the relation between the value /cost of the act being requested or forbidden and the value /cost of the incentive being offered. 3. CONCLUSION The work presented here has a simple moral, which qua moral may be read as a quite general lesson toward the study of all sorts of conditionals. It has been shown for the limited domain of speech act conditionals used in inducements and deterrents that knowledge of the contents of the component p and q propositions is essential to proper understanding. Further, that a pragmatically oriented analysis which considers the social context in which a speech 193

Samuel Fillenbaum act occurs and the role it serves in that context is necessary. Also, that one needs to develop an account in terms of the purposes of the speaker and of the understanding of those purposes by the addressee. In short, one needs to determine what Sp is trying to do by saying what Sp does, and one needs to examine how the illocutionary point of a proposition may control its logical form and manifest expression. Finally, it seems very possible that all of the above hold not just for uses of conditionals in inducements and deterrents, but in the uses of conditionals quite generally.

NOTES 1 This paper is largely based on work reported fully in Fillenbaum (1976,1977a, 1978). 2 Consider (after Ducrot 1972) the difference between Will you go for a walk if the weather is beautiful? and Will you go for a walk if the weather is filthy?, where the former is taken as representing an implicative relation and the latter a concessive one. Ducrot argues very plausibly that the interpretation is implicative only if the interlocutor considers p as a condition favourable to q, and it is concessive only if it is admitted that p would ordinarily lead to not q. So again, what is important is the semantic content of p and q, and the relation between these contents taken in the context of our extralinguistic knowledge of the world and how we conduct ourselves in it. 3 These results are consistent with those yielded by the paraphrase task, where inducements were much less likely than deterrents to be paraphrased with unless. 4 The suggestions offered here as to the relation between if not and unless for conditional promises and threats differ from those offered in Fillenbaum (1976), where what Sp wants Ad to do or not do was taken as defining the emphasis or focus in an inducement statement. The two sorts of accounts draw attention to different aspects of the speech act situation and of relevant background assumptions or knowledge, and are not necessarily incompatible. 5 Consider how close I'll give you $100 if you fix the car is to I'll give you $100 to fix the car, and how difficult it is to identify and delimit precisely the way in which these two expressions differ in illocutionary point. 6 I owe this example to Charles Fillmore.

REFERENCES Clark, Herbert H., and Eve V. Clark. 1977. Psychology and language. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Ducrot, Oswald. 1972. Dire etnepas dire. Paris: Hermann. Fillenbaum, Samuel. 1975. IF: some uses. Psychological Research 37: 245-60. Fillenbaum, Samuel. 1976. Inducements: on the phrasing and logic of conditional promises, threats, and warnings. Psychological Research 38: 231-50. Fillenbaum, Samuel. 1977a. A condition on plausible inducements. Language and Speech 20:136-41. Fillenbaum, Samuel. 1977b. Mind your p's and q's: the role of content and context in some uses of and, or, and if. In The psychology of learning and motivation, VOL. 11, ed. Gordon Bower, 41-100. New York: Academic Press. Fillenbaum, Samuel. 1978. How to do some things with IF. In Semantic factors in cogni194

The use of conditionals in inducements and deterrents tion, ed. John W. Cotton and Roberta L. Klatzky, 169-214. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Geis, Michael. 1973. //and unless. In Issues in linguistics: Papers in honor of Henry and Renee Kahane, ed. Braj Kachru, Robert Lees, Yakov Malkiel, A. Pietrangeli and Sol Saporta, 231-53. Urbana, 111.: University of Illinois Press. Grice, H. Paul. 1967. Logic and conversation. Unpublished lecture notes, William James Lectures, Harvard University. Grice, H. Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Syntax and semantics, VOL. 3, Speech acts, ed. Peter Cole and Jerry Morgan, 41-58. New York: Academic Press. Searle, John. 1969. Speech acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wason, Peter C , and P. N. Johnson-Laird. 1972. Psychology of reasoning: structure and content. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

195

10 CONDITIONALS AND SPEECH ACTS •

Johan Van der Auwera Editors' note. The interaction of conditionals with assertions, questions and imperatives is considered with a view to determining how conditionals are understood. Van der Auwera's discussion of the interpretations of conditionals as threats and promises or as concessives, and of coordinate constructions as conditionals, provides direct links with chapters by Fillenbaum, Haiman, and Konig. 1. INTRODUCTION In this chapter I will discuss the following four questions: (i) Is there a difference between conditional speech acts and speech acts about conditionals? (ii) Is supposing a separate speech act? (iii) Why is it that an interrogative if is easily interpretable as even iff (iv) How is it that apparent imperative-arcd-assertion and imperativeor-assertion constructions such as (i) contain a conditional meaning? (i)Take that job or I'll leave you What these problems have in common is that they essentially involve the interaction of speech acts and conditionals.1 Before I start I must say something about limitations and methodology. First, speech acts will be discussed at a very general level. Although one can do thousands of things with words, I assume that most, if not all, speech acts are at some level of description assertions, questions, or imperatives. Therefore these three speech acts are basic (see Van der Auwera 1980). It is the relation between basic speech act notions and conditionals that is at issue in this paper. Second, many conditionals are ambiguous or vague between what one can call 'indeterminacy' and 'contingency' readings. When something is indeterminate, it is possibly true and possibly false, but as such neither true nor false. When something is contingent, it is neither necessary nor impossible. Consider this distinction for the following conditional about the species of kangaroos: (2)

If a kangaroo has no tail, it topples over 197

Johan Van derAuwera In its indeterminacy reading, (2) says that it is possibly true and possibly false that kangaroos have no tails; the speaker (Sp) doesn't know, or pretends not to know, too much about kangaroos. In its contingency reading, (2) says that it is a contingent, i.e. non-necessary, feature of individual kangaroos that they have no tails (the speaker knows, or pretends to know, that there are kangaroos with tails, and kangaroos without). For reasons of space, I will not analyse the relation between the two readings (see Van der Auwera 1985: 203-13) and will concentrate on indeterminacy readings. Third, each of the phenomena to be discussed is somewhat odd. How should one deal with odd phenomena? One piece of advice was offered more than a century ago by C. S. Peirce; he formulated the following Practical Maxim of Logic: Facts cannot be explained by a hypothesis more extraordinary than those facts themselves; and of various hypotheses the least extraordinary must be adopted. (1982: 452, lecture notes of 1865) I further assume that an hypothesis becomes less extraordinary the more it relies on, or generalizes over, hypotheses that are independently needed in the account of the ordinary. 2. CONDITIONAL SPEECH ACTS OR SPEECH ACTS ABOUT CONDITIONALS? 2.1

Consider the following dialogues: (3)

If you inherit, will you invest? Yes

(4)

If you saw John, did you talk to him? Yes

The point of interest lies in the way the addressee (Ad) would normally expand on this yes. In (3) Ad would normally affirm the entire conditional: (3')

If you inherit, will you invest? Yes, if I inherit, I will invest

In (4) this kind of expansion is strange; it seems more natural for Ad to assent to the truth of both the protasis and apodosis, or just to affirm the apodosis: (4')

If you saw John, did you talk to him? Yes, if I saw him, I talked to him

(4")

If you saw John, did you talk to him? Yes, I saw him and I talked to him

(4'")

If you saw John, did you talk to him? 198

Conditionals and speech acts Yes, I talked to him The distinction between the yes of (3') and that of (4'") has led Holdcroft (1971: 129; see also Zuber 1983: 100-1) to think that Sp in (4'") takes it for granted that Ad saw John; Sp only wants to know whether Ad talked to John. According to Holdcroft, the //"-question in (4'"), in contradistinction to that of (3'), is not really a question about a conditional; it is instead a conditional question. In a conditional question, Holdcroft claims, one only asks whether the apodosis is true, yet the very act of asking is presented as dependent on the condition that the protasis is true.2 If a distinction between speech acts about conditionals and conditional speech acts is useful for questions, one should test it on the other basic speech acts, too.3 (5)

If you phone Mary, ask her to dinner

Is (5) an imperative to make a conditional true or is it an imperative made conditionally? Holdcroft (1971: 130, 132) believes that imperatives have two interpretations; Dummett (1959: 150), on the other hand, contends that the distinction is vacuous. It is no less vacuous in the case of assertions, according to Dummett (1959: 152). But then Quine (1950: 12), von Wright (1963), Belnap (1970), Holdcroft (1971: 134-5), Long (1971), Mackie (1973: 103), and Lauerbach (1979: 217) maintain that there is indeed a genuine distinction between assertions about conditionals and conditional assertions. In any case, it seems that we are left with an important problem (see also Davison 1983: 505-7). 2.2

If one considers examples such as (6) to (8): (6)

If I can speak frankly, he doesn't have a chance

(7)

Where were you last night, if you wouldn't mind telling me?

(8)

Open the window, if I may ask you to

then it is hard not to grant that there are truly conditional speech acts, i.e. if p, then q speech acts that are not about any conditional relation between p and q, but represent p as a condition for a speech act about q. Sentences (6) to (8) illustrate a very idiomatic type of speech act. Lauerbach (1979: 215-53; cp. also Heringer 1976: 38-50; Van Dijk 1979: 454-5, 1981: 172-3) has given sentences of this type a Gricean analysis: the protasis is a comment on a conversational or politeness maxim and functions as a politeness or opting out device.4 Lauerbach's term for this kind of conditional speech act is 'commentative'. Though we are here concerned with the question of whether there are such things as conditional speech acts, the admission of the class of commentatives does not really settle the issue. Implicitly, but no less essentially, the issue 199

Johan Van der Auwera addressed by Holdcroft and others only concerns noncommentatives. The real question is whether a noncommentative if-then speech act can be a conditional speech act. Let us approach this problem by comparing if-then with and, or, and not. When and {A), or (v) or not (~) 'meet' the speech operators h (for assertions), ! (for imperatives), and ? (for questions), one expects the speech act operators to have scope over the propositional connectives. The following analyses are uncontroversial. (9)

Did you go to Berlin and see the zoo?

(9)

?((vou w e n t

(10)

She sent a letter or she made a call

(10')

h ((she sent a letter) v (she made a call))

(11)

Don't go to Cornell

(11')

! (~ (you go to Cornell))

to

Berlin) A (you saw the zoo))

There is no a priori reason to assume that if-then (—>) is different from and, or, or not. In this perspective (5) gets analysed as (5'): (5')

• ((y° u phone Mary) —> (you ask her to dinner))

If (5) is considered to be a conditional speech act, however, we get (5"): (5")

(y° u phone Mary) —> (! (you ask her to dinner))

In (5") the speech act operator does not have scope over the conditional. In other words, the conditional speech act analysis seems to treat if-then as an exception. Of course, there is nothing wrong with a genuine exception, but how are we to recognize one? Which is correct, (5') or (5")?5 I will defend (5'). More generally, I propose to treat all noncommentative if-then speech acts as speech acts about conditionals. In order to claim that something is a speech act about a conditional, it is necessary to have an account of conditionals. Here I propose a Sufficiency Hypothesis (see Van der Auwera 1985: 189-202) saying that a propositional content if p, then q means that p is a sufficient condition for q. Let us assume that the Sufficiency Hypothesis is correct and use it in the analysis of speech acts about conditions. Applying the Sufficiency Hypothesis to (5), one will claim that (5) is an imperative for Ad to see to it that any eventual phone call to Mary will be sufficient for the invitation to dinner to come into force. I find this a perfectly intuitive claim. With respect to the question in (3), the Sufficiency Hypothesis allows for the equally intuitive claim that Sp is asking whether an inheritance will be sufficient for an investment. As to the assertion in (2) in the indeterminacy reading, one will claim that the fact that kangaroos have no tails is sufficient for them to topple over. In short, the Sufficiency 200

Conditionals and speech acts Hypothesis allows us to make sense of the notion of a speech act about a conditional and to maintain the generalization that speech act operators have widest scope. I therefore suggest that all noncommentative if-then speech acts are speech acts about conditionals, and that only commentative if-then speech acts are conditional speech acts. If this is true, I can drop the term 'commentative'. 2-3 A question I haven't touched upon yet is whether speech act operators have widest scope even in true conditional speech acts. Take the conditional imperative of (8) again: (8)

Open the window, if I may ask you to

As described above, the problem with a conditional speech act analysis is that it embeds ! in the scope of —>. (8')

(I may ask you to open the window)-* (! (you open the window))

This goes against the generalization that speech act operators have widest scope and it disregards the fact that (8) as a whole functions as an imperative. How do we take care of this difficulty? Notice first that embedding a speech act operator in the scope of —• doesn't prevent us from employing a second speech act operator, represented with a speech act operator variable, $, and embedding —> in its scope. (8")

$((I may ask you to open the window)—* (!(you open the window)))

This may seem ad hoc, yet there is at least one other linguistic construction that requires an analysis with two speech act operators, viz. the echo construction (see Seuren 1976, 1979: 6). Normally, a degree adverb like still cannot be immediately preceded by a negation: (12)

You do not still have cold fingers

Sentence (12) is grammatical, however, if still has emphasis and (12) as a whole echoes a positive assertion: (13)

I still have cold fingers What are you talking about? You do not still have cold fingers. You never had cold fingers

The analysis of You do not still have cold fingers with the emphasis on still is: (14)

h(~(h (you/1 still have cold fingers)))

Thus we see that echo constructions require a double speech act analysis. Admittedly, this analysis is a little strange, but so is the echo phenomenon itself, and so, I claim, are conditional speech acts. 201

Johan Van der Auwera As it stands, (8") won't do. We still have to specify the type of the widest scope speech act. I propose to treat it as an assertion: (8'")

h((I may ask you to open the window)-* (!(you open the window)))

If one adopts an ordinary language concept of assertion, this analysis may sound forced, the simple reason being that the assertion in (8) is very far from a typical assertion. With a more abstract, 'basic speech act' notion of assertion, however, everything falls into place: with (8) one does indeed (literally) present it as being the case that the mere permission to utter an imperative is sufficient for this imperative. This sufficiency is neither questioned nor impered.6 We should now show how our proposal takes account of the intuition that (8) doesn't really function as an assertion, but as an imperative. The analysis in (8'") is not incompatible with this intuition, for we do have theories telling us how speech acts of one type do the job of speech acts of another type. We know that assertions can conversationally implicate imperatives or, what amounts to the same thing, that direct assertions can be indirect imperatives. Unfortunately, with respect to (8) this particular approach is not very promising. That (8) functions as an imperative seems to me to be a matter of conventional meaning, much more than a conversational implicature analysis with its emphasis on context allows for. I will, instead, fall back on a Performative Hypothesis. The version of the Performative Hypothesis that I defend is the one that says that a performative utterance is an assertion about a speech act which counts as the performance of the described speech act. Thus (15): (15)

I hereby order you to leave

is both an assertion about an order, at one level of structure, and, at a second level, the performance of the self-same order. I believe that this idea is valid for conditional speech acts, too. Sentence (8) is both an assertion about an imperative and a performance of that imperative. Thus conditional speech acts can be considered as a type of performative. Whether or not one wants to reserve the term 'performative' for the typical first person present tense hereby type of speech acts is a purely terminological issue. What matters is that it is not all that strained to claim that (8) is both an imperative and an assertion about that imperative. It is special, but so are conditional speech acts. 2.4

So far, I have provided analyses for conditional speech acts and for speech acts about conditionals. In principle, the distinction between these two types of entity is clear: while a speech act about a conditional is a speech act whose propositional content is a conditional, in a conditional speech act the protasis 202

Conditionals and speech acts is asserted to be a sufficient condition for a speech act about the apodosis. Thus no discussion is needed about the status of (2) or (8). What about the If you saw John, did you talk to him? of (4), however? As mentioned in section 2.1, Holdcroft (1971) considers this to be a conditional speech act, too. This is not self-evident. It certainly isn't obvious how the protasis comments on a maxim or represents a sufficient condition for a question about the apodosis. We furthermore lack the idiomaticity typical for all conditional speech acts considered so far. On the other hand, If you saw John, did you talk to him? isn't normally a simple question about a conditional either. One would expect a positive answer to a question about a conditional to be the assertion of that conditional. In the case of If you saw John, did you talk to him?, however, this expectation is not borne out. A positive answer normally asserts the truth either of the apodosis alone or of both protasis and apodosis, and this was why Holdcroft (1971) favoured a conditional question analysis. In my opinion, If you saw John, did you talk to him? is a question about a conditional which contextually implies a conditional question. The basic idea is this: in the context in which p is taken to be true, the question whether p is sufficient for q implies the question whether q. What is involved is a speech act sensitive modus ponens rule, formulated tentatively as (16): (16)

(?(p^q)AGIVEN(p))^?(q)

Similar rules exist for conditional assertions and imperatives: (17) (18) Expressions (17) and (18) say that the givenness of p makes assertions and imperatives about conditionals imply conditional assertions and imperatives. Consider (19) and (20): (19)

. . . so I saw John All right now. If you saw John, then you saw how miserable he felt

(20)

. . . so I saw John All right now. If you saw John, tell Mary about it

In (19) seeing John is asserted to be sufficient for seeing his misery. In (20) Ad is impered to see to it that seeing John is sufficient for telling Mary about it. So both (19) and (20) are real speech acts about conditionals. Yet, a special feature of (19) and (20) is that their //"resumes the contextually given p (see Inoue 1983; Akatsuka in this volume, on resumptive if), and relative to the givenness of/?, the speakers end up, respectively, asserting or impering that q. 3. A SPEECH ACT OF SUPPOSING? 3-1 If some if p, then q speech acts are really speech acts which have q as their 203

Johan Van der Auwera propositional content and p as a condition for the making of the speech act, what then is the linguistic status of if pi It is not sufficient to say that p is a condition for the speech act q. Speech acts involve a host of conditions, most of which remain unexpressed. The condition of if p is expressed and made the propositional content of some kind of speech act, too. What kind? It has been argued by Ducrot (1972: 167-90) and by Mackie (1973: 92-188) - independently of the conditional speech act issue - that it is worthwhile granting ifp a speech act type of its own, viz. that of 'supposing'.

3-2

Ducrot and Mackie deny the relevance or adequacy of (neo-)classical accounts such as the material implication or possible worlds theories and claim that if is essentially a marker of a speech act of supposing. While I endorse the Ducrot-Mackie criticism, I do not think that the mere invention of the new speech act term 'supposing' constitutes progress. I do believe, however, that every if-then speech act, whether assertive, interrogative, or imperative, involves an assertion of the possibility of both protasis and apodosis (Van der Auwera 1985: 203-13). In each of the speech acts in (21): (21)

a. If you see John, you will talk to him b. If you see John, will you talk to him? c. If you see John, talk to him

Sp asserts that it is possible that Ad will see John and talk to him. There is no objection to calling the assertion of a possibility a 'supposition', but then a supposition is not a new speech act, but an assertion with a special propositional content. In this proposal, a speech act such as (21c) comes out as a combination of two different types of speech acts: (21c) is simultaneously imperative and assertive. I will use the sign & to symbolize this simultaneity: (22)

!(p-* q) & I- (it is possible that p and that q)

The sign & is different from A: the latter is a propositional conjunction, the former connects simultaneous speech acts.

4. I N T E R R O G A T I V E IF AND EVEN IF //doesn't normally mean even if. Under a neutral intonation, (23a) and (23b) do not normally mean the same as (24a) and (24b): (23)

a. I will go//"John goes 204

Conditionals and speech acts b. Go if John goes (24)

a. I will go even ifJohn goes b. Go even if John goes

In questions, however, it turns out to be much easier to interpret if as even if, a fact discovered by Ducrot (1972:171-4). Sentence (25a) can be paraphrased in two ways: (25)

a. Will you go if John goes? b. Will John's going make you go? (if) c. Will John's going prevent you from going? (even if)

Ducrot clearly demonstrates how the choice between the concessive and the nonconcessive reading is determined contextually, but he fails to explain what it is about interrogative if, different from assertive and imperative if, that makes it prone to be read as even //"(see Konig in this volume). Haiman (this volume) has suggested that the if of (25a) is easily interpretable as even if, because it follows its apodosis, as concessive if clauses typically do in English. Yet the ifs of (23a) and (23b) follow their apodoses, too, without being particularly easy to interpret as even if Moreover, if interrogative //"precedes its apodosis (25d), its potential concessiveness does not seem to decrease: (25)

d. If John goes will you go?

My attempt at explaining the discrepancy between interrogative if and assertive or imperative if is based on two independently needed hypotheses: (i) a claim on the meaning of even if, and (ii) a claim on the meaning of questions. Even if is composed of even and if It is natural to assume that the even plus the if is not an idiom. Given this assumption, I first turn to if. The only claim about if I need is the Sufficiency Hypothesis. In a somewhat more sophisticated phrasing than the one offered in section 2.2,7 the Sufficiency Hypothesis says that ifp, then q means that it is true of some state of affairs, say r, that p is sufficient for q. As to even, the only presently relevant claims are the following: (i) the sentence without even, say p, is true of the state of affairs r that the sentence with even is true of (ii) there is some feature of r, say s, that makes it unexpected that p is true of r; in more logical terms, s is ceteris paribus sufficient for not p

An example will clarify this: (26)

a. Even John gave Mary a kiss b. It is true of some state of affairs r that John gave Mary a kiss and that something (s), e.g. the fact that John hates Mary, is ceteris paribus sufficient for it not being the case that John gave Mary a kiss 205

Johan Van derAuwera It follows that even if p, then q, when true of r, means that it is true of r that p is sufficient for q, and that it is also true of r that there is some s that is ceteris paribus sufficient for it not being the case that p is sufficient for q. The important point is that even if crucially invokes both the truth and the falsity of the sufficiency of/? for q. What now does an if-then question do that is different from an if-then assertion or imperative and that can be related to the meaning of even if! Questioning whether/? is sufficient for q is asking whether it is true or false that/? is sufficient for q. In other words, an if-then question essentially invokes both the truth and the falsity of the sufficiency of p for q. Here then, I propose, lies at least a partial explanation of why interrogative if is easily interpretable as even if. both even if and interrogative if essentially involve the truth as well as the falsity of the sufficiency of p for q. Assertive and imperative if do not have this property: they only express that it is/be true that/? is sufficient for q. An indirect argument in favour of the above hypothesis is that if the question is biased, it is much harder to interpret if as even if. In a neutral question, truth and falsity carry equal weight. Not so in a biased question. Consider (27):

(27)

Won't you go if John goes?

In the intended reading, (27) suggests that Ad will go: the negation only functions to evoke a positive answer, i.e. an assertion that it is true that/? is sufficient for q. In this reading, if cannot be interpreted as even if. 5. IF-LESS

CONDITIONALS WITH AND AND OR

5-1 Our fourth puzzle derives from Lawler (1975) and Fillenbaum (1975, 1976, 1977, 1978 and this volume). Sentences (28) to (31) seem to be imperatives with a conditional meaning: (28)

Open the window and I'll kill you

(29)

Open the window and I'll kiss you

(30)

Open the window or I'll kill you

(31)

?? Open the window or I'll kiss you

On the assumption that killing is undesirable and kissing desirable, (28) acts as an imperative not to open the window. Its implicit conditional meaning can be phrased as follows: (32)

If you open the window, I'll kill you

Sentence (29) is an imperative to open the window and its implicit conditional is (33): 206

Conditionals and speech acts (33)

If y ° u ° P e n the window, I'll kiss you

Like (29), (30) is an imperative to open the window; its implicit conditional is a little different: (34)

If you do not open the window, I'll kill you

One would then expect that (31) is like (28) and that it effectuates an imperative not to open the window, but that is not the case. It can be an imperative to open the window, but then it implies that kissing is undesirable. Note that the unacceptability of (31) as an imperative not to open the window cannot merely be due to the fact that a literally expressed Open the window cannot mean Do not open the window, for this kind of reversal does take place in (28). There are three problems I want to focus on in the rest of this paper, (i) What is the speech act analysis of (28) to (31); more particularly, are they conjunctions or disjunctions of imperatives and assertions? (ii) Just how can and and or be said to carry a conditional meaning? (iii) How can we account for the and-or asymmetry?8 5-2 At first sight, (28) to (31) are counterexamples to the generalization that speech act operators have widest scope: it seems that and and or connect imperatives and assertions. Take (28): (28')

(!(you open the window)) & (h(I'll kill you))

Under the analysis in (28'), Sp makes the unconditional assertion that Sp will kill Ad. This means that (28') is either wrong or incomplete: in some way or another, an analysis must say that Sp is only committed to kill Ad in case the latter opens the window. If one assumes that (28') is correct but incomplete, one could say that the claim that Sp makes an unconditional assertion only applies to the literal meaning. The literal meaning would then be enriched by contextual meaning and it is the context which would relate and conditionalize the killing to the window opening. Alternatively, one could claim that (28') is wrong and that the relation between killing and window opening is a matter of literal meaning. I will defend the latter account. For a start, I propose to conjoin the killing and window opening under the imperative operator: (28")

!((you open the window) A (I'll kill you))

My argumentation is the following. First, if (28) were really the conjunction of an imperative and an assertion, one could expect it to be (virtually) synonymous with a mere serialization of the assertion and the imperative: (35)

Open the window. I'll kill you 207

Johan Van der Auwera This is manifestly not the case. In (35) Sp makes a literal unconditional assertion that Sp will kill Ad. So (28) must be something else. Suppose one still contends that the Sp of (28) makes some kind of unconditional assertion. Now if it were true that it is the context that relates the killing and the window opening, why then would it be much harder for the context to establish this connection in the case of (35)? The presence or the absence of a conjunction should not make any difference. Compare (36a,b): (36)

a. He opened the window and I killed him b. He opened the window. I killed him

In the right context, both (36a) and (36b) suggest a conditional relation. It does not matter whether and is expressed. It does matter in the case of (28) and (35). Hence (28') is implausible. My second, third and fourth arguments can be put together. (28") does, while (28') does not, (i) obey the generalization that speech act operators have widest scope; (ii) respect the intuition that the whole of (28) counts as an imperative; and (iii) allow for a uniform account of (28)/ (29) and (30)/ (31) (see below). Expression (28") still doesn't say that the killing is dependent on the window opening. In this respect, (28") is like (28'). I will not, however, go as far as to say that the conditional element is not a part of the literal meaning. It seems to me that it may well have been a nonliteral, contextual meaning, more particularly, a conversational implicature based on 'linguistic precedence reflects world precedence' and 'post hoc, propter hoc' assumptions, but, if so, it has been fully conventionalized. I do not think that one can consistently say something like: (37)

Open the window and I'll kill you, but I will not kill you if you open the window

One way to symbolize the conditionality is to say that (28) is simultaneously an imperative to see to it that p and q and an assertion that p is sufficient

ioxq: (28'") (!((you open the window) A (I'll kill you))) & (h((you open the window)—> (I'll kill you))) Is (28'") ad hoc? Perhaps not. A speech act such as (28) is a little special. So one could expect the analysis to be a little special too. I do not think that (28'") is too special. It is not miraculous, for example, that (28) is associated with two kinds of speech acts, an imperative and an assertion. Remember (from section 3.2) that if-then speech acts consist of two speech acts, too: one about the sufficiency of protasis for apodosis, and one an assertion about the possibility of protasis and apodosis. Another special feature of (28'") is that both p and q are within the scope of an imperative, while only the 208

Conditionals and speech acts protasis verb has imperative form.9 Again, this is not really bizarre. 'Normal' ifp, then q imperatives only have one imperative form, too: (38)

If he opens the window, kill him

Of course, in (38) it is the apodosis verb that has imperative form, while in (28) it is the protasis verb. In (38) Ad is impered to do q, given /?, and Ad should not worry about p. In (28) we find the exact opposite: Ad is impered to dop and not to worry about q, which, given/?, will come about automatically. A point of interest is that the double speech act analysis of (28'") is compatible with the fact that some speech acts of the form of (28) seem to be primarily imperative, while others seem primarily conditional. Sentence (28), for example, is first and foremost an imperative. 'General imperatives', however, such as (39): (39)

Scratch a Russian and you'll find a Tartar

(due to Jespersen 1940: 475) capitalize on the conditional meaning. This is also the case when the q verb has a past tense. Sentence (40) is again due to Jespersen (1940: 476-7, 1963: 314-15): (40)

Give him time, and he was generally equal to the demands of suburban customers

5-3 The ( ! ( / ? A ^ ) ) & (!-(/?—• ~p). Informally: (41)

i If Ad opens the window, Sp will kill Ad ii Ad doesn't want to be killed by Sp iii Hence Ad shouldn't open the window

This argument is so obvious that Sp must be judged uncooperative if Sp doesn't want Ad to think this way. Given the conclusion that Ad should not open the window, (28) turns into an imperative not to open the window. In (29) the context allows for a quasi-logical argument based on the desirability of the apodosis. Here the argument doesn't generate a new imperative meaning: it only reinforces the literal one. (42)

i If Ad opens the window, Sp will kiss Ad ii Ad wouldn't mind a kiss from Sp iii Hence Ad wouldn't mind doing something that is sufficient for Sp to kiss Ad 209

Johan Van der Auwera iv Given that (i) Ad happens to be impered to open the window, and (ii) opening the window is sufficient for a kiss from Sp, Ad now has two reasons for opening the window

54 Is (30) really a disjunction of an imperative and an assertion? (3°')

(-(y° u ° P e n t n e window)) v (h (I'll kill you))

If so, (30) is a very curious type of speech act: it is either an imperative or an assertion, yet as such it is neither. (30) would furthermore provide a counterexample of the rule that speech act operators have widest scope. An analysis that avoids these pitfalls and that is in line with that of (28) and (29) is (30"): (30")

!((you open the window) v (I'll kill you))

Expression (30") represents (30) as an imperative to see to it that a state of affairs results in which Ad opens the window or gets killed by Sp. Just like p —»q imperatives and p A q imperatives of the type illustrated in (28) and (29), (30) contains an assertion. It is inconceivable to me that one can consistently say something like: (43)

Open the window or I'll kill you, but it is not the case that you open the window or that I'll kill you

On this basis, I suggest that/7 v q is both impered and asserted: (30'") (!((you open the window) v (I'll kill you))) & (h((you open the window) v (I'll kill you))) If this is correct and we have an account in which p v q implies ~p—>
5-5

What remains to be explained is the discrepancy between (30) and (31). In (30) the undesirability of being killed triggers a logical argument reinforcing the literal imperative meaning. This argument is based on the Disjunctive Syllo-

gism (((p v q) A ~q)-*p): (44)

i Ad opens the window or Sp will kill Ad ii Ad doesn't want to be killed by Sp hi Hence Ad should open the window

In some respects, (30) is like (29). Both count as imperatives to do/?, supported by a (quasi-)logical argument based on the (un)desirability of q. If and and 210

Conditionals and speech acts or were symmetrical, (31) should be like (28) and there should be a (quasi-) logical argument based on the (un)desirability of q, generating a contextual imperative meaning different from the literal one and which turns (31) into an imperative not to do p. In (28), this kind of argument is based on modus tollens. In (31), however, there can't be any such argument. First of all, there can't be a logical argument. From p v q (or ~p^>q) and the desirability of q, it does not follow that p is undesirable. Second, there is no quasi-logical argument either. If there were one, it would have to be structured as follows: (45)

i If Ad doesn't open the window, Sp will kiss Ad ii Ad wouldn't mind being kissed by Sp iii Hence Ad wouldn't mind doing something that is sufficient for Sp to kiss Ad iv Given that (i) Ad happens to be impered not to open the window, and (ii) not opening the window is sufficient for a kiss from Sp, Ad now has two reasons for not opening the window

The trouble with (45) is that the first premise in iv is false; Ad has been impered to open the window. If we correct the premise, however, the argument becomes invalid. Conclusion: (31) cannot function as an imperative not to open the window in the way (28) does, nor in the way (29) and (30) function as imperatives to open the window. 6. CONCLUSIONS As I have raised four questions, I have four sets of conclusions: (i) a. There is a difference between speech acts about conditionals and conditional speech acts. b. The true, commentative conditional speech acts are (like) performatives. c. Noncommentative conditional speech act meanings are derivable from speech acts about conditionals through a speech act sensitive modus ponens rule. (ii) It is unnecessary to regard supposing as a separate speech act. (iii) An explanation of why interrogative if is easily interpreted as even if is that both interrogative //"and even //"essentially involve the truth as well as the falsity of the sufficiency of/? for q. (iv) a. What look like conjunctions or disjunctions of imperatives that p and assertions that q are simultaneously imperatives that p and/or q, and assertions about a conditional relation between p and q. b. The asymmetries between these and and or structures follow from general logical and conversational principles. 211

Johan Van derAuwera NOTES 1 Thanks are due to Ernest Adams, Osten Dahl, Teun De Rycker, Samuel Fillenbaum, Steven Geukens, John Haiman, David Holdcroft, Ekkehard Konig and Elizabeth Traugott for comments on an earlier draft of this paper. 2 Note that (3) and (4) exhibit not only a potential speech act difference, but also a tense difference. It seems to me that the conditional question interpretation is facilitated by the use of a past tense in the protasis. They do not necessarily go together, however. On the one hand, Sp can ask whether Ad talked to John if he (Ad) saw him, without taking it for granted that Ad saw John - compare (4'). On the other hand, in a context in which it is fully certain that Ad will inherit, (3) may be meant as a conditional question. In this paper I will leave all problems about tenses aside. 3 The term 'conditional speech act' is used in a different way by Wunderlich (1977: 256-8), who employs it to characterize such speech acts as warning, threatening, advising, and proposing. Compare also Van Dijk (1981: 136). 4 This is not always the case, however. In If you really know all the answers, where then did Napoleon die? the protasis does not serve any politeness or opting out function. 5 One solution, which surfaces in Mackie (1973: 93, 103; cf. section 3, however) is to say that if-then is itself a speech act operator. 6 I use the Ross (i97o)-Heringer (1976) neologism to refer to the act common to all imperatives, i.e. to what subsumes things like requests, orders, and suggestions. 7 The element of sophistication is the use of a dyadic true of operator. There is more on this in Van der Auwera (1985: 100-15, 157-69) 8 For some other possible answers and for further problems see Culicover (1972), Fillenbaum (1975, 1976, 1977, 1978), Geukens (1978: 270-1) and Wexler (1978). On conditionals with and, see also Haiman (1983, this volume). 9 In English, imperatives and infinitives look alike. Crosslinguistic evidence suggests that we are indeed dealing with an imperative, however. See Kiihner (1914: 5, 165) on Latin, Kiihner (1898: 237) on classical Greek, Erdmann (1886: 120) on German and Grevisse (1980: 1369, 1385) on French. See also Brugmann (1918: 53), Jespersen (1963: 314), and Culicover (1972: 207-8). For the hypothesis that the protasis is not imperative, see Bolinger (1967: 340-6) and Lawler (1975: 372-3).

REFERENCES Belnap, Nuel D. Jr. 1970. Conditional assertion and restricted quantification. Nous 4: 1-12.

Bolinger, Dwight. 1967. The imperative in English. In To Honor Roman Jakobson, VOL. 1, ed. Morris Halle et al., 335-62. The Hague: Mouton. Brugmann, Karl. 1918. Verschiedenheiten der Satzgestaltung nach Massgabe der seelischen Grundfunktionen in den indogermanischen Sprachen. Leipzig: Teubner. Culicover, Peter W. 1972. OM-sentences. On the derivation of sentences with systematically unspecifiable interpretations. Foundations of Language 8: 199-236. Davison, Alice. 1983. Linguistic or pragmatic description in the context of the performadox. Linguistics and Philosophy 6: 499-526. Ducrot, Oswald. 1972. Dire et ne pas dire. Principes de semantique linguistique. Paris: Hermann. Dummett, Michael. 1959. Truth. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 59: 141-62. Erdmann, Oskar. 1886. Grundziige der Deutschen Syntax nach ihrer geschichtlichen 212

Conditionals and speech acts Entwicklung, Erste Abteilung. Stuttgart: Verlag der J. G. Cotta'schen Buchhandlung. Fillenbaum, Samuel. 1975. If: some uses. Psychological Research 37: 245-60. Fillenbaum, Samuel. 1976. Inducements: on the phrasing and logic of conditional promises, threats, and warnings. Psychological Research 38: 231-50. Fillenbaum, Samuel. 1977. Mind your/?'s and g's: the role of content and context in some uses of and, or, and if. In The psychology of learning and motivation. Advances in research and theory, ed. Gordon H. Bower, 42-100. New York: Academic Press. Fillenbaum, Samuel. 1978. How to do things with IF. In Semantic factors in cognition, ed. John W. Cotton and Roberta L. Klatzky, 169-214. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Geukens, Steven K. J. 1978. The distinction between direct and indirect speech acts: towards a surface approach. Journal of Pragmatics 2: 261-76. Grevisse, Maurice. 1980. Le bon usage. Grammaire frangaise avec des remarques sur la langue francaise d'aujourd'hui. Paris/Gembloux: Duclot. Haiman, John. 1983. Paratactic ifclauses. Journal of Pragmatics 7: 263-81. Heringer, James Tromp. 1976. Some grammatical correlates of felicity conditions and presuppositions. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club. Holdcroft, David. 1971. Conditional assertion. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 45: 123-39. Inoue, Kyoko. 1983. An analysis of a cleft conditional in Japanese - where grammar meets rhetoric. Journal of Pragmatics 7: 251-62. Jespersen, Otto. 1940. A modern English grammar on historical principles, Part V. Copenhagen: Ejnar Munksgaard. Jespersen, Otto. 1963. The philosophy of grammar. London: George Allen and Unwin. Kuhner, Raphael. 1898. Ausfuhrliche Grammatik der griechischen Sprache. Zweiter Teil: Satzlehre. Dritte Auflage in zwei Banden. Erster Band. Hannover/Leipzig: Hahnsche Buchhandlung. Kuhner, Raphael. 1914. Ausfuhrliche Grammatik der lateinischen Sprache. Zweiter Band: Satzlehre. Zweiter Teil. Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung. Lauerbach, Gerda. 1979. Form und Funktion englischer Konditionalsatze mit 'if. Eine konversationslogische und sprechakttheoretische Analyse. Tubingen: Niemeyer. Lawler, John M. 1975. Elliptical conditionals and/or hyperbolic imperatives: Some remarks on the inherent inadequacy of derivations. In Papers from the Eleventh Regional Meeting. Chicago Linguistic Society, ed. Robin E. Grossman et al., 371-82. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. Long, Peter. 1971. Conditional assertion. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volume 45: 141-7. Mackie, John L. 1973. Truth, probability and paradox. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1982. Writings of Charles S. Peirce, VOL. I. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press. Quine, Willard Van Orman. 1950. Methods of logic. New York: Holt. Ross, John R. 1970. On declarative sentences. In Readings in English transformational grammar, ed. R. Jacobs and P. Rosenbaum, 222-72. Waltham, Mass.: Ginn. Seuren, Pieter A. M. 1976. Echo: een studie in negatie. In Lijnen van taaltheoretisch onderzoek, ed. Geert Koefoed and Arnold Evers, 160-84. Groningen: Tjeenk Willink. Seuren, Pieter A. M. 1979. The logic of presuppositional semantics. MS. Van der Auwera, Johan. 1980. On the meanings of basic speech acts. Journal of Pragmatics 4: 253-64. Van der Auwera, Johan. 1985. Language and logic. A speculative and condition-theoretic study. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 213

Johan Van der Auwera Van Dijk, Teun A. 1979. Pragmatic connectives. Journal of Pragmatics 3: 447-56. Reprinted in Van Dijk (1981: 163-75). Van Dijk, Teun A. 1981. Studies in the pragmatics of discourse. The Hague: Mouton. von Wright, Georg Henrik. 1963. Logical studies. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Wexler, Kenneth. 1978. Comments on the papers by Smith, Balzano, and Walker, and by Fillenbaum. In Semantic factors in cognition, ed. John W. Cotton and Roberta L. Klatzky, 223-31. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Wunderlich, Dieter. 1977. On problems of speech act theory. In Basic problems in methodology and linguistics, ed. Robert E. Butts and Jaakko Hintikka, 243-58. Dordrecht/Boston: Reidel. Zuber, Richard. 1983. Non-declarative sentences. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

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11 CONSTRAINTS ON THE FORM AND MEANING OF THE PROTASIS •

John Haiman Editors' note. Of central importance in defining conditionals is a full understanding of the constraints on (i) which structures can be interpreted as conditionals, and (ii) when conditionals can be interpreted as nonconditionals. Haiman focuses on the circumstances under which conjoined clauses can be interpreted as conditionals and conditionals as concessives, so providing a direct link to the papers by Van der Auwera and Konig. Using extensive crosslinguistic data, Haiman argues that an explanation for the constraints lies in the nature of the diagrammatic iconicity of Si S2 constructions, thereby also showing that semantic change is not arbitrary. 1. INTRODUCTION The recurrent interchangeability or identity of conditional and interrogative markers has been noted in a number of unrelated languages, among them the members of the Uralic family (Beke 1919), Germanic, French and Greek (Havers 1931: 21) and Chinese (Chao 1968: 81-2).l The phenomenon is explained on the assumption that conditional protases are the topics of the sentences in which they occur (Haiman 1978; for further discussion, see Akatsuka, Ford and Thompson in this volume). As topics constitute information whose validity is (perhaps only provisionally) agreed upon by all parties to the discourse, it is natural for a speaker to establish their given status by asking for assent or recognition from his interlocutor. In some languages, the semantic equivalence of protasis and topic is directly reflected by the identical morphology and syntax of these two categories: representative examples are Turkish (Lewis 1967: 217), Tagalog (Schachter 1976: 496), Tabasaran (Magometov 1965: 271), Korean (Martin and Lee 1969: 146, 159), Vietnamese (Hoa 1974: 103, 341), Middle Egyptian (Gardiner 1957: 125) and, once again, Chinese (Chao 1968: 81-110).2 Nevertheless, it is clear that the semantic relationship between conditionals and topics (ex hypothesi, a relationship of identity) is quite different from that between conditionals and questions: rather than identity, the relationship is one of usage. A protasis is established as a given, or topic, by means of a question. The formal identity of topics and questions is thus pragmatically rather than semantically motivated. This observation suggests the question to which this chapter is devoted: given that cognitive categories 215

John Haiman may be related by extrasemantic means, are there any limits in principle to the chain of associations whereby any two categories may be related? Common sense, everyday experience, and the evidence of lexical semantic change would all indicate that the answer to this question must be 'no'. Pavlov's famous dogs associated the ringing of a bell with food and salivated accordingly; filmgoers who have seen Raging Bull associate the intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana with Jake La Motta - again, on the basis not of similarity, but of accidental contiguity. One of the most banal principles of lexicography (and one which is totally devastating to any theory of essentialism) is that words change their meanings on the basis of extralogical and nondefinitional associations of this sort: see in particular Darmesteter (1886/1925) and a host of later scholars. By a chain of associations of this sort, 'the toebone', ultimately, 'connecta to da headbone', which has nothing in common with it. A series of associations, characterized by Darmesteter as enchainement, seems to affect the expression of the conditional protasis clause. In many ways the prototypical subordinate clause, it is repeatedly expressed, in a number of languages, by a clause which is syntactically coordinate, or paratactic, with the apodosis (see Haiman 1983). Nevertheless, there are certain limits to the polysemy of the paratactic construction Si (and) S2: in particular, there is one possible meaning of the 'true' conditional which, in general, the paratactic conditional cannot share. This is the meaning of the concessive conditional, typified by utterances such as those of (1) below: (1)

a. b. c. d.

Even if the economy collapses, we'll survive somehow I wouldn't marry you, if you were the last man on earth If prison broke his body, it could not shatter his indomitable spirit Greetings from your affectionate, if absent-minded, son

The chapter is divided into three parts. First, I want to show how //-clauses, on the basis of widely accepted morphosyntactic criteria, are subordinate clauses par excellence. Second, I will illustrate how the //"-clause, even in languages with a rich subordinating morphosyntax, is nevertheless often expressed as a clause in parataxis with or coordinate with the final clause. In section 4 I will propose the obvious iconic explanation for the inability of paratactic constructions to bear the concessive meanings of (1), and deal with some examples of apparently noniconic parataxis which call this explanation into question. 2. THE SUBORDINATION OF THE PROTASIS Although the distinction between coordination and subordination is by no means entirely clear, a number of diagnostics for distinguishing the two are more or less widely accepted in the literature. The following list is by no means exhaustive. With respect to every one of them, the protasis is impeccably subordinate, and recognized as such. 216

Constraints on the form and meaning of the protasis To begin with some very language-particular data. In the history of Romance, the unmarked subordinator (Latin UT, Romance quej che) has been one possibility for introducing the protasis. In German, subordinate clauses - like the protasis - are characterized by verb-final order; moreover, in German, subordinate clauses are embedded within the sentences where they occur, in as much as a sentence-initial subordinate clause functions as the first constituent dominated by S, and thus, given the verb-second constraint in that language, must be followed directly by the finite verb of the sentence. So too must the protasis, as witness the following sentences: (2)

a. Wenn du mich liebst, (dann) bin ich glucklich3 If you love me then am I happy b. Du liebst mich, und ich bin glucklich you love me and I am happy

In the Papuan language Hua (and in an unknown number of related languages), nonfinal clauses in complex sentences (Si in the notation used here) may be either coordinate with or subordinate to the following clause. The semantic distinctions are the subject of Haiman (1980: ch. 17). Coordinate clauses occur with a characteristic desinence -ga- (possibly cognate with the phrasal coordinating conjunction -g/-; see Haiman to appear: 11.1.5), which disappears when the subject of the nonfinal clause is identical with the subject of the following clause. Subordinate clauses occur with a characteristic desinence -ma(')- which never disappears, i.e. is not able to mark switch-reference. Conditional protases pattern with subordinate Si clauses, occurring with the desinence -ma, followed by the topic-marking suffix -mo. More convincing are some of the widely accepted crosslinguistically valid criteria for subordination. Again, we need consider only a few of these. A well-known property of subordinate clauses of various types in English is that they may be freely preposed without radically changing the meaning of the sentence in which they occur. Among the coordinated clauses, in contrast, the order of clauses reflects the order of events and such moveability is impossible. By this criterion (adduced by Anderson 1975, among others), protasis clauses are found to pattern with subordinate adverbial clauses. Clauses which are conjoined correspond to reduced structures putatively 'derived' from them by transformational operations of 'coordination reduction', 'gapping', and 'right node raising', the mechanics of which have been described by Ross (1970), Tai (1969), and others. Whether or not these operations are meaning-preserving transformations at all is not at issue here: rather, what is at issue is that no comparable reduction is grammatical when a subordinating conjunction is substituted for and, in cases like the sentences below: (3)

a. I opened the window and (* before/after/when . . . ) looked out b. I opened and (* before/after/when .. .)Mary shut, the window 217

John Haiman c. Mary

and (* before /after /when . . . ) I left

Not unexpectedly, //"patterns with the subordinating conjunctions once again. Conjoined clauses must preserve a symmetrical internal articulation (that only gapping may disturb), with the consequences noted by Ross (1967) and explained by Schachter (1977): no w/z-element may be removed from one member of a coordination unless it be removed from each member in the same position. Again, //"-clauses, by this criterion, are not coordinate with their apodosis: (4)

What will you do to me if I tell you the truth?

Finally, as the topics or givens of their sentences, //"-clauses are neither challenged nor denied by material in the apodosis. Rather, they are (pre-)supposed to be true, and thus constitute the framework or starting point from which the sentence proceeds. Either conjunct of the coordination: (5)

I have seen the future, and it works

may be challenged by the response That's not true'. By contrast, the complex sentence: (6)

When I saw you last, Rose, you were only so high

when so challenged, retains its protasis unshaken. In the same way, //"-clauses are immune to challenge or denial. 3. NEVERTHELESS, THE PROTASIS IS OFTEN PARATACTIC WITH THE APODOSIS We are familiar with colloquial English (often pseudo-imperative) paratactic protases: (7)

a. Once admit that they have a case, and your moral superiority collapses b. I go out at night, she'll challenge me to a fight c. He's so smart, he can fix it himself d. Cry, and you cry alone

These should not be dismissed as marginal idiosyncrasies of English. Rivero (1972: 203, 209) points out the same possibilities in Spanish of 'surface strings which are semantically conditionals but in which the two clauses are juxtaposed or coordinated'. Harris (this volume) notes that this has always been a possibility in Romance generally. In Vietnamese, the canonical conditional sentence consists of Neu Si thl S2, where neu = i'\V and thi = topic marker. But both of these words are optional, with the resulting possibility of paratactic conditionals that are indistinguishable from simple coordination (Hoa 1974). In Cambodian, the canonical protasis is introduced by baa, but the style is more 'colloquial and vivid' if it is left out (Jacob 1968: 92), yielding simple paratactic conditional 218

Constraints on the form and meaning of the protasis structures. In Mandarin, the protasis may be introduced by a number of particles, and conclude with a topic marker, but the conditional may also be expressed, as in Vietnamese, by the simple juxtaposition of 5/ and S2 (Li and Thompson 1981: 642, 643, 649). In Hua, conditional protases are morphologically subordinate clauses. But in spite of the pervasive, clear-cut, and otherwise rigid differences between subordinate and coordinate nonfinal clauses, nonfinal different-subject coordinate clauses in the future tense may have the semantic force of hypothetical protases (and, it should be noted, of no other subordinate clause type); see Haiman (1983). Coordinate constructions in a number of other Papuan languages, among them Fore (Scott 1978: 131), Kate (Pilhofer 1933: 154), Ono (Wacke 1931: 197), and Wojokeso (West 1973: 21-2, 24), manifest the same polysemy. In early Modern English, an 'if occurs, derived from and. In fact the OED points out that the orthographic distinction between an and and is a relatively recent convention, not observed before c. 1600. We also find examples like: (8)

Now kepe him wel, for and ye wil ye can

Examples could be multiplied. There are, in short, many languages in which parataxis or the coordinating conjunction and acquires a conditional meaning. The converse phenomenon, whereby the conditional morpheme may acquire a purely coordinate meaning, seems to be considerably less frequently attested. In fact, I have encountered only one language, Xinalug of the Soviet Caucasus, in which the conditional verbal suffix -ki comes to function as a coordinating conjunction through what Deseriev (1959: 183) calls a 'broadening of its meaning'. There is, nevertheless, another way in which conditional structures of the form If Si, S2 seem to approximate coordinate structures: this is the grammatical parallelism between Si and S2, to which Harris draws attention in his contribution to this volume. It is a commonplace that the apodosis of a counterfactual protasis must itself be counterfactual. Compare the relative acceptability of: (9)

If it had rained I (would have / * will) taken my umbrella

In many languages, this semantic parallelism is reflected in morphological parallelism as well, compare the Romance languages, Russian (where both counterfactual protasis and apodosis occur with the irrealis particle by), Hungarian (both counterfactual protasis and apodosis verbs are in the conditional with suffix -nE), and Cebuano (where both counterfactual protasis and apodosis occur with the irrealis word (pa)'onta). The parallelism is brought to its ultimate in languages where the protasis and apodosis are totally identical in the counterfactual mood: Gende (Brandson to appear), Kobon (Davies 1981: 39), Daga (Murane 1974:258), and Maring (Woodward 1973: 13) among languages of New Guinea; Guugu-Yimidhirr (Haviland 1979: 145), Pitta-Pitta (Blake 1979: 22) and Ngiyambaa (Donaldson 1980: 252) among languages of Australia; and 219

John Haiman a tendency towards the same kind of parallelism in other languages as well.4 Possibly the most spectacular example is afforded by Hausa, where the irrealis marker in both protasis and apodosis, da, also means 'both . . . and' (Taylor 1959:57,76). There is, as well, a mild tendency for conditional sentences to undergo what looks something like coordination reduction: that is, where the mood marker in both protasis and apodosis is the same, it is not always repeated. For some examples of this tendency see Haiman (1983). The twin conflicting pressures - on the one hand, to maximize parallelism, on the other, to avoid repetition by abstracting elements common to both constituents - are characteristic of coordinate constructions, as they also are of conditional constructions. There is, then, sufficient evidence that the categories of conditional clause and coordinate clause are frequently confused in languages which have separate expressions in general for the two. It remains now to account for the polysemy of the structure Si {and) S2 - by showing what limitations there are on this polysemy. 4. IMPOSSIBLE READINGS FOR THE STRUCTURE SI S2 In general, paratactic conditional sentences cannot be interpreted as concessive conditionals: Si S2 may mean 'If Si, S2', but not 'Even if Si, S2'. Before we proceed to account for this unsurprising result, let us dispose of the possible objection that even //"-conditionals are not really conditionals at all, but something else - pseudoconditionals, or the like. Such an objection is implicit in the definitions of conditionals proposed by ordinary language philosophers like Ramsey (1931: 248), who have argued that true conditionals are the hypothetical counterparts of causal constructions: or, that 'If A, B' is exactly equivalent to 'Because A, B \ where 'A' is hypothetical. It seems to me that such narrow definitions violate the lexical and morphosyntactic generalization that languages tend to make. Not only do conditionals pattern with concessives in a number of ways (Haiman 1974); in the majority of languages, as in English, concessive conditionals are morphologically similar, if not identical, to causal conditionals. Thus, familiar examples like German auch wenn, French meme si, Latin etsi, Hungarian ha . . . is, are paralleled by Votyak he + no = 'if + and' (Serebrennikov 1963: 376), Tabasaran s + ra = 'if + and' (Magometov 1965: 271), Vietnamese thi cung= 'TOPIC + also' (Hoa 1974: 105), among many others. Even apparent counterexamples like Spanish aun cuando 'also when' are seen to follow the same pattern when it is recalled that 'if and 'when' are morphologically identical in many languages.5 Granted, then, that concessive conditionals are no less 'true' conditionals than are causal conditionals, why is it that in so many languages Si S2 cannot 220

Constraints on the form and meaning of the protasis carry concessive conditional force? Clearly, because in such a maximally unmarked structure the only relationship between Si and S2 is that indicated by their relative order. And just as the order of such clauses tends to correspond to the order of events, so too the order of events suggests a causal rather than a concessive relationship. I maintain that the only semantic relationships between Si and S2, then, are those of which the unvarnished structure Si S2 is itself an icon. In the case of paratactic conditionals, a nondefinitional property of coordinate clauses (that they must occur in a linear order) is shared with a nondefinitional property of conditional sentences (that the protasis tends to precede the apodosis; see Greenberg 1966: Universal 14). On the basis of these and perhaps other nondefinitional properties (among them, modal harmony) the two constructions may become interchangeable, but only within the limits imposed by the structure of the diagram itself. The specific function of words like if is roughly comparable to that of diacritics (auxiliary signs or labels) in diagrams generally. They indicate that the semantic relationship between Si and S2 is something more, or something other, than the relationship one would infer from their linear order. For this reason, it is possible for //"-clauses to have the full range of conditional meanings (including both causal and concessive readings), while the paratactic and coordinate structures which frequently replace them typically can have only the first (see Hoa 1974 for Vietnamese;Haiman 1980:411,1983: 267fn for Hua; Li and Thompson 1981 for Mandarin). The most interesting aspects of this proposal become apparent when we begin to consider the counterexamples that every fluent speaker with a little sensitivity and imagination can easily discover. Here, once again, is the proposal: (10)

Without additional diacritics, the structure Si S2 may have only those meanings of which the linear order of the constituents is itself an icon

Let us now attack it. It is claimed that if is a diacritic which marks Si as a given relative to S2, while saying nothing about the causal connection, or lack of one, between Si and S2. If this statement is true, we should expect that the concessive meaning of the conditional would be as frequent as the conditional meaning. In fact, it seems that in English, at least, concessive conditionals are usually doubly marked: either by the presence of the focus marker even, itself a diacritic, or by clause inversion, as in: (11)

a. I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man on earth b. They'll get you, if it's the last thing they do

While it is true that If Si S2 may have concessive readings, as in (ic), it must be acknowledged that such examples are comparatively rare. The hypothesis that some additional marking of the concessive reading is necessary is supported 221

John Haiman by parenthetical conditionals like (id) which are (I believe) invariably concessive, but which owe this meaning primarily to their marked position rather than their superficial morphology. Other than clinging to sentences like (ic), I have no satisfactory answer to this attack. Turning now to another class of problematical structures, we find that there are paratactic constructions in which (a) Si is concessive, or (b) S2 is the protasis. In each of these classes, I hope to show that there is a diacritic comparable to //"which is sufficient to override the linear order of Si and S2. This diacritic is the marked intonation of the sentence. Consider first some cases where Si is concessive. There is a fairly subtle distinction between sentences of the form: (12)

a. If Si or S2, S3 b. Whether Si or S2, S3

Sentences conforming to the schema (12a) suggest that the listing of options Si and S2 is not exhaustive; other options are available; and the inference is invited that S3 would not follow from those other unnamed options. Thus, in the sentence: (13)

If you major in mathematics or physics, IBM will want to hire you

it is suggested that the addressee could major in other subjects (e.g. history), and that his chances of getting hired by IBM are lower if he chooses them. Sentences like (12b), on the other hand, suggest that the listing of options Si and S2, in the given context, are exhaustive; no others are available; and state flatly that S3 will eventuate irrespective of whether one chooses Si or S2. Thus, in (14): (14)

Whether you major in mathematics or physics, IBM will want to hire you

the interlocutor presumably has no interest in, or possibility of, studying anything other than mathematics or physics; and IBM will hire him in either case. In a straightforward sense, (13) is a causal, (14) a concessive, conditional. Consider now, the unvarnished ('unbediacriticked') sentence: (15)

You major in mathematics or physics, (and) IBM will want to hire you

For most speakers of English, the only interpretation of this sentence is one which corresponds to the causal conditional (13) - as predicted by our hypothesis (10). One could argue that (15) does not constitute a fair test, since our knowledge of word meanings, and of the way of the world, forces this interpretation on the sentence; that is, we know that mathematics and physics are related disciplines, opposed to others, and we know that IBM depends on expertise in both to make computers, etc. A much more honest test is posed by examples like: 222

Constraints on the form and meaning of the protasis (16)

a. You major in mathematics or porrology and IBM will want to hire you b. You major in mathematics or theology, and IBM will want to hire you

where knowledge of the world is either of no use - as in (16a), or actively militates against the causal interpretation - as in (16b). Knowledge of the world virtually compels us to understand (16b) as a concessive conditional: IBM must be so desperate for bodies that they don't care what you study. And yet this sentence is ungrammatical with a concessive reading unless theology is pronounced with a kind of contemptuous squeal. Which squeal, I submit, is the moral equivalent of a diacritic. Similarly, knowledge of the world tells us nothing about porrology, a word which I just made up. On a normal intonation, (16a) is interpreted as a causal conditional, and we are left to infer, given our knowledge of the world, that porrology is some kind of arcane scientific discipline. On the squeal intonation, and only on this intonation, the same sentence is interpreted as a concessive conditional, and porrology is provisionally identified as a discipline akin to theology or butterfly collecting. That is, the linear order Si or S2, S3 may have concessive force, but only if this non-iconic relationship is marked by a special intonation which, like the word even, overrides the expected causal interpretation of the sentence. Consider now some colloquially common cases where S2, counter-iconically, is understood as the protasis, while Si is the apodosis: (17)

a. You're gonna kill yourself, you keep driving like that b. Let him fix it, he's so goddam smart

It is clear that the order of protasis and apodosis has been inverted here without any lexical diacritic to indicate which is which. Once again, no ambiguity generally arises in the spoken language, the backgrounded nature of S2 being iconically reflected in its 'subordinate tone of voice'. Such sentences as (17) are ungrammatical if they are uttered with the same intonation as the polysemous coordinate structure (15). Finally, let us consider paratactic constructions where the semantic relationship between Si and S2 is one of balance or antithesis or symmetry in general.6 (18)

a. You stab me with your pitchfork, I'll shoot you with my gun b. Bright promise, conventional performance c. You can tell him the most interesting stories, and he'll just stare at you d. In pace ad vexandos cives, acerrimus; in bello, ad expugnandos hostes, inertissimus 'In peacetime, he was most fierce harassing citizens; in wartime he was most sluggish driving out the enemy' 223

John Haiman Clearly, there is only the thinnest of lines separating such antitheses as (i8d) from ordinary concessive constructions. The reason for this, I believe, is that the structure Si S2, particularly if the internal articulation of Si and S2 is parallel, is an icon of symmetry, as well as of temporal or causal sequence: and one exponent of symmetry is that of opposition.7 Nevertheless, if the same construction may iconically express both (temporal, logical, or causal) asymmetry on the one hand, and symmetry on the other, then it would seem that there is no limit in principle to the range of meanings of which the diagram Si S2 may be an icon. And the hypothesis (10) is utterly vitiated except for rather artificial examples, such as (16a), involving made-up words. I cannot maintain that the conditional construction, any more than other constructions, has an inviolate essential meaning; and it may be that, in time, there will be complete overlap between paratactic constructions and conditionals of every type. Nevertheless, for the time being there is still an important difference between concessive clauses and paratactic antithetical clauses, a difference that relates to what is (now, it seems to me) the most important property of conditionals: their backgrounded nature. Concessives, whether introduced by even if or although, are backgrounded relative to the main clause; antithetical expressed by paratactic constructions are not. One syntactic reflex of this difference is that diacritically marked concessives are not tense-iconic: they may either precede or follow the main clause; antithetical, on the other hand, are tense-iconic: clause inversion of any of the examples of (18) produces impossible sentences. We are left at this stage with table 1 of interpretations, both acceptable and impossible, of the paratactic diagram Si S2. Table 1. Interpretations of Si S2 Possible interpretations IfSi,S2 After Si, S2 Because S1, S2 Si: on the other hand, S2

Impossible interpretations Even if Si, S2 Before Si, S2 Because S2, S1 Although Si, S2

5. CONCLUSION In the preceding discussion, I have tried to make two points. The first is that there is a trade-off between linear order and other means (including morphological, lexical, or prosodic diacritics) of expressing the semantic relationships between two clauses. In the absence of such diacritics, linear order and internal articulation are the only means available for expressing these relationships. Although it was illustrated with unfamiliar examples, this point is recognizably 224

Constraints on the form and meaning of the protasis a variant on the familiar truism that there is some kind of inverse correlation between freedom of word order on the one hand, and rich morphology on the other. In general, such a point is difficult to make because its proof requires minimally contrasting structures within the same language. Coordinate structures which have the force of conditionals in languages which distinguish parataxis from hypotaxis offer us examples of exactly the sort we need to demonstrate the reality of the trade-off principle. The second point is that there may be some general constraints on enchainement, association, or abduction: i.e. on the identification of two categories which share nondefinitional properties. The structure Si S2, I have argued, may be associated only with those meanings of which it is itself a motivated diagram. NOTES 1 For friendly discussion, devastating counterexamples, and insight, I am indebted to the members of the conditionals symposium, in particular Ekkehard Konig, Joseph Greenberg, Martin Harris, Elizabeth Traugott and Thomas Bever. 2 For further examples, see Harris and Konig's chapters in this volume, and Traugott (1985b). 3 Konig notes that in what Johnson-Laird has called 'relevance conditionals' this constraint does not obtain. Thus, Wenn du mich brauchst, ich bin hier 'If you need me, I'm here.' It is as if, in relevance conditionals, the protasis is less incorporated into the body of the sentence, a grammatical phenomenon which iconically reflects the greater conceptual distance between protasis and apodosis in these sentences. For some discussion, see Haiman and Thompson (1984). 4 A possibly related phenomenon in German counterfactuals was pointed out to me by Ekkehard Konig. In these conditionals, as opposed to hypothetical conditionals, the speaker may either treat the protasis as the first constituent of S or as a separate sentence with respect to the verb-second rule: both of the following are grammatical, at least for some speakers: (a) (b)

Wenn ich Urlaub hatte wiirde ich sofort verreisen 'If I had a vacation, I would leave immediately' (incorporated protasis) Wenn ich Urlaub hatte, ich wiirde sofort verreisen (non-incorporated protasis)

The grammaticality of (b) may be interpreted as a kind of tendency to render protasis and apodosis parallel in this case. 5 This widespread identity of 'if and 'when' is itself an argument against the popular assumption that conditional protases are essentially hypothetical in nature. For a survey of languages where 'when' and 'if are identical, see Traugott (1985b). 6 I am grateful to Ekkehard Konig and Tanya Reinhart for drawing such examples to my attention. Some, though not all, of Konig's counterexamples to hypothesis (10) in his chapter in this volume are of the sort (18). 7 For some discussion of the systematic polysemy of coordinate structures (equally foregrounded, hence tense-iconic) on the one hand, and conceptually symmetrical (hence iconically adequate for the expression of opposition) on the other, see Haiman (1985). Traugott (1985 a) draws attention to the same systematic polysemy of lexical forms like English against / again and German wider / wieder. 225

John Haiman REFERENCES Anderson, Lars-Gunnar. 1975. The form and function of subordinate clauses. Linguistic Studies of the University of Goteborg 1. Beke, Oedoen. 1919. A felteteles mondat eredete. Magyar Nyelvor 48: 103-6. Blake, Barry. 1979. Pitta-Pitta. In Handbook of Australian languages, VOL. I , ed. Robert Dixon and Barry Blake, 183-242. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Brandson, Lee. To appear. Gendegrammar. University of Manitoba. Chao, Yuen-ren. 1968. A grammar of spoken Chinese. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Darmesteter, Arsene. 1886/1925. La vie des mots. Paris: Librairie Delagrave. Davies, John. 1981. Kobon. Lingua Descriptiva Series 3. Deseriev, Jurij. 1959. Grammatika Xinalugskogo jazyka. Moskva: Akademia Nauk. Donaldson, Tamsin. 1980. Ngiyambaa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gardiner, Alan. 1957. Egyptian grammar. London: Oxford University Press. Greenberg, Joseph H. 1966. Some universals of grammar, with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In Universals of language, 2nd edn, ed. Joseph H. Greenberg, 73-113. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Haiman, John. 1974. Concessives, conditionals and verbs of volition. Foundations of Language 11:342-60. Haiman, John. 1978. Conditionals are topics. Language 54: 565-89. Haiman, John. 1980. Hua: A Papuan language of the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Haiman, John. 1983. Faratacticif-clauses. Journal of Pragmatics j : 263-81. Haiman, John. 1985. Natural syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Haiman, John, and Sandra A. Thompson. 1984. 'Subordination' in universal grammar. Berkeley Linguistic Society 10: 510-23. Havers, Wilhelm. 1931. Handbuch der erkldrenden Syntax. Heidelberg: Carl Winter. Haviland, John. 1979. Guugu-Yimidhirr. In Handbook of Australian Languages, VOL. 1, ed. Robert Dixon and Barry Blake, 27-180. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Hoa, Nguyen-Dinh. 1974. Colloquial Vietnamese. Carbondale, 111.: Southern Illinois University Press. Jacob, Judith. 1968. Introduction to Cambodian. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lewis, Geoffrey L. 1967. Turkish grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Li, Charles, and Sandra A. Thompson. 1981. Mandarin Chinese: a functional reference grammar. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Magometov, A. 1965. Tabasaranskij Jazyk. Tbilisi: Mecniereba. Martin, Samuel, and Young-Sook C. Lee. 1969. Beginning Korean. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. Murane, Elizabeth. 1974. Daga grammar. Norman: Summer Institute of Linguistics. Pilhofer, George. 1933. Grammatik der Kate-Sprache, New Guinea. Zeitschrift fixr Eingeborenen-Sprachen 14. Berlin: Reimer. Ramsey, Frank, P. 1931. General propositions and causality. In Foundations of mathematics and other logical essays, ed. Frank P. Ramsey, 237-55. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Rivero, Maria-Luisa. 1972. On conditionals in Spanish. In Generative studies in Romance languages, ed. J. Casagrande and Bohdan Saciuk, 196-214. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Ross, John. 1967. Constraints on variables in syntax. Indiana University Linguistics Club. Ross, John. 1970. Gapping and the order of constituents. In Progress in linguistics, ed. Manfred Bierwisch and Karl Heidolph, 141-54. The Hague: Mouton. 226

Constraints on the form and meaning of the protasis Schachter, Paul. 1976. The subject in Philippine languages: topic, actor, actor-topic, or none of the above? In Subject and topic, ed. Charles N. Li, 491-518. New York: Academic Press. Schachter, Paul. 1977. Constraints on coordination. Language 53: 86-114. Scott, Graham. 1978. The Fore language of Papua New Guinea. Pacific Linguistics B-47. Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. Serebrennikov, M. 1963. Istoriceskaja morfologijapermskix jazykov. Moskva: Akademia Nauk. Tai, James. 1969. Coordination reduction. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Illinois. Taylor, F. W. 1959. A practical Hausa grammar. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1985a. Confrontation and association. In Papers from the Sixth International Conference on Historical Linguistics, ed. Jacek Fisiak, 515-26. Amsterdam: Benjamins; Poznan: Adam Mickiewicz University Press. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1985b. Conditional markers. In Iconicity in syntax, ed. John Haiman, 289-307. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Wacke, O. 1931. Formenlehre der Ono-Sprache. Zeitschrift fiir Eingeborenen-Sprachen 21:161-208.

West, Dorothy. 1973. Wojokeso sentence, paragraph, and discourse analysis. Pacific Linguistics B-28. Canberra: Research School of Pacific Studies, Australian National University. Woodward, Pamela. 1973. Maring sentences. Workpapers in New Guinea languages 1,1-26. Ukarumpa: Summer Institute of Linguistics.

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12 CONDITIONALS, CONCESSIVE CONDITIONALS AND CONCESSIVES: AREAS OF CONTRAST, OVERLAP AND NEUTRALIZATION •

Ekkehard Konig Editors' note. Konig focuses on the interaction of conditionals and concessives, and argues for identifying an intermediate category of concessive conditionals. He also shows how concessives may derive historically from conditionals via concessive conditionals. This chapter is related to Van der Auwera's and Haiman's in addressing concessives, and to Harris's in its historical approach. 1. INTRODUCTION Terms like 'conditional', 'temporal', 'causal', 'concessive' are part of the terminological inventory that traditional grammar makes available for the characterization of adverbial clauses.1 The distinctions drawn by these terms seem clear enough until an attempt is made to explicate them in a way that would have crosslinguistic validity, or to apply them in an exhaustive characterization of all kinds of data within a single language. To begin with, there are nonspecific constructions to which several of these terms or none at all seem to be applicable. Examples are nonfinite constructions such as adverbial participles in Russian, the gerundio in Italian, the construction tout en V-ant in French or participial constructions in English. A sentence like the following may have a conditional or a causal interpretation depending on the context: (1)

Lacking that, the movement is dead

Or, to give an example of a different type, the construction Adj as NP be in English merely expresses factuality and is open to both a causal and concessive interpretation: (2)

a. Rich as he is, he spends a lot of money on horses (causal) b. Poor as he is, he spends a lot of money on horses (concessive)

But even cases where the adverbial relation in question is marked by a conjunction are sometimes difficult to assign to one rather than another category. There are many cases of overlap and neutralization so that a watertight system of classification and analysis does not seem to be possible. Conditional and temporal clauses, for example, may come out identically in languages such 229

Ekkehard Konig as German, Dutch or Japanese. In nonpast contexts, the German conjunction wenn may correspond to if or when in English.2 (3)

Wenn ich Paul sehe, werde ich es ihm sagen 'If/when I see Paul, I will tell him'

A close relatedness between temporal and conditional clauses also manifests itself in the historical development of conditional connectives in many languages: temporal notions provide one of the major lexical sources for conditional connectives (see Traugott 1985). The distinction'between conditionals and causals, too, is not easy to draw in some cases. In examples like the following, //seems to be more or less equivalent to a causal connective (see Akatsuka in this volume):3 (4)

Speaker A: Ken says that he lived in Japan for seven years Speaker B: If he lived in Japan that long, his Japanese must be pretty good

Moreover, conditional sentences with /f tend to be interpreted as concessive conditionals in interrogative sentences (Ducrot 1972: 171ft) and in all sentences with expressions suggestive of a scale like (5b): (5)

a. Will you take the car if it is snowing? b. I wouldn't marry you, if you were the last man on earth (see Haiman in this volume)

Finally, both if and even if can be used in a purely concessive sense, i.e. they may practically be interchangeable with even though or although: (6)

He looked at me kindly, (even) if somewhat sceptically

The problem of identifying conditional sentences, and of delimiting them from related adverbial constructions, plays an important role in several of the chapters of this volume. Harris notes that the classes of adverbial clauses identified in traditional grammar are not clearly distinguished throughout the history of Romance languages and concludes that the category 'conditional sentence' is not a discrete one, either at the semantic or at the morphosyntactic level. One way of dealing with this problem of classification and delimitation is to identify a construction in terms of a prototype rather than in terms of necessaryand-sufficient conditions (see Comrie in this volume). Such an approach should be complemented, however, by a systematic investigation of the relations existing between conditional and related adverbial constructions. This is exactly what the present chapter proposes to do: to investigate the territory between conditionals and related adverbial clauses, notably concessives and concessive conditionals. I will try to state prototypical properties for each of the three constructions and to specify as precisely as possible the conditions which lead 230

Conditionals, concessive conditionals and concessives to overlaps and neutralization. This will also throw some light on certain historical developments: conditional connectives, in combination with certain particles, provide one of the major sources for the development of concessive connectives (Konig and Eisenberg 1984), and it seems reasonable to assume that the conditions responsible for a neutralization of the distinctions normally drawn by the constructions in question play a key role in such developments. 2. BASIC DISTINCTIONS Let me begin by drawing some basic distinctions among the constructions mentioned in the title of this chapter. These distinctions are primarily semantic in nature and are based on the relations existing between the propositions expressed by a complex sentence and those expressed by its component clauses. Conditionals and concessives are easy to distinguish semantically: the former entail neither their antecedents nor their consequents, whereas the latter entail both of their component clauses. Uttering a conditional of the form 'if/?, then q" generally implicates that both p and q are compatible with what the speaker knows (Gazdar 1979: 60; Levinson 1983: 136Q. Concessive ('irrelevance') conditionals like (7) have properties in common with both conditionals and concessives and thus are sometimes grouped with the former and sometimes with the latter: (7)

a. Whether he is right or not, we must support him b. However much advice you give him, he does exactly what he wants to do c. Even if you drink (only) a little, your boss will fire you

In contrast to simple conditionals, concessive conditionals relate a set of antecedent conditions to a consequent. This set is typically specified by a disjunction as in (7a), by a universal or 'free-choice' quantifier as in (7b), or by a focus particle as in (7c).4 A characteristic property of such free-choice quantifiers is that they signal a free choice in the selection of values for a variable in the protasis. In other words, we do not find the usual restriction to a universe of discourse, which is otherwise typical of universal quantifiers. Concessive conditionals of type (7b) are related to w/i-questions in the same way in which those of type (7a) are related to yes-no questions. In (7c) a set of antecedents is specified by asserting a conditional relationship for an extreme (unlikely) value on a scale of possible values. By implication, this relationship can also be assumed to obtain for other, more likely, values on the same scale. In all concessive conditionals, the consequent is asserted to be true under any of the conditions specified in the antecedent. Concessive conditionals therefore typically entail their consequent, and, to simplify matters slightly, we will assume for the time being that they always do. Sentences of type (7a-c) are basically conditionals. It is not only paraphrase 231

Ekkehard Konig relations like the following which make such an analysis plausible: (8)

If p, then q and if ~ p , then q = Whether p or ~ p , q

Such an analysis is also confirmed by morphological facts: the connectives used in structures of type (7a) frequently derive from conditional connectives. Latin sive . . . sive 'whether . . . or' (si 'if) and Finnish jos .. . tai (Jos 'if) are particularly good examples. But even in languages such as German, where different connectives are used in conditionals and concessive conditionals, connectives in the latter construction frequently had a conditional use in earlier periods. The morphological facts are even clearer as far as sentences of type (7c) are concerned. Sentences of this type are regularly formed by adding a focus particle such as even to a conditional antecedent (see Haiman in this volume). The classification of even if constructions with sentences of types (7a) and (7b) as one specific type of conditional is also supported by the semantic facts.5 All semantic properties that differentiate even if conditionals from ordinary conditionals can be shown to be due to the contribution that even makes to the meaning of such constructions (Bennett 1982). This contribution depends on two parts of the sentence: the focus of even and the scope of this particle (Karttunen and Peters 1979). The focus of even, or of a focus particle in general, is the constituent it relates to, i.e. the constituent which typically carries the nuclear tone and which partly determines the possible positions of the particle. The scope of a particle can be identified with the rest of the sentence with a variable inserted into the position of the focus.6 The contribution made by even to the meaning of a sentence, which is usually assumed to be a presupposition or conventional implicature (Fraser 1971; Kempson 1975; Karttunen and Peters 1979; Bennett 1982), can now roughly be described as follows: even presupposes (a) that there is an alternative to the focus value which satisfies the open sentence in its scope, and (b) that the value given in the focus is the least likely and therefore most surprising of all values under consideration in a given context. Whether or not even if conditionals entail their consequent depends on the mood of such sentences and on the focus of even. If this particle focuses just on one part of the antecedent, neither indicative or 'subjunctive' conditionals entail their consequent. (9)

a. Even if you drink just a little, your boss will fire you b. Even if you drank just a little, your boss would fire you

Indicative even //"conditionals do, however, entail their consequent whenever the particle focuses on the whole antecedent, as in the following examples: (10)

a. The match will be on even if it is raining b. Even if he is a little slow, he is actually very intelligent

In such cases, the negation of the antecedent is a plausible alternative value so that - due to their truth conditions (if p, then q) and to their presupposition 232

Conditionals, concessive conditionals and concessives (if —/?, then q) - these sentences function more or less like those of type (7a). As was shown by Bennett (1982: 411), 'subjunctive' or 'past/ were-woulcT conditionals may also entail their consequent. The essential condition in this case is that even focuses on the antecedent plus the conditional connective. Bennett gives the following example uttered by a person who is looking at the raging waters of a river and the ruins of a bridge: (11)

Even if the bridge were standing, I would not cross

In this case, even is not introduced into a sentence which happens to be a conditional, but the conditionality is itself a result of the operation of even. This sentence presupposes (and perhaps also entails) something like: (12)

I will not cross (as it is now)

And (12) can be derived as a presupposition on the basis of the rules sketched above if they operate on the following simplified semantic representation: (13)

Even,(ifp),q

In cases such as these, the real world is the alternative to the value of the focus, i.e. to the hypothetical situation described by the conditional antecedent. What we said above about the semantic properties of concessive sentences does not exhaust the contribution made by connectives like although or even though to the meaning of a sentence. The use of such connectives also implies that there is an incompatibility or conflict between the propositions expressed by the relevant clauses. This implication can roughly be described as follows: (14)

even though p, q implies ifp, then normally ~g

Because of the abnormal projection behaviour of this implication - it survives embedding into negative, interrogative and conditional contexts as in (15) and because of its cancellability in reductio arguments like (i5d), we will regard it as a presupposition: (15)

a. It is not the case that Fred wants to go for a walk even though it is raining b. Does Fred want to go for a walk even though it is raining? c. If Fred wants to go for a walk even though it is raining, he must be crazy d. Even though I put this chemical into the water, the water does not change its colour. This shows that the chemical does not affect the colour of water in any way

One reason why concessive conditionals have so often been grouped together with concessives is the fact that they too may carry an implication of incompatibility between two situations. Given the fact that such conditionals relate a series of antecedents to a consequent, one of those antecedent propositions 233

Ekkehard Konig (either p or ~p in alternative concessive conditionals or one substitution instance of px7 in universal concessive conditionals) will normally be regarded as being in conflict with the proposition expressed by the consequent. Whether this implication is part of the conventional meaning of such constructions or due to conversational maxims is a question we will have to leave open at the present time. Our preceding discussion can now be summarized as follows: (16)

i. Conditionals a. typical form: if p, (then) q b. entailments: — ii. Concessive (irrelevance) conditionals a. typical form: (i) Whether p or ~ p , q (2)(Vx)(ifp,q) (3) Even if p, q b. entailments: q c. implicature: ( x) (if x, then normally ~q) iii. Concessives a. typical form: even though/although p, q b. entailments: p, q c. presupposition: if p, then normally ~q

3. C O O R D I N A T E STRUCTURES USED AS CONDITIONALS It is a well-known fact that conditionals can appear in the form of coordinate structures. In the following section we will take a closer look at the relations existing between coordinate structures and the three types of constructions distinguished above, with the aim of throwing additional light on their shared properties as well as those that differentiate them. The existence of paratactic conditionals has been demonstrated for a wide variety of languages (Bolinger 1967; Ibanez 1976; Davies 1979; Haiman 1983). Such paratactic conditionals frequently have a pseudo-imperative as first conjunct, and their adverbial use may be reflected in syntactic properties ('negative-polarity items', backward pronominalization, correlative elements) normally associated with genuine conditionals rather than coordinate structures: (17)

a. b. c. d.

Make one mistake, and there'll be trouble Understand Chinese, and I'd need you for a teacher You so much as touch alcohol, and your boss will fire you Store ihn nicht, dann wird er dich auch nicht storen 'Don't disturb him and he won't disturb you either'.

Not all conditionals have an imperative or paratactic paraphrase. Davies (1979: 1053) notes, for instance, that neither 'relevance conditionals' nor those 234

Conditionals, concessive conditionals and concessives relating to a single eventuality have such a paraphrase: (18) (19)

a. If you fancy a shower, the water is hot b. *Fancy a shower and the water is hot a. If you are John Smith, the message is for you b. *Be John Smith and the message is for you

Haiman (this volume) approaches the problem of relating coordinate structures to 'adverbial' interpretations from a different angle: instead of looking for constraints on possible paraphrases of conditionals, he tries to formulate constraints on the possible interpretations of paratactic structures. In his view, the interpretation of unmarked structures like Si (and) S2 is constrained by iconicity: 'Without additional diacritics, the structure Si S2 may have only those meanings of which the linear order of the constituents is itself an icon' (Haiman in this volume). Hence, Haiman argues, paratactic structures cannot be interpreted as concessive conditionals or genuine concessives although they are interpretable as'If Si, S2', 'After Si, S2', or'Because Si, S2'. As far as I can see, however, this hypothesis is not borne out by all the relevant facts. The following examples look like clear counterexamples to Haiman's claim: (20)

a. You drink (only/just/so much as/even) a drop of alcohol, and your boss will fire you b. We can give him the VIP treatment, and he is not content c. I can drink a bottle of alcohol, and my boss won't fire me d. (French) Je vivrais cent ans, je n'oublierais jamais cette scene 'I could live a hundred years, I would never forget that scene' e. (German) Du magst dich noch so sehr anstrengen, du wirst es nicht schaffen 'You can try ever so hard, you won't succeed' f. (Chinese) Wo mai shenmo wode taitai dou bu xihuan 'I buy anything, my wife does not like it/Whatever I buy, my wife doesn't like it'

One might want to argue that the examples in (20) cannot be considered as counterexamples to Haiman's claim since they contain one of the diacritics explicitly said to override the constraints imposed by iconicity. Elements that could conceivably be considered as such diacritics are the focus particles in (20a) or the expressions denoting an extreme value (not drink a drop, VIP treatment, etc.) in the other examples.8 This is not a possible line of defence, however, for the following reason: the conditions that have to be met for a coordinate structure to be interpreted as a concessive conditional are more or less identical to those necessary for a 'concessive' interpretation of a simple conditional, as will be shown immediately below. Conditionals introduced by a simple connective cannot normally be interpreted 235

Ekkehard Konig as concessive conditionals. The following two sentences are very different in those aspects of meaning that go beyond their truth conditions; (21)

a. If Peter comes, I will not stay b. Even if Peter comes, I will not stay

This difference in their overall impact is due to an interpretative principle, which Geis and Zwicky have called 'conditional perfection', and which they formulated as follows: (22)

A sentence of the form XDY invites an inference of the form -XD—Y (Geis and Zwicky 1971: 562)

This inference looks very much like a Gricean generalized conversational implicature and, despite claims to the contrary (Levinson 1983: I45ff), it seems possible to give a straightforward Gricean account of this phenomenon. A sentence of the form 'if p, q" and the more categorical counterpart 'q (anyway)' can be assumed to form a scale: (q (anyway), if p , q). So, on the basis of the maxim of quantity, the assertion of the weaker statement 'if p, q" will give rise to the implicature '~~q (anyway)' and thus to the inference that p is also a necessary condition for q (Ducrot 1972: 170; Cornulier 1983). Concessive conditionals, by contrast, exclude conditional perfection as an admissible inference pattern by entailing or presupposing that the conditional relationship holds for a whole series of antecedents. Now, given that simple conditionals typically allow conditional perfection whereas concessive conditionals never do, it is clear that the former can only be interpreted as the latter if conditional perfection is excluded. This is the case whenever the protasis of a simple conditional contains an expression that marks an extreme point on a scale, thereby licensing the inference that the conditional relationship holds for all other values of the same scale and thus for a series of antecedents.9 Expressions which fulfil this function include the following: (i) (ii) (iii)

all focus particles {but, just, only, even, so much as) which may evaluate their focus value as ranking low on some scale all expressions specifying extreme values in a certain propositional schema (e.g. not drink a drop, drink a whole bottle) all superlatives and pseudosuperlatives like the following: (23)

(iv)

If I were Rockefeller, I would not be able to pay for this

free-choice quantifiers like any.

But these are just the expressive devices that are also responsible for a concessive-conditional interpretation of coordinate structures. For any of the examples given in (20) we can thus formulate a simple conditional which is interpreted as a concessive conditional on the basis of the same component: (24)

a. If you drink (but/only just/so much as/even) a drop of alcohol, your boss will fire you 236

Conditionals, concessive conditionals and concessives b. If we give him the VIP treatment, he won't be content c. If I drink a bottle of alcohol, my boss won't fire me d. Si je vivrais cent ans, je n'oublierais jamais cette scene The only difference between examples like (20) and (24) is that the former may contain an element (e.g. a modal verb) which marks the nonfactual character of the first clause. This function is fulfilled by the conditional conjunction in (24). None of the structures in (20), however, can be argued to contain a diacritic, because the same diacritic would then have to be posited for the examples in (24), which - according to Haiman - ought to have a wider interpretation range on the basis of the 'diacritic' //"alone. A concessive interpretation of paratactic structures is possible if the conjuncts in question are 'factual' in character (i.e. they cannot be pseudo-imperatives) and if the propositions expressed by them are judged as being normally incompatible on the basis of world knowledge. Again, there are no diacritics required and iconicity does not seem to impose any constraints which preclude such an interpretation: (25) (26)

a. b. a. b.

I have to do all this work, and you are watching TV Even though I have to do all this work, you are watching TV He plays the piano very well, and he can't read a single note Even though he can't read a single note, he plays the piano very well

The preceding discussion has revealed the essentially semantic and pragmatic character of the distinctions drawn by the terms 'conditional', 'concessive conditional', and 'concessive'. Even though typically associated with certain formal properties, the three constructions analysed and compared in this chapter may be formally indistinguishable. What should also have become clear is the heterogeneous character of our class of concessive conditionals. There are many ways of indicating that a consequent holds for a series of antecedents and that one of those conditions is normally incompatible with the consequent. Moreover, this discussion should have made it clear in what way it is justified, and in what way it is not, to speak of a separate class of even if conditionals. It is now accepted by many linguists and philosophers alike (Bennett 1982) that as far as truth conditions are concerned there is no class of even //"conditionals. Even does not affect the truth conditions of a sentence, whether it is a conditional or not. Nor does it seem possible to establish such a subclass of conditionals on formal grounds. Even, and its counterpart in other languages, is just one of several formal devices which may characterize a conditional as a concessive conditional by characterizing a given value as extreme and by including other values of the same scale for a given propositional schema. There are other focus particles which may have this effect (e.g. only, but, so much as, just) and, like these other particles, even may directly precede a given focus within the protasis: 237

Ekkehard Konig (27)

If you even/so much as/just to you again

MENTION HIS NAME,

I will never speak

The only difference between even and these other particles is that even may focus on the whole protasis and that it typically precedes if (to indicate wide scope), whatever the exact focus may be. As was pointed out above, it is only when the whole protasis (± connective) is the focus of even that such conditionals can be said to entail (or presuppose) their consequent. And this is exactly the situation that has led to the view that even if conditionals form a separate subclass of 'concessive conditionals'.or 'semifactuals'. 4. CONDITIONALS USED AS CONCESSIVE CONDITIONALS We are now in a position to specify in more detail the exact contextual conditions that lead to a neutralization of the distinction normally drawn between conditionals and concessive conditionals. One of those conditions has already been discussed: whenever a conditional protasis contains an expression marking a suitable extreme value on some scale for some propositional schema, the conditional is interpreted as a concessive conditional.10 If the consequent is asserted to hold for the given 'extreme' antecedent, it can also be assumed to be true for less extreme cases.11 Therefore, conditional perfection is ruled out as an admissible pattern of inference. Another context that may lead to a concessive-conditional interpretation of simple conditionals is that of interrogative sentences. This was first pointed out by Ducrot (1972: 171 ff), who gives examples like the following: (28)

a. Will you take the car if the roads are icy? b. Will John go if Peter comes?

Given our knowledge about the dangers of driving in the winter, (28a) would normally be interpreted as a concessive conditional, whereas (28b) is open to both that and a straightforward conditional interpretation. How can we account for this tendency to interpret if in conditional questions as 'even if or, looking at the problem from a different angle, why can we leave out even in interrogative sentences without the danger of ambiguity or vagueness? Of course, conditional perfection is not applicable to interrogative utterances, since this principle is based on the assumption that the strongest possible assertion has been made. On the other hand, it does seem possible to base the inference from 'q if pT to "q even if pT on maxims of cooperative conversation. In a situation where conditional questions like (28) are asked, speaker and hearer may have a certain opinion about the normal relationship between the eventualities expressed by p and q. Up is known to be a favourable condition for q, then 'q if pT is not a very relevant or informative question, since it cannot lead to a very informative answer. On the other hand, a protasis known to express an unfavourable condition for q may lead to a very informative answer. 238

Conditionals, concessive conditionals and concessives An affirmative answer to such a question not only answers the question actually raised but also implies 'if x, q" for more favourable instances of x than a given p. So, the inference in question could be argued to be based on the Gricean maxim of quantity suitably reformulated for interrogatives. Alternatively, we could assume that something like the principle of informativeness as formulated by Atlas and Levinson (1981: 4off) is involved, which roughly says that the best interpretation among several competing ones (which are all consistent with the common ground) is the most informative proposition. Again, this principle only applies to declarative sentences and would have to be reformulated in order to apply also to interrogative sentences. In the case of questions, the interpretation that leads to the most informative answer may be regarded as the most informative one.12 Sentences like the following exemplify a third type of simple conditionals which tend to be interpreted as concessive conditionals: (29)

a. If Calvin was still holding her hand, she could not feel it (L'Engle 1962: n o ) b. If they saw the children, they gave no sign (Ibid.) c. II ne reva pas. S'il le fit, en tout cas, il ne devait pas s'en souvenir (Simenon 1969: 29) 'He did not dream. If he did, he could not remember anyway'

Here, the apodosis typically contains an anaphoric reference to the protasis. Such sentences therefore have the form 'If p, NP NEG VP' (where VP contains a gap or an anaphoric reference to /?), and entail their apodosis. Another property of such examples is that p is known not normally to go together with q. This means we have at least two of the ingredients which above were found to be typical of concessive conditionals, and it should not come as a surprise that such sentences are more or less equivalent to those of type (7a). 5. CONCESSIVE CONDITIONALS USED AS CONCESSIVES It is only rarely the case that sentences introduced by a simple conditional connective have a clear concessive meaning.13 An example of such a situation is provided by parenthetical adjectival constructions in English: (30)

This is an interesting, if complicated, solution

The distinction between concessive conditionals and concessives, on the other hand, is frequently neutralized. Of the three types of concessive conditional distinguished above (16 ii), it is the third type in particular (i.e. conditionals introduced by even if), that may be indistinguishable from genuine concessive sentences. But some of the free-choice connectives (e.g. anyway, regardless, however), which belong to the second type, have also developed a concessive use. Given the factual character of concessives as opposed to the hypothetical 239

Ekkehard Konig or 'open' character of conditionals, it is clear what kind of contextual conditions are relevant for a concessive interpretation of concessive conditionals: both the protasis and the apodosis must be entailed, either by the context or by the concessive conditional itself. Whether a concessive conditional introduced by even if entails its apodosis or not depends on the focus of even. If the whole protasis p is the focus of even as in (10), ~p is a plausible alternative so that both p and ~/? satisfy the open sentence if x, then q. Hence, q is entailed: (10)

a. The match will be on even if it is raining b. Even if he is a little slow, he is actually very intelligent

Whether or not the protasis is given, however, depends on the context. In (31a) p is given in the preceding context; in (31b) it is established as given through the use of the adverb evidemment 'clearly'. (31)

a. It was the loneliness of the neighbourhood, they supposed, that kept the house next to theirs empty .. . The house stood two hundred yards from the Bartlebys' and A. liked looking out of the window now and then and seeing it, even if it was empty. (Highsmith 1978: 6) b. Quelqu'un qui a fait du Latin . . . accede aisement en quelques semaines a la lecture de l'espagnol ou de l'italien, voire du portugais, meme si les parler est evidemment une autre affaire, (he Monde 3 Nov. 1984: 11) 'Somebody who has done Latin . . . has easy access to reading Spanish, Italian or Portuguese, even if speaking those languages is clearly a different matter.'

If, as in the preceding examples, p and q are established as given on the basis of the context and the relations contracted by even with a constituent of the sentence in question, then the resultant sentences are practically equivalent to genuine concessive constructions. The only remaining ingredient of concessiveness is provided by the evaluation that even gives to its focus. These conditions that lead to a neutralization of the distinction normally drawn between concessive conditionals and concessives in modern European and non-European languages can be assumed to have played an important role in the historical development of many concessive connectives and a wide variety of languages. Concessive connectives are frequently composed of an originally temporal or conditional connective and a focus particle that corresponds to English even, also, or and. Some examples are: (32)

English: even though, even so; German: ob-wohl, ob-gleich, ob-schon, wenn-gleich, wenn auch; French: quand meme; Latin: et-si 'and-if; Finnish: joskin 'if-also'; Serbo-Croatian: iako 'and-if; Malayalam: -enkil-um 'if-even'; Iranian: (a)gartscheh 'if-?'; Sotho (Bantu): te ha 'even-if; Bahasa Indonesian: wa-lau-pun 'and-if-even'; etc. 240

Conditionals, concessive conditionals and concessives It is plausible to assume that connectives like these were originally used in conditionals and concessive conditionals, and that the distinction between concessive conditionals and concessives was entirely a matter of context. As far as English (or German) is concerned, the evidence is very clear. Though was used in the sense of 'even if in Middle English and also in early Modern English: (33)

I'll speak to it though hell itself should gape and bid me hold my peace. (Shakespeare, Hamlet, 1.11.)

The subsequent differentiation between concessive conditionals and concessives must have taken its origin from the factual contexts described above. 6. FOUR USES OF

ANYWAY

In order to round off our discussion of the conditions responsible for a neutralization of the semantic distinction between concessive conditionals and concessives and thus also for the development of the corresponding formal distinction, we will take a brief look at the different uses of the connective anyway. A discussion of the meaning and use of this and related expressions is particularly well suited to highlight the specific properties of concessive conditionals, their affinity to other semantic domains and the change from concessive conditionals to concessives. Anyway is a member of the large group of related expressions containing a universal quantifier as one component and a very general, nonspecific noun or pronoun as the other: (34)

English: anyhow, at any rate, in any case, in any event, at all events; German: jedenfalls, aufjeden Fall, injedem Fall; French: de toutefagon, en tout cas; Dutch: in ieder/ elk geval; Turkish: herhalde; Arabic: 'aid kullhal; etc.

Anyway has at least four different uses in Modern English:14 (i)

concessive-conditional use (= whether p or ~p): (35)

(ii)

concessive use (= nevertheless): (36)

(iii)

You can give me your letter. I have to go to the post office anyway a. He may not like my visit. (But) I will go and see him anyway, b. Thanks, anyway

restrictive use (= at least): (37)

Natural language expressions tend to have simple, stable and unitary senses (in many cases, anyway) 241

Ekkehard Konig (iv)

change of topic / return to previous topic: (38)

a. Jim Henderson told me about this. He is our neighbour. Our kids go to school together . . . Anyway, Jim told me . . . b. What's the matter with him, anyway?

Of the four uses under discussion, the use of anyway as a marker of a concessive-conditional relationship is clearly the primary one. This use of anyway can be observed whenever p and q, the sentences linked by this conjunct, denote eventualities that typically go together, as in (35) or in the following example: (39)

I did not invite him. He would not have come anyway

Another condition for this use is that one of the two sentences linked by anyway does not denote a fact, i.e. it must contain a modal as in (35) or (39). The contextual conditions relevant for the concessive use of anyway are the very opposite of the conditions just mentioned. Anyway has a concessive reading whenever p and q denote facts and the facts are known to be in conflict, i.e. they typically do not go together. The restrictive reading, too, derives from a basic concessive conditional reading. In this and the fourth use, anyway relates to epistemological rather than causal notions. Asserting that a fact expressed by a preceding utterance is irrelevant for a fact mentioned subsequently amounts to emphatically asserting the truth of the second statement. The contextual condition responsible for the restrictive reading of anyway is the specific relationship between p and q, the two sentences linked by anyway in cases like (37). The first one (=p) expresses a much stronger claim than the emphatically asserted second sentence (= p in many cases). So, the speaker in using anyway is in fact retracting a stronger claim and replacing it by a weaker one in accordance with the Gricean maxim of quality ('Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence'). The fourth use of anyway is based on a transfer of the notion 'irrelevance' from a conditional relationship between propositions to the idea of irrelevance of parts of a conversation to a general topic. In interrogative sentences like (38b), anyway not only signals a change of topic but also characterizes the question expressed by the sentence as a basic, central one. 7. CONCLUSION To summarize, many of the categories traditionally used for the classification and characterization of adverbial clauses are not discrete ones. Under certain contextual conditions, a clause that is formally marked as one type of construction may be interpreted as another. Hence, it is not possible to identify the adverbial constructions examined in this chapter by a list of necessary-and242

Conditionals, concessive conditionals and concessives sufficient conditions. One way of dealing with this problem of delimitation and identification is to use the concept of a prototype (see Comrie in this volume), even though the exact implications of such an approach have yet to be spelt out. The preceding discussion was meant to make a contribution to such an approach by systematically investigating the contextual conditions that are responsible for a neutralization of the contrasts expressible by certain types of adverbial constructions. This discussion has shown that, of all the adverbial clauses discussed, conditionals are the most flexible in meaning since they are open to interpretation as causals, concessive conditionals and concessives, given the right contextual conditions. Concessives, by contrast, are the most determinate construction type. While constructions formally marked as either temporals, conditionals, concessive conditionals or causals15 can all be interpreted concessively, a concessive construction formally marked as such does not seem to be open to any of the other interpretations. l6 This determinate character of concessives is also reflected in certain syntactic properties, as well as in the fact that concessives are at the very end of semantic changes involving all of the other types of adverbial clauses discussed. NOTES 1 The research reported on here was initially undertaken at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, Wassenaar. I wish to express my gratitude for this fellowship and for the help of the Institute staff. I am also indebted to John Haiman, Detlef Stark and Elizabeth Traugott for reading and criticizing an earlier version of this paper. Finally, I would like to thank the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for some financial support. 2 Of course there are many formal means of unambiguously marking a clause introduced by wenn as a conditional protasis: a stress on the connective, correlative so, subjunctive mood, existential adverbs like uberhaupt 'at all', the use of focus particles (nur versus erst), or of a time adverbial in the main clause (which prevents the wenn-dause from functioning as a temporal). Structures like the following are thus clearly conditional in meaning: a. b. c. d. e. f.

Wenn (p), q Wenn p, so q Wenn uberhaupt p, dann q Nur wenn p, dann q (versus Erst wenn p, dann q; cf. not . . . unless versus not... until) Wenn p sollte, dann q Wenn p, q AdvTime

3 Akatsuka points out that a conditional rather than a causal construction is used if a contextually given p represents newly learned information rather than the speaker's own knowledge. 4 The form of the corresponding conjuncts also reflects these different ways of specifying the relevant set of conditions: (i) (ii)

German: sowieso, so oderso, (i.e. so (p) oderso (~p), as in (7a) English: anyway, in any case; German: injedem Fall (universal quantification), as in (7b) 243

Ekkehard Konig (iii)

German: ohnehin, ohnedies, selbst dann, as in (7c)

5 There may be clear formal differences, however, between concessive conditionals introduced by even if and those of type (7a-b). Constraints on the sequence of tenses and mood in conditionals are normally also valid for those introduced by a focus particle, but not for the other two sentence types. Furthermore, there may be differences in word order, as for instance in German, where clauses introduced by auch wenn can be constituents of the main clause and can therefore be followed by the finite verb. The subordinate clauses in sentences of type (7a-b) can never be integrated into the main clause in this way. The facts of German also suggest, however, that sentences of type (7c) tend to adopt formal properties of the other two types of concessive conditionals. 6 The following simplified semantic representation of (7c) illustrates this distinction between focus and scope of a particle (see Konig 1981): (i)

(Even, a little, (X x (if you drink x, your boss will fire you)))

7 In this paper x is used as a variable for various parts of the clause or for the clause itself. 8 These elements introduce a scale of values for some propositional schema and thereby indicate that the first conjunct does not denote a single eventuality or fact. 9 See Fauconnier (1975a, 1975b, 1979) for a discussion of scalar phenomena. 10 The use of this term is meant to indicate that only one of the two extreme values on a scale triggers a chain of inferences for a given propositional schema (see Fauconnier 1975a, 1975b,1979): (i) (ii)

a. If you drink only a drop of alcohol, your boss will fire you b. If you drink a glass of alcohol, your boss will fire you c a. If I drink a whole bottle of alcohol, my boss won't fire me b. If I drink several glasses of alcohol, my boss won't fire me

11 Whether such inferences are based on entailments or conversational implicature is still a matter of much debate. 12 See Van der Auwera (this volume) for a different explanation of the same phenomenon. 13 This situation seems to be much more common in colloquial French, as in the following example in which a doctor is giving his report of a post mortem: Si son sang contenait une certaine quantite d'alcool, il n'etait pas ivre. (Simenon 1969:55) 'If his blood contained a certain quantity of alcohol, he was (certainly) not drunk.' 14 Not all expressions in (34) have the four uses in question, but each seems to have at least two of them. Furthermore, all of these uses derive from a more concrete meaning glossed as 'in any way/manner/measure' in the Oxford English Dictionary. 15 An example of a construction formally marked as causal with a concessive interpretation: Jim Thompson amassed a collection of Far Eastern statues, paintings and pots, and not having sufficient room to display them, built his own wooden mansion beside a klong - a splendid house that is no less comfortable because it dispenses with air conditioning. (Spectator 3 Aug. 1980: 8) 244

Conditionals, concessive conditionals and concessives 16 Concessive sentences with a modal in the 'antecedent' look like an exception to this claim, since they are more or less equivalent to even //"conditionals (see Comrie this volume). (i) (ii)

Although he may look a fool, he's actually very intelligent (= ) Even if he looks a fool, he's actually very intelligent

But note that in (i), too, the 'antecedent' (He may look a fool) is entailed and that we also have exactly the concessive presupposition that we expect.

REFERENCES Atlas, Jay David and Stephen C. Levinson. 1981. If-clefts, informativeness, and logical form: radical pragmatics. In Radical pragmatics, ed. Peter Cole, 1-61. New York: Academic Press. Bennett, Jonathan. 1982. Even if. Linguistics and Philosophy 5: 403-18. Bolinger, Dwight. 1967. The imperative in English. In To honor Roman Jakobson, VOL. 1, ed. Morris Halle etal., 335-62. The Hague: Mouton. Cornulier, Benoit de. 1983. 'If and the presumption of exhaustivity. Journal of Pragmatics 7: 247-9. Davies, Eirlys E. 1979. Some restrictions on conditional imperatives. Linguistics 17: 1039-54. Ducrot, Oswald. 1972. Dire et nepas dire. Paris: Hermann. Fauconnier, Gilles. 1975a. Pragmatic scales and logical structures. Linguistic Inquiry 4:353-75Fauconnier, Gilles. 1975b. Polarity and the scale principle. Papers from the nth Regional Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, 188-99. Fauconnier, Gilles. 1979. Implication reversal in a natural language. In Formal semantics and pragmatics, ed. Franz Guenthner and Siegfried J. Schmidt, 289-302. Dordrecht: Reidel. Fraser, Bruce. 1971. An analysis of 'even' in English. In Studies in linguistic semantics, ed. Charles J. Fillmore and D. Terence Langendoen, 151-80. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Gazdar, Gerald. 1979. Pragmatics: implicature, presupposition and logical form. New York: Academic Press. Geis, Michael L. and Arnold M. Zwicky. 1971. On invited inferences. Linguistic Inquiry 2: 561-6. Haiman, John. 1983. Paratactic if-clauses. Journal of Pragmatics 7: 263-81. Highsmith, P. 1978. A suspension of mercy. Harmondsworth, Middx: Penguin Books. Ibanez, R. 1976. Uber die Beziehungen zwischen Grammatik und Pragmatik: Konversationspostulate auf dem Gebiet der Konditionalitat und Imperativitat. Folia Linguistica 10: 223-48. Karttunen, Lauri and Stanley Peters. 1979. Conventional implicature. In Syntax and semantics n: Presupposition, ed. Choon-Kyu Oh and David Dinneen, 1-56. New York: Academic Press. Kempson, Ruth. 1975. Presupposition and the delimitation of semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Konig, Ekkehard. 1981. The meaning of scalar particles in German. In Words, worlds, and contexts, ed. Hans-Jiirgen Eikmeyer and Hannes Rieser, 107-32. Berlin: de Gruyter. Konig, Ekkehard and Peter Eisenberg. 1984. Zur Pragmatik von Konzessivsatzen. In Pragmatik in der Grammatik, ed. Gerhard Stickel, 313-32. Diisseldorf: Schwann. 245

Ekkehard Konig L'Engle, Madeleine. 1962. A wrinkle in time. New York: Dell Publishing Co. Levinson, Stephen. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Simenon, Georges. 1969. Maigret et le tueur. Paris: Presses de la Cite. Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 1985. Conditional markers. In Iconicity in syntax, ed. John Haiman, 289-307. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

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13 THE REALIS-IRREALIS CONTINUUM IN THE CLASSICAL GREEK CONDITIONAL Joseph H. Greenberg Editors' note. In describing the system of conditional sentence types of a given language, the linguist must identify both the basic formal (i.e. morphosyntactic) categories and the basic semantic categories deployed by that language. In his summary and reanalysis of the well-studied system of Classical Greek, Greenberg shows how the three moods of the Greek verb interact with conditional particles and the tense/aspect forms of the verb to express a set of nine types along the semantic dimensions of hypotheticality (particular, general, counterfactual) and time (past, present, future). This paper provides links to Veltman's in the discussion of mood and modality, Fillenbaum's on threats and promises, and Harris's on tense and aspect. 1. INTRODUCTION This chapter focuses on an analysis of the conditional in Classical Greek, generally excluding the preceding Homeric period and the following Koine, both of which show differences in the relevant constructions from the intervening Classical period.1 Of course, many of the properties of the Greek conditional are not unique to that language. However, it does command special interest for two reasons, its complexity and the fact that it has been so intensively investigated. Apart from the specific hypotheses, the central point is that it is incumbent on the linguist to account for the formal similarities among constructions, and to employ in addition to hypotheses stemming from formal logic those arising from semantic similarities based on the typical factors found in semantic change in general. In regard to the syntax of Greek conditionals, the use of the verbal moods will be the focus of interest. Grammars generally distinguish four moods, the indicative, subjunctive, optative and imperative. Of these, the imperative does not occur in the protasis of the prototypical conditional, i.e. one introduced by ei 'if, though it can occur, as in other languages, in the apodosis, e.g. English If he is guilty of the crime, punish him! The other three show a gradient from the indicative through the subjunctive to the optative on the basis of a realis - irrealis continuum which will undergo a certain amount of modification and refinement in the course of the discussion. The notion that of the two non-indicative moods (outside of the imperative) 247

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the subjunctive is closer semantically to the indicative while the optative represents the irrealis end of the continuum derives ultimately from the discussion in Delbriick (1871: especially 17, 25). A distinction between two non-indicative, non-imperative moods is found only in Homeric and Classical Greek, Vedic Sanskrit and Avestan. By New Testament times the optative is merely a literary reminiscence, and the subjunctive does not survive in the later Classical Sanskrit. In his treatment of the topic, Delbriick left Avestan out of consideration, comparing Vedic Sanskrit and Homeric Greek usage in main clause positive uses. He arrived at the conclusion that the earliest basic meaning of the subjunctive was 'will' (Wille) and that of the optative 'wish' (Wunsch). Delbriick's analysis still survives in its essentials. Since we can only will what is possible and capable of fulfilment, the subjunctive is closer to the indicative. Indeed, it is often used as a future in earliest Indo-European. The optative as wish can have an unattainable or even impossible content, and can even refer to the past (contrary to fact). This latter possibility opens the way for the use of the optative in the Greek sequence of tenses, in which the optative occurs in subordinate clauses when the verb in the main clause is in a past tense while the subjunctive appears when the verb in the main clause is in a nonpast tense. For Greek, the standard treatment of the whole topic is Goodwin (1889), devoted in its entirety to the system of moods and tenses of the Greek verb. Even recent studies like Lightfoot (1975) rely on Goodwin's collection of data. Goodwin divides Greek conditionals into eight types and this classification has gone into most pedagogical grammars of the language. However, in the present treatment one of the types is split into two and the nine which result are rearranged into two dimensions in a 3 x 3 arrangement. In particular, types I.3 and II.3 of table 1 are, in the standard treatment, considered mere variants of the same type. In arriving at this symmetrical division of construction types, we are basically paying attention to linguistic form.2 The semantic labelling is therefore to some extent arbitrary, and even results in the, at first blush strange, collocation 'future counterfactual' for type III.3. However, similarity of form presumably exists for a reason and leads to a search for the grounds, basically metaphorical, which underlie analogous formal treatment. 2. INFLECTIONAL C A T E G O R I E S OF THE VERB Before discussing in detail the various forms of conditionals and their classification, a few preliminary remarks concerning the structure of the Greek verb are in order, for readers unacquainted with this topic. The Greek verb is highly inflected. It displays the inflectional categories of (i) person and number of the subject, including a dual second and third person; (ii) voice (active, middle and passive); (iii) mood (indicative, subjunctive, optative, imperative); and 248

The realis-irrealis continuum in the Classical Greek conditional Table i. Types of conditional sentences in Classical Greek

I.

Past

Particular I Apodosis Protasis open ei + past indie.

Present ei + present open indie. 3- Future ei + future open indie. 2.

General II Apodosis Protasis imperf. ei + opt. indie.

Counterfactual III Protasis Apodosis ei + aor. aor. indie. indie. + an

edn + sub. present indie. edn + sub. future indie.

ei + imperf. indie. ei + opt.

imperf. indie. + an opt. + an

(iv) tense (present, imperfect, aorist, perfect, pluperfect, future, future perfect). However, there are many categories which do not occur (e.g. a future subjunctive) or which are syncretized (e.g. the middle and passive everywhere except in the future, aorist, and the perfect tenses). Moreover in the nonindicative moods certain tenses do not occur at all, namely those with the prefixed 'augment' e- which marks pastness and which forms the imperfect based on the present, and the pluperfect based on the perfect. Further, in many clause or sentence types including the protases of conditionals, what remains expresses aspectual rather than tense differences. The most important are the present and aorist of the non-indicative moods, including infinitives. Of these, the aorist is punctual and the present nonpunctual, e.g. durative or habitual. The aorist is the unmarked form and is often used where nonpunctual aspect can be inferred from context.3 The perfect also is found as an expression of completed action, but is relatively infrequent. In the following analysis and classification of conditionals the aspectual differences in the non-indicative moods are not taken into consideration, nor is voice, both being by general agreement irrelevant in a typology of conditional sentences in Greek. Before proceeding to a classification into types, it is also necessary to mention two particles, namely ei and an. The former is the usual word for 'if and introduces the protasis. The latter always indicates some degree of hypotheticality. It occurs both in the protasis and the apodosis. Whenever it occurs with the subjunctive, and this is always in the protasis, it must immediately follow ei, with which it then contracts to edn or sometimes to en. With the indicative and optative an is much freer in order, often gravitating to a position adjacent to the verb. Further, under these conditions it is never subject to contraction.

3. CLASSIFICATION In table i, columns i, 2 and 3 in the vertical dimension are past, present and future, while on the horizontal dimension I is factual particular, II is 249

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(factual) general and III is counterfactual. Table i is schematic in the sense that it presents the usual types. There are some occurrences of mixed types, especially in regard to the tense distinctions indicated in i, 2 and 3. As in English, we may, for example, have contrary to fact sentences in which the protasis refers to a different time period from the apodosis. Suppose that a day which starts with cool weather begins to heat up and promises to become even hotter. We might say to someone at noon, who has had no opportunity to change clothing, If you had dressed lighter this morning, you wouldn't be so uncomfortable at the concert this evening. Before exemplifying and commenting on the system, the following formal similarities in the arrangement may be indicated. In constructions of type I (factual particular) the protasis always has ei + the indicative. In II, the general conditions, the apodosis always has the indicative and the protasis never does. Moreover, because of the rule of sequence of tenses previously mentioned, in certain constructions such as purpose clauses and in indirect discourse the optative occurs in subordinate clauses with 'secondary tenses' in the main clause, whereas the subjunctive appears with 'primary tenses'. The secondary tenses are the imperfect, aorist and pluperfect and the primary are the present, perfect, future and future perfect. This division between primary and secondary tenses agrees basically with a division between past and nonpast. The perfect is primary: it expresses the present result of a past act or a state of affairs continuing into the present. Thus the protases of II in the table in their use of the subjunctive and the optative are parallel to other subordinate constructions in Greek and may be considered the normally expected variants of the same basic construction. The use of edn with the subjunctive in II.2 and II.3 parallels the optional use of an with the subjunctive after the resultative particles hos, hop6s, and ophra, e.g. hos an mathks, antdkouson (Xenophon, Anabasis 2.15,16) 'That you may learn (aorist subjunctive), hear the other side.' Further, classifying together the three entries in the apodoses of III is justified by the existence of a close parallelism with the three independent forms of the potential construction, to be discussed later. The putting together of the protases of III receives further support by their parallels with the independent optatives, also to be discussed later. We now discuss the nine forms of Table 1. 3.1 Particular conditionals Types I.i and 1.2 are relatively unproblematical. In both there is no assumption concerning the truth or falsity of the condition. In I.i the protasis may contain any past indicative tense, most commonly the imperfect or the aorist, more rarely the perfect or pluperfect. As noted above, the differences are here basically aspectual; in the case of the pluperfect, aspect is combined with relative time i.e. completion + relative past. The apodoses of I are omitted 250

The realis-irrealis continuum in the Classical Greek conditional from the table and are usually called 'open' in the sense that not only the appropriate indicative tenses can be used but also the imperative, the hortatory subjunctive and the optative of wish. However, indicatives with an may not occur, these being reserved for type III. Here, as in general, there are stronger limitations on the forms that may be used in protases (see Haiman in this volume). For this reason, most of the classifications in Greek grammars of conditional sentences have been based on the form of the protases. An example of 1.1 is Plato, Republic 408 C.: ei theou en, ouk en aischrokerdes 'If he was the son of a god (literally 'if he was of a god') (imperfect indicative), he was (imperfect indicative) not avaricious'4 Type 1.2 is exemplified by Aristophanes, Frogs 579: kdkisf apoloimen, Xanthian ei me philo 'May I perish most miserably (aorist optative), if I do not love Xanthias (present indicative)' Note that the negation in the first of the two quotations is ou, but in the second me. The rule is that in the main clause ou is used with the indicative or optative; in most subordinate clauses, including protases, me is used with all moods). The topic of negation will be considered later in this paper. We now come to 1.3 in which the future indicative is found in the protasis. The types classified under 3 which concern the future obviously present greater difficulties for analysis than those assigned to 1 or 2. Strictly speaking, there are no future facts. As noted earlier, Goodwin considers our 1.3 and II.3 to be variants of the same type, his 'future condition, more vivid form' as against III.3 his 'future condition, less vivid form'. However, as can be seen from table 1, the formal parallelism of 1.3 with the two others in the first column is obvious, as is that of II.3 with II. 1 and II.2 in the second column. It seems reasonable to search for some underlying rationale for these similarities in the formal treatment. For the moment we are mainly concerned with 1.3, which has the future indicative in the protasis, as against the subjunctive in II.3 and the optative in III.3. Given the general scale of realis-irrealis in the Greek use of the moods, we expect that there will be some justification for the position of 1.3 on the realis end of the scale with III.3 on the other end. As has been seen, Goodwin put together 1.3 and II.3 as a single type, more vivid, as against III.3 less vivid. This analysis which occurs in earlier editions of Goodwin's work led Gildersleeve (1877) to raise the question as to whether there is not, in fact, some systematic difference between the two more vivid types. In his study of this question the most important, but not the only, data consisted in the listing of every example of either of these forms of the conditional 251

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in the writing of the three great tragic dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. He cites the play, the line and the verb form of the protasis for each example. In many instances he adds a descriptive epithet to characterize the force of the verb of the protasis in the particular passage. I have examined each of these passages myself. This is necessary because Gildersleeve only cites the conditional particle and the verb which accompanies it and gives neither the text nor the translation of the whole passage. The descriptive epithets used by Gildersleeve with forms characteristic of I.3 fall into two distinct classes. One which he calls 'minatory' includes such characterizations as 'threat', 'remonstrance' and 'solemn warning'. The second is a set to which he gives no general name but includes such phrases as 'is to', 'have to' and 'must'. They all seem to involve the notion of inevitability or, at least, very strong likelihood. In contrast to 1.3 there is only one instance of II.3 being characterized as minatory, namely Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus 814. With this exception no occurrence of II.3 has any characterization at all. In the plays of Aeschylus, Gildersleeve cites 22 examples of the occurrence of I.3, of which ten are accompanied by the characterization 'minatory'. Actually, the passage Libation Bearers 273 is also clearly minatory, although not labelled as such by Gildersleeve. The others bear notations implying necessity or very high likelihood of occurrence. The existence of a minatory subtype involving the future indicative in the protasis was accepted by Goodwin (1889) in the second edition of his standard work, but did not lead him to abandon his earlier classification in which 1.3 and II.3 were considered mere variants of the same fundamental type. Subsequently Clapp (1891), while not denying the existence of a minatory use of the future indicative, in a critique of Gildersleeve pointed to the occasional occurrence of what is, on the surface, the complete opposite. The protasis may refer to a state of affairs which is ardently desired. Since the 'libidinal', as he called this use, is well attested, the basic question regarding 1.3 may be stated in the following terms. Why should the indicative be used in these three classes of instances, given that the indicative is at the realis end of the continuum? It should be added, however, that in Sophocles there are a fair number of occurrences of 1.3 which are uncharacterized, and this is even more the case for Euripides, chronologically the latest of the three dramatists. The following are a few examples of the minatory use. I believe it is sufficient to quote the English translation. The first to be considered is Sophocles' Ajax I2 55~6. Agamemnon reproves Teucer, who has defended Ajax's erratic behaviour by saying that Ajax is an independent chief. Agamemnon says: A like corrective is in store for thee, if thou acquire not some small sense soon. The verb acquire is in the future indicative. The corrective is not specified, but in the immediately preceding lines Agamemnon has said that the ox is driven down the straight path by the goad. 252

The realis-irrealis continuum in the Classical Greek conditional The second example to be cited is Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound 311-16. Prometheus, chained to a rock in the Caucasus, has been reviling Zeus. Oceanus visits him and says: But if thou hurlest forth words so harsh and of such whetted edge, peradventure Zeus may hear thee though throned afar in the heaven, so that thy present multitude of sorrows shall seem but childish sport.

Here the protasis has rhipseis the future second singular indicative, while the apodosis has as its verb kluoi third person present optative. This is an example of what in Greek grammars is called the potential optative. It is also relevant to note that the apodosis is grammatically complex, in that the consequence of Zeus' hearing is expressed by hoste 'so that' followed by the infinitive. This construction normally expresses an actual outcome. An example of the libidinal use is Sophocles' Trachiniae 1246. Heracles says to his son Hyllus: This is not an impiety if you will make my heart glad. Here Heracles, who is being consumed by the magic robe given him by Deianira, seeks to make his son burn him on a funeral pyre and then marry Iole whom Heracles loves. The reward is his father's approval of what Hyllus views as an act of impiety. The question here is why the protasis should have the future indicative in the minatory and libidinal constructions. I conjecture that in both instances there is a virtual certainty which leads to the use of the indicative, but that it does not reside in the protasis as such. In a threat, the act expressed in the protasis must have some probability greater than zero. If there is zero likelihood that the person will carry out an act that will have some dire consequence there is no need for the threat. By the same reasoning, there must not be zero likelihood of the speaker not carrying out an act that is highly desired by the speaker or, once more, there will be no need for the promise. The very high probability, approaching certainty, lies in the relation between the act and its consequences, whether greatly abhorred or ardently wished, and in either case there is obviously a strong emotional element involved. In typological studies a notion of statistical implication has been widely employed which takes the following form: if X, then Y with high probability. In the first example there is virtual certainty that Teucer will receive some punishment if he does not show more sense than to defend Ajax's conduct. In the second example, which is grammatically more complex, the probability of Zeus' hearing at such a distance is expressed by the optative, which is at the irrealis end of the scale. But the real point is that even this small probability is not worth risking because the consequences are so terrifying. We now see that we have a kind of betting situation in which the probability of a dire outcome cannot be zero but if the outcome is extremely dire this nonzero probability need not be very great. Pragmatically one may say the purpose of the threat is to change the probability to zero of the person addressed 253

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doing or not doing something, by noting the dire consequences that will follow. Correspondingly, when something is ardently desired, even if the probability is very high, its attainment is so strongly sought that there is a promise whose purpose is to increase its probability to i. There is a further assumption of a general Gricean nature, namely the rationality of the person to whom the warning is delivered. If Prometheus is a masochist who would like to be punished even more by Zeus, then the threat changes from a deterrent to an incentive. Similarly a promise is ineffective if the person to whom it is addressed is an ascetic who, for example, is not enticed by the promise of a gourmet meal (cf. Fillenbaum, in this volume, on threats and promises). The third basic subtype of 1.3 is that in which there is a strong necessity or likelihood of something happening but the high degree of probability includes both the protasis and its causal connection with the apodosis. The result itself is something evil or abhorrent. An example is Sophocles' Electra 1209-10, in which Electra says: Oh! woe for thee Orestes, woe is me, if I am not to give thee burial. At this point Electra believes that her brother Orestes is dead but she is speaking to a stranger who is actually Orestes in disguise. The semantic connection of the apodosis with reality is here quite like the semantic relation of the English adverb really to real. It would usually not be out of place if really were to be inserted in the translation of the protasis: if this will really happen, how horrible! As with the minatory use of 1.3, the apodosis normally expresses something unfavourable. A further citation which will illustrate this is Aeschylus' Libation Bearers 181-2. Orestes, who has secretly returned to Argos with his friend Pylades, has deposited a lock of his hair on the tomb of his father Agamemnon, who had been murdered by his mother Clytemnestra and her paramour Aegisthus. Orestes' sister Electra and the Chorus of Libation Bearers then come to the tomb. Electra notes that the hair resembles that of her brother Orestes. The Chorus then asks whether this means that Orestes has arrived in order to avenge his father. Electra, however, takes a pessimistic view, saying: He hath but sent this shorn lock to do honour to his sire, whereupon the Chorus says (181-2): In thy words lies still greater cause for tears, if he shall never set foot on this land. Here the protasis has the future indicative and the apodosis once again expresses an unfavourable issue, and it would be quite reasonable to insert really in the protasis: if it is really so that he will never set foot on this land. 3.2 General conditionals Thus far we have considered conditions which involve an existence assumption, but this does not hold for the types of the second column of table 1, labelled 'general' in accordance with the usual practice of Greek grammarians. If we identify these with the general propositions of logic, they would be symbolized 254

The realis-irrealis continuum in the Classical Greek conditional by means of the general quantifier (x) and would be paraphrased as 'for all values of x . . . ' . Such propositions are usually interpreted as not involving existence assumptions. However, the story is not that simple. The general affirmative of traditional logic (A-type propositions) e.g. 'All men are mortal' would be rendered in Greek in its hypothetical form 'If all men are mortal...' not by a construction of column II but by the present indicative, and would be classified as type 1.2. The propositional forms of column II would more appropriately be called 'indefinite' and paraphrased 'For any x . . . ' . Neither construction involves an existence assumption. In the present chapter the traditional terminology 'general' versus 'particular' is retained, although the terms 'indefinite' versus 'definite' would be more accurate. The existential, in contrast to the forms just discussed, takes the form 'there is an a such that . . . ' . The interesting question is why, in general, natural languages very rarely make a formal distinction along these lines. In this respect Classical Greek is unusual. The reason for claiming that there is a formal distinction is that the same marker, ei or edn, is used as in other conditions but with a special combination of tense and mood not found in other types of conditional constructions. The general condition as a distinct type was widely accepted after its proposal by Goodwin and has appeared to be relatively uncontroversial among Greek scholars.5 In fact, although in a minority of instances, forms of the particular conditional are used instead of the general, especially for the present and the past, that is 1.1 and 1.2 for II. 1 and II.2 respectively. An example is Sophocles' Trachiniae 943-5: If anyone counts on two or perhaps more days, he is a fool. Here the verb forms in the protasis and the apodosis are both present indicative, the construction of 1.2. What may be involved, however, is the same factor as that noted earlier with regard to 1.3.: If anyone (really) counts on two or three days, he is a fool. Further investigation would be required to discover whether this is a major explanation of other exceptions of this sort. Another characteristic of this example is worth noting, namely the presence in the protasis of the indefinite generalizing pronoun tis 'anyone'. This use of the indefinite pronoun in the protasis of a general proposition is related to the fact that any general conditional sentence in Greek could probably be replaced by a so-called 'conditional relative'; this is true in many languages which have no special syntactic features to distinguish general from particular conditions. Thus the sentence often cited in Greek grammars as a model of type II.2 is edn tis kleptei koldzetai 'If anyone steals he is punished', in which the verb of the protasis is in the subjunctive with an and the verb of the apodosis is present indicative. This could be equivalently expressed as hds an kleptei koldzetai 'Whoever steals is punished', with exactly the same verb forms as in the corresponding conditional sentence. 255

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It should be noted, though, that an indefinite pronoun need not appear in general conditionals. An example is Euripides' Alcestis 671, If death comes near, no one is willing to die. Here the protasis has en, followed by the aorist subjunctive elthei, and the apodosis contains the present indicative bouletai. We may say that ever or any time is to be supplied. If ever death comes near, etc. In most instances however there is an overt indefinite pronoun. There is in Greek a close formal parallelism which may be stated as an analogical proportion6: General question : w/?-question ei + an + subjunctive : w/z-question word + an + subjunctive There is the further formal parallelism that the connection between ei or the vv/z-question word with an is so close that it must not only follow immediately but in some instances contraction to a single word is compulsory. This is true for ei + an which is never uncontracted. An example of a w/z-question word is pote 'when?' which corresponds to hopotdn 'whenever'. Here ho- is a relativizer. In all these instances there is the further regularity that, following the Greek rules for sequence of tenses, these interrogative-relatives occur with the optative without an when past tense is involved, thus formally paralleling II.1. Presumably, the reason why languages tend not to establish a separate syntactic construction for general conditions is that the use of indefinite pronouns is sufficient and/or that there is an alternative means of expression by means of relativization; a third possibility is to use a temporal conjunction. The verb form for the apodoses of type II is specified in table 1, unlike the forms for type I (the factual particular), in which the apodoses are basically open. Even in type II there are additional possibilities not indicated in the table. Although presumably we cannot 'mix tenses' any more than in English {*If anyone steals, he was punished), we can, as in English, have certain nonindicative forms such as hortative or imperative (// any one steals, let him be punished). As usual it is row 3 which raises most problems. What justification is there for considering II.3 general? In some instances it clearly is not, e.g. Xenophon, Cyropedia 5.3.27: If therefore you go now, when shall you be at home? with edn and the present subjunctive in the protasis and the future indicative in the apodosis. In numerous other examples the condition is indeed clearly general, as in Xenophon, Anabasis 7.3.11: If anyone opposes us, we shall try to overcome him. However, the most important reason for considering II.3 general is that, as Gildersleeve (1877:9) points out, it is 'invariably used in laws and it may also be called the Legal condition'. There are numerous examples of this use. The promulgation of laws necessarily refers to future events and is also 256

The realis-irrealis continuum in the Classical Greek conditional necessarily general in nature. This provides the rationale and the conceptual point of departure for a construction which, as can be seen from table i, belongs in the position II.3 on formal grounds. Whether it was also historically the earliest use I am unable to say. There is a further consideration regarding the construction in column II. As we have seen, the general condition as analysed by logicians makes no existence assumptions, unlike the particular conditions of column I. Collateral knowledge generally makes it clear that the condition is sometimes fulfilled; but strictly speaking this does not have to hold. This is particularly obvious regarding the 'legal conditions1 of II.3. The punishment may be so dire, or the act itself so unlikely, that no instance will ever occur. This absence of existence assumptions for the condition, it may be conjectured, is what gives this form the degree of hypotheticality reflected in the use of the irrealis moods and the particle an in the protasis. The reason for assigning the general condition to a position intermediate between I (the factual particular) and III (the counterfactual) are as follows. It seems more hypothetical than type I for the reasons just discussed. On the other hand, as noted earlier, general conditions in Greek are often expressed by the forms of the first column (factual particular), thus supporting a close relation between types I and II. I believe that this relatively close relationship between I and II is based on the following factors. In regard to the nonfuture conditions, there is no basis for specifying the consequences of fulfilling the condition unless in fact it has been known to occur on the basis of experience. One should, however, except here discourse of a logico-mathematical type, where the relationship might flow from deductive principles. Even for the future consequences of a future act, the consequences may be foretold from past experience. In regard to laws which, as we have seen, are the typical instance of future general conditions, there is a connection with factuality in that normally there is no reason to have a law which forbids an act which is not known to have occurred in the past. However, the absence of an existence assumption in the protasis does bring with it the possibility of the enactment of laws which are dead letters. For example, it is possible that the injunctions in Leviticus 11:13 a n d Deuteronomy 14:12 against eating the osprey have never been violated in the history of the Jewish people but that they occur as a consequence of the tendency of the legal mind towards deductive reasoning and flow from the general principle of not eating animals which devour carrion. 3.3 Counterfactuals On the other hand, type III (the counterfactual), for all the difficulties of its analysis, refers normally to the consequences of acts which are not performed, and seems by this very fact to belong at the irrealis extreme of our continuum. 257

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The intermediate position of II between I and III is reinforced by formal considerations. The hypothetical particle an is always present in III but never occurs in I. While it is usual in the Classical period in II, the subjunctive without an occurs in a fair number of instances, while its omission in Homer in general conditions is the rule. Another fact pointing to the intermediate position of II is that it neutralizes the opposition between I and III, in that in general conditions there is no formal distinction between the contrary to fact interpretation of type III and the absence of this assumption in type I. However, the earlier discussion regarding the absence of an existence assumption in the general condition suggests that we may really be dealing with two logically different dimensions. Absence of an existence assumption (II) contrasts with its presence (I, III). Within the latter we have a probability range with limits of truth value o (falsity) to i (truth). The case of o as a limit is considered later in the discussion of the counterfactual. With regard to i (truth), the justification is that no matter how likely the truth of a condition, if it is simply asserted as true it is no longer a condition. Still, as usual there are occasional nonprototypical uses in which what are formally conditions are to be interpreted as assertions. Examples in English of the type If John is stupid, he was born that way belong here. Turning now to column III (the counterfactual), our basic concern will not be to add one more to the numerous discussions of the nature of counterf actuals but rather to point out the formal grounds and the semantic factors for the assignment to position III.3 of the most problematic type, that in which the protasis is in the optative and the apodosis is in the optative + an. Once more the formal considerations are obvious, and in this instance involve both the protasis and the apodosis. In the protasis a comparison of 1.3, II.3 and III.3 shows the sequence indicative, subjunctive and optative, which echoes the realis-irrealis gradation of the moods resting on many other facts about Greek outside of the constructions in question. In the apodosis the use of the particle an clearly aligns III.3 with III. 1 and III.2 in regard to placement in the same column. Semantic justification is given by examples in which a clause with the same or similar formal characteristics to that of the protasis appears as a type of independent sentence, and a parallel situation exists with regard to the apodosis. These two types of sentences could, alternatively, be described as related to those of column III by the suppression of the apodosis or the protasis respectively, without any synchronic or diachronic assumptions about the relationship between the fuller and briefer types of sentences. Let us consider the suppression of the apodosis first. We obtain sentences which consist of ei followed by the aorist (III. 1), imperfect (III.2) and the optative (III.3). 7 These are all expressions of wish. In III. 1 and III.2 in Attic Greek ei always takes the strengthened form eithe or ei gar much like English if only, and it always implies nonfulfilment of the wish. An example is Euripides' 258

The realis-irrealis continuum in the Classical Greek conditional Electra 1061: eitK eikhes beltious phrenas 'O that thou hadst better understanding', in which the verb is in the imperfect indicative. In III.3 the optative may occur by itself, that is without ei, and this construction has led to the use of the name 'optative' for this form of the Greek verb. However, it can occur with the simple form ei as well as the strengthened forms eithe or ei gar (the form with ei, however, can only occur in poetry). The negative is me, as would be expected if in fact this construction is related to the protasis of the conditional form. There is a striking similarity to Classical Arabic in the resemblance between independent sentences expressing wish and the statement of conditions contrary to fact. This language differs from Greek in having two different words for 'if: ?in where there is no assumption regarding the truth of the condition, and law which is used to introduce counterfactuals. The same particle law is used as an optative particle to introduce wishes in main clauses or independent sentences. 4. INDEPENDENT CLAUSES The independent or main clause use of the protasis forms is called the 'indicative of wish' in Greek grammars. The fact that a wish is involved is indicated by the strengthened conditional particles already mentioned. The indicative of the verb itself evidently suffices, since there is no point in a wish relating to the present or the past if the speaker knows that the state of affairs wished for has in fact occurred or is in the process of occurring. Greek here resembles many other languages in a connection between counterfactuals and wishes, but differs in the use of the indicative. It agrees with languages like English and German in the use of strengthening particles. These would, however, appear to be more of a requirement in Greek: as we have seen, under certain circumstances they are compulsory in so far as Greek uses the indicative while English and German use the subjunctive. Thus in English we have If she were (only) here! and in German Wenn sie (nur) gekommen ware! With regard to the future construction, many languages agree with Greek in showing a relationship between wishes relating to the future and future conditions; for example, we have in English If they would give me a fellowship, I would be very pleased, as compared with / / they would (only) give me a fellowship! There are, of course, no future facts for anything to be contrary to, but we do have a kind of calculus much like that discussed under 1.3. There is the same combination of the probability of the event actually occurring and the ardency of the wish that it should occur. Hence it is likely to be used if the probability of occurrence is very small, but also when the probability is fairly large but the importance of fulfilment is very great. There are, in fact, instances in Greek, as in other languages, in which a form which is usually used in future wishes refers to what is virtually a logical 259

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or factual impossibility even when it refers to the future. A famous example in Greek literature is the watchman's speech at the beginning of Aeschylus' Agamemnon in which (referring to the horrible deeds which had occurred in Agamemnon's palace) he says (37-8) oikos d'autos, eiphthongen Idboi, saphestat' an lekseien 'Yet the house itself, could it but speak (ei + aorist optative) might tell (aorist optative) a tale full plain' (literally, 'would speak most clearly'). Note that not just any protasis in Greek, or in other languages in which there is a relation between optatives and the protasis of a counterfactual, can occur as an optative. The frustrated or unlikely outcome must be one wished for by the speaker, yet the conditional clause of a counterfactual may well express something which is feared or is a matter of indifference. Thus it would seem strange in English to derive from the counterfactual condition If his gun had been loaded, I would now be dead! an optative / / his gun had (only) been loaded! With regard to this, however, there are two qualifications to be made. One is that for this not to be appropriate the typical and usually present strengthener (compulsory as we have seen in the Greek indicative of wish), if not present, permits in languages like English a statement identical to the protasis - but one which does not express a wish, e.g. If the gun had been loaded . . . (just imagine the consequences!). The second proviso is that, as in the instance of type 1.3, there is some kind of assumption of rationality on the part of the hearer which is presupposed. Suppose we say, If the gun had only been loaded! and interpret this as a wish, as would be permissible in Greek as well as in English. It could have been said by someone who had been planning the act as a bizarre form of suicide, an act which failed because of the oversight of the hired killer in not loading the gun. It is, however, noteworthy that wish, as against apprehension, is as it were the unmarked category in spite of the frequent presence of a strengthening particle to emphasize the expression of wish. Languages often have inflected optatives to express wish, but I know of no example of a category 'apprehensitive'. It is usually expressed by the negation of an optative, as in Greek mi genoito (aorist optative) 'May it not happen!' In the preceding section we have considered the suppression of the apodosis. In Greek, if we suppress the protasis we get acceptable kinds of sentences for all the types in the third column, that is sentences in which the only clause is the main clause or the main clause with types of dependent clauses other than a conditional apodosis. We thus obtain a past indicative with an or an optative with an. In Greek grammars these are called the 'potential indicative' and the 'potential optative', respectively. With the potential indicative, depending on whether the verb is aorist or imperfect, the assumption is that the event did not occur or is not true in the present. Thus elabe an (aorist indicative) 260

The realis-irrealis continuum in the Classical Greek conditional can be translated as 'He would have taken' and eldmbanen an (imperfect indicative) as 'He would be taking'. Corresponding to III.3 is the potential optative, e.g. Idboidn 'He might take.' This phenomenon is, of course, well-known in many languages, including English. The condition which prevented a past action or prevents a present action, or makes a future action unlikely, is not overtly stated but is left vague or is deducible from the context. We would not be apt to refer directly to, or imply, conditions, as indicated by the presence of an and the complete parallelism with the apodoses of conditional sentences of type III, unless these conditions were not fulfilled. If they were fulfilled and there were hindering circumstances which, however, were not sufficient to prevent the event, there are other modes of expression, namely the concessional conditional in English as well as in Greek, e.g. even though . . . in English and ei kai in Greek. In such instances, obviously, the expression is no longer contrary to fact and the event, in fact, took place. 5. NEGATIVE CONDITIONALS In Greek, the potential optative is frequent with the negative. The negation is ou in conformity with the fact that the potential optative is equivalent in form to an apodosis and, as we have seen, the apodosis takes ou as its negative.8 The following are examples of ou (regularly ouk before a vowel) with the potential optative: Herodotus 4. 97 ouk an leiphtheien 'I would not be left behind (in any case)'; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1172 b32 oucT dllo ouden tagathdn an eie 'The chief good cannot be anything else'; Aristophanes, Frogs 830 ouk an metheimen tou thronou T will not give up the throne'. As can be seen from these examples, what we have is an emphatic negative, something close to a negative certainty, and the addition of phrases like under any circumstances, would never, etc. would be consonant with the meaning of this class of sentences. It was suggested earlier that what might be called the basic realis-irrealis continuum (that is, excluding general conditions) could be conceived as a probability function whose limits are o 'falsity' and 1 'truth'. Now it is a general linguistic phenomenon across languages that negatives with a cardinal number normally exclude not just the number itself but all lower numbers, and this extends to all quantitative expressions. This was noted for English by the ever observant Jespersen (1940: 457). If I say There are not four good restaurants in Copenhagen, it is a kind of feeble joke if I then add that there are actually five. From this, as noted by Jespersen, not one comes to mean none, no since not even one in relation to countables becomes zero. The case is similar with non-numerical quantifiers, e.g. not much means a small amount not a large amount. The French, formerly emphatic, negatives ne ... pas, ne . . . point, etc. also belong here. 261

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Given, then, that the potential in Greek is formally equivalent to a future contrary to fact, its basic meaning is that the possibility is very small. The negation, then, in conformity with the general fact just discussed, becomes 'not even the slightest possibility', hence an emphatic negation. It may be looked on, consequently, as a zero limit by asserting that the possibility is even smaller than any number one might assign to estimate the probability expressed here by the optative. But this is precisely o as a limit. Finally, the existence of two separate negatives, me in the protasis and ou in the apodosis, which we find in Greek, can be placed in a wider typological perspective as involving an implicational scale based on the realis-irrealis continuum. In Greek, me is also used in prohibition, negative wishes, negative exhortations in the first and third persons and in a variety of subordinate clauses (e.g. purpose). On the other hand ou is the usual factual negation. Me is of Indo-European date and occurs in Old Indie, Old Persian, Tocharian and Armenian, including in all these languages the prohibitive among its uses. On the other hand, ou has no certain etymology. In other Indo-European languages a negation in n is the factual negation but it survives in Greek only as the derivational prefix a-, an- 'without, not having'. Since a prohibition as a negative imperative is not even an assertion, it is at the irrealis extreme. When a language has a separate marker for the prohibitive it is almost always used as a negative hortatory in the first and third persons, e.g. Hausa kada. A shift from this to the use in subordinate clauses of the sort / fear lest . . . is easy and then a spread to other sorts of subordinate clauses can follow - particularly those involving possibility rather than actuality, such as negative clauses of purpose. Perhaps the final stage in this development is its use in the protases of conditional sentences where there is no assumption regarding the truth or falsity of the condition, as with me in Greek. Akkadian provides a striking typological parallel with Greek. It has two negations la and ul Of these, the former is employed in prohibitions but also in a variety of other uses including the protases of conditional sentences. Moreover, like the Greek me, la is reconstructible for the ancestral language and occurs elsewhere in prohibitions. On the other hand, ul is apparently an innovation and is restricted to the negation of the indicative. Like Greek ou, it is regular in the apodosis of conditional sentences. These are, of course, mere indications still to be explored of yet another implicational hierarchy, that of negation in its relation to the realis-irrealis continuum. 6. CONCLUSION The conditional sentences of Classical Greek can be classified into nine types based on considerations of linguistic form. These nine can be organized on two basic dimensions: times with values past, present and future, and a realisirrealis continuum with the values factual, general and counterfactual. The 262

The realis-irrealis continuum in the Classical Greek conditional distinction between factual and general usually used in Greek grammars is found to be better expressed as definite versus indefinite. A closer examination of the nine types shows that while there is a general conformity to truth-value semantics, a fuller understanding requires attention to similarities based on metaphor reflecting historical change on the one hand and pragmatic factors on the other. More particularly, certain uses of future conditionals can be better understood by positing minatory and libidinal subtypes involving an attempt on the part of the speaker to use the utterance to increase the likelihood of averting an undesired outcome or of effecting a strongly desired one. The protasis and apodosis of counterfactuals are found to be related in their mode of linguistic expression to independent clauses expressing wish and potentiality respectively. Such a relationship holds quite generally across languages. A more unusual property of Classical Greek is the use of different negative particles in the protasis and apodosis. The distinction of two particles, one on the irrealis side of the continuum and the other on the realis side, recurs in a number of languages. A preliminary consideration of these instances suggests that the irrealis type of negation starts with prohibitions. A more detailed linguistic, diachronically oriented study of languages with more than one type of negation would be required to develop a fuller understanding of this phenomenon. NOTES 1 I am grateful to Charles Ferguson and Elizabeth Traugott for valuable comments and suggestions regarding an earlier version of this paper. 2 The only earlier source in which I encountered this classification was Sonnenschein (1894). He noted that it was based on similarity of linguistic form. 3 The terms 'marked' and 'unmarked' are employed to designate hierarchical relations among two or more grammatical or other categories (e.g. phonological). The more unmarked is the preferred or hierarchically superior. The distinction involves a particular cluster of properties which generally co-occur. Among these are that the unmarked often receives zero expression. Thus English is representative of many languages with plurality in that the unmarked singular is indicated by the absence of an overt mark while the plural is expressed by -5. Another common characteristic of the unmarked illustrated in the present instance is that it is employed in the function of the marked when the latter can be deduced from context. Thus many languages (e.g. Turkish) use the singular form with all numerals including 'two' or more since plurality can be deduced automatically. For a fuller discussion, see Greenberg(i966). 4 Greek citations in the paper are based on the Loeb Classical Library text and the translations there. This accounts for their archaicflavour.However, I have modified the translation in some instances in the direction of literalness in order to indicate more clearly the underlying Greek text in its usage of tenses and moods. 5 Goodwin believed that he was the discoverer of the existence of the category of general conditions in Greek. It was actually pointed out earlier by Baumler (1846). 6 Read A:B, C:D as 'as A to B, so C to D'. 263

Joseph H. Greenberg 7 The resemblance of the protasis of the counterfactual to the independent optative of wish was noted at least as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century. Koppers (1959) contains an historical discussion of alternative theses. One is that the condition results from parataxis of an originally independent wish followed by an independent sentence embodying the apodosis. The rival theory is that the expression of wish is derived by ellipsis of the apodosis of the conditional sentence. In fact, both conditions contrary to fact and independent optatives of wish occur in the earliest texts. 8 As noted earlier, this is the general rule. However, there are instances of ou in the protasis. These are as might be expected with the indicative. Many, but not all, are explainable as involving a logical scope restricted to the verb, as in the common ou phemi 'I deny' (literally T do not say'); in others ei is really causal. However, there is a residue. It is not unreasonable to see in these a survival of the general use of ou at the realis end of the continuum, me being a relatively late spread by generalization from other types of subordinate clauses. This hypothesis, discussed below, is already advanced in Monro (1891), a grammar of Homeric Greek.

REFERENCES Baumler, Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig von. 1846. Untersuchungen ilber die griechischen Modi und die Partikeln ken und an. Heilbronn: J. V. Landherr. Clapp, Edward B. 1891. Conditional sentences in the Greek tragedians. Transactions of the American Philological Association 22: 81-9. Delbriick, Berthold. 1871. Der Gebrauch des Konjunktivs und Optativs in Sanskrit und Griechisch. Halle. Gildersleeve, Basil L. 1877. On conditional forms in the tragic poets. Transactions of the American Philological Association 7: 5-23. Goodwin, William Watson. 1889. Syntax of the moods and tenses of the Greek verb. Boston: Ginn. Greenberg, Joseph H. 1966. Language universals. The Hague: Mouton. Jespersen, Otto. 1940. A modern English grammar on historical principles: Part 5. Copenhagen: Munksgaard. Koppers, Bertha Theodora. 1959. Negative conditional sentences in Greek and some other Indo-European languages. The Hague: Pier Westerbaan. Lightfoot, David. 1975. Natural logic and the Greek moods. The Hague: Mouton. Monro, David Binning. 1891. A grammar of the Homeric dialect, 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon. Sonnenschein, Edward Adolf. 1894. A Greek grammar for schools, VOL. 2. London: Sonnenschein.

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14 THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF si-CLAUSES IN ROMANCE • Martin B. Harris

Editors' note. This paper traces the two-thousand-year history of conditional sentence types from Latin to the modern Romance languages. The rich documentation of these languages allows detailed consideration of the thoroughgoing changes in the tense/aspect/ mood systems of the verb. In spite of successive shifts and new formations, the system of conditionals remains fundamentally the same in terms of basic semantic parameters of hypotheticality (real, potential, unreal) and time (past, nonpast). However, the boundary between potential and unreal conditionals is less clear-cut than between real and either of them, and the time parameter is less clear-cut in potential and unreal than in real conditions. This paper relates to those of Konig, Bowerman and Reilly in its dynamic approach, and to ter Meulen's and Reilly's in its focus on temporality.

1. INTRODUCTION The historical study of conditional sentences in a particular language or language family is a complex and difficult task. One of the major reasons for this is the nondiscrete nature of the category involved, in that the meaning of conditional sentences seems to shade off imperceptibly into adjacent semantic areas, in particular those of concession, cause and time. Equally, even where, as in the case of Romance, there is one favoured structure for conditional sentences (a biclausal sentence incorporating a protasis introduced by the conjunction si), this will not always carry the relevant value, while conversely there will be other structures with diverse functions which can and do in certain circumstances serve to mark a hypothetical antecedent-consequent relation. Any presentation of the history of si-clauses in Romance, then, must be seen as only one part of a broader picture, namely the history of conditional sentences as a whole,1 while it will also involve comments on usages which are not in any sense conditional. It is to be hoped that it will nevertheless give some insight into the factors affecting the evolution of conditional sentences in a group of languages which probably offers one of the best databases in existence for the study of historical syntax. One might perhaps be forgiven for asking what contribution an historical view of conditionals can make to a better overall understanding of the field 265

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as a whole. Two obvious answers present themselves. Firstly, at the level of content, it would clearly be of great significance if one could show that there had been some fundamental change in the underlying semantic choices open to a Romance speaker in the two-and-a-half thousand years with which we are concerned. Such a discovery - and equally, any demonstration to the contrary - would interact with the work of semanticists of every persuasion, and also with that of psycholinguists concerned with how children come to acquire and use the conditional system of their native language. Secondly, at the level of form, one may seek to show whether all of the semantic choices postulated are consistently made through time, and if not, whether or not the types of structure in use to express conditional meanings have significantly changed. In the same vein, the historical data must be examined in the light of recent synchronic work showing formal overlaps between certain conditional markers and the markers of various other constructions hitherto not generally felt to be semantically linked to conditionals, to see whether the relevant patterns have recurred through time, a hypothesis which, if substantiated, would greatly strengthen the case for the purported semantic links. It is hoped that this paper will throw at least some light on each of these questions and thereby enrich our understanding of the field as a whole. In the analysis which follows, we shall make use, initially at least, of the three time-honoured categories of conditional sentences, namely 'real', 'potential', and 'unreal' (= 'counterfactual'), in senses to be defined shortly. We shall, however, be attempting to demonstrate two things more clearly than is generally the case: firstly, that the distinction between the last two categories of conditional sentences just mentioned and between the associated temporal oppositions is very much less clear-cut than is often supposed, a fact overtly apparent at several points in the history of Romance; and secondly, that massive changes in the morphosyntax of the verb system of Romance often initially obscure the fact that the fundamental set of choices open today within the conditional sentence 'system' may actually not differ greatly, if at all, from that open to a speaker of Latin over two thousand years ago. 2. si-CONDITIONALS IN LATIN: REAL, POTENTIAL, UNREAL; PAST, NONPAST One favoured pattern for marking conditional sentences in Latin, we have seen, consisted of a protasis introduced by the conjunction si and incorporating a finite verb, and an apodosis, likewise including a finite verb. This conjunction si is in fact cognate with the first morpheme of sic 'thus' (Ernout and Thomas 1953: 374) and appears to have developed its conditional value via use in originally paratactic structures. For example, Palmer (1968: 331) cites the Plautine example 5/ sapias, eas ac decumbas domi which he construes as 'Thus you would be wise (i.e. if you've got any sense): go home and lie down'. It is 266

The historical development of si-clauses in Romance Table i. Traditional schema of the interaction between unreal conditionals and subjunctive in Latin Nonpast

Past

Potential

P si + pres. subj. A pres. subj.

P A

si + imperf. subj. imperf. subj.

Unreal

P si + imperf. subj. A imperf. subj.

P A

si + pluperf. subj. pluperf. subj.

Note: P = protasis, A = apodosis

this si, and an apparent Vulgar Latin alternative SE (Grandgent 1962: 97), which is the etymon of si/se in French, Spanish and Italian. A synthetic negative form NISI was not destined to survive, being rivalled and ultimately replaced by the analytic si . . . NON, and later by other complex structures (a moins que, a menos que, etc.). In all periods of Latin one finds a fundamental distinction between sentences where the hypothesis expressed in the protasis is seen as likely or even certain to be fulfilled, or at least where there is no presupposition that it will not be (or has not been) fulfilled (Blatt 1952: 312; Vairel 1981; Funk 1985), and the converse. The former group, known as 'real' conditions, normally had protases whose verb was in the indicative mood, any tense of that mood, including the future, being in principle acceptable. (For the fact that the use of certain tenses leads to a nonconditional interpretation, see below.) The apodosis also was normally in the indicative mood, but not necessarily so, in that whenever a subjunctive form was appropriate in a main clause - not at all an infrequent possibility in Latin - then it was of course similarly possible in an apodosis: thus Adeat {subjunctive), si quid volt {indicative) 'Let her come, if she wants something' (Ernout and Thomas 1953: 375). Where the speaker's assumption, however, is that the relevant hypothesis is unlikely to be fulfilled, or indeed incapable of fulfilment, then we are dealing with 'potential' and 'unreal' conditions respectively, and the subjunctive mood is normally found in both protasis and apodosis. These dimensions are in principle (largely) independent of the dimension of the binary temporal opposition between past and nonpast. Leaving aside real conditionals, and noting but setting on one side the occasional use of the future perfect to stress posteriority rather than simply nonpastness within potential protases, we arrive in table 1 at the somewhat idealized schema so beloved of Latin grammarians (Harris 1978: 237). It will be noted that nonpast potential conditions are marked by the present subjunctive in both clauses (with the perfect available to mark completed aspect when required), whereas past potential conditions share with nonpast unreal conditions the imperfect subjunctive in both protasis and apodosis. (Note the temporal ambiguity of this paradigm even within the traditional presentation.) 267

Martin B. Harris Past unreal conditions show the pluperfect subjunctive in both halves of the complex. Thus the system is said to be: (1)

(2)

a. Potentialnonpast Si veniat, me videat (present subjunctive) 'If he were to come, he would see me (he probably won't, but he might)' b. Potential past Si veniret, me videret (imperfect subjunctive) 'If he were to have come, he would have seen me (maybe he did, maybe he didn't)' a. Unreal nonpast Si veniret, me videret (imperfect subjunctive) 'If he came, he would see me (but he won't)' b. Unreal past Si venisset, me vidisset (pluperfect subjunctive) 'If he had come, he would have seen me (but he didn't)'

In fact, the situation was much more fluid than this, not only in early and late Latin but even, apparently, throughout the Classical period. In early Latin, the present subjunctive was normally used for all 'nonreal' (i.e. fictionnel in the sense of Sechehaye 1905: 324) nonpast conditions, whether or not they were being presented as still capable of fulfilment. In the words of Woodcock (X959: J53)> ' n o c l e a r distinction is made between what may yet happen and what is no longer capable of fulfilment', and he cites (inter alia) the Plautine example Hand rogem te, si sciam 'I should not be asking you if I knew', where the knowledge is clearly denied. At the same time, the pluperfect subjunctive seems to have been relatively uncommon (although certainly not unknown) in early Latin, past unreal conditions frequently being marked by the imperfect subjunctive.2 Seen in this light, we may say that it is the potential:unreal opposition which is less than rigidly maintained. The basic opposition in early Latin,

Table 2. Schema of the interaction between unreal conditionals and subjunctive in earlier Latin Potential

P

si + pres. subj.

Unreal

A

pres. subj.

Potential

P

si + imperf. subj.

Unreal

A

imperf. subj.

Nonpast

Past Note: P = protasis, A = apodosis 268

The historical development of si-clauses in Romance then, excluding real conditions, seems to have been as set out in table 2. The perfect subjunctive is available to mark 'completion' in nonpast conditionals, and the pluperfect subjunctive serves as an alternative to mark past unreal conditions. Already in Plautus, however, the distinction between potential and unreal was coming to be more clearly made, at least within nonpast time, by an extension of the use of the imperfect subjunctive into nonpast unreal conditionals, the role of the present (and perfect) subjunctive being thereby restricted. The temporal ambiguity created in respect of the imperfective subjunctive, and already alluded to above, was resolved, in the case of the Classical language at least, by the increased use of the pluperfect subjunctive, the temporal and aspectual values of which were prima facie appropriate to past unreal conditions. The imperfect subjunctive was not, however, lost from past conditions but was supposedly reserved for instances where the fulfilment or otherwise of the (past) condition was unknown or unimportant, a usage which, following tradition, we have labelled 'past potential'. In the light of these changes, one arrives at the system shown in table 3 with a caveat that, for native speakers of English at least, the distinction between potential and unreal past conditionals is not always easy to grasp.3 There are several general points to observe here before we pass on. The Table 3. Schema of the interaction between unreal conditionals and subjunctive in later Latin Potential

P si + pres. subj. A pres. subj.

Unreal

P si + imperf. subj. A imperf. subj.

Potential

P si + pluperf. subj.

Nonpast

i

Past Unreal

1A

pluperf. subj.

Note: P = protasis, A = apodosis

first is the (often noted) extent of the formal parallelism between the protases and apodoses of both potential and unreal conditional sentences, the morphosyntactic structures selected thereby highlighting the very high degree of semantic cohesion between the two clauses of such sentences (Harris 1978: 234-45). Equally striking on closer inspection, however, is the lack of stability one observes not only in the opposition between potential and unreal conditions on the one hand4 (a fluidity one might perhaps expect in such a clearly subjective area of modality), but also in the opposition between past and nonpast, which 269

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isprima facie more surprising, but nonetheless a recurrent feature in the history of the Romance languages. Suffice it to note at this point that it is in the case of potential and unreal conditionals - i.e. those with pronounced modal value - that time oppositions are clearly felt to be as it were 'optional': one recalls in this connection both Moignet's observation (1959, 1: 99) that the subjunctive is a mood 'du temps amorphe, de la duree indifferenciee' and also the fact that in contemporary spoken French only the 'aspectual' opposition vienne.soit venu persists, the time opposition with vint and/wf venu, respectively, having been neutralized. 3. FACTORS INFLUENCING THE DEVELOPMENT OF si-CONDITIONALS IN EARLY ROMANCE Table 3 suggests, fairly uncontroversially, that there were morphologically distinct paradigms, all subjunctive, used as the major markers of the four types of conditional sentences in Latin where fulfilment of the hypothesis was considered to be unlikely or impossible. In any presentation of the sources of the earliest Romance structures, however, we need to take account of two sets of factors which were at work in the spoken language. Firstly, there existed a number of attested alternatives to the 'paradigm' combinations listed above; and secondly, various major morphological changes were underway within the verbal system of Latin during and after the Classical period. Of the latter, the most significant for our purposes was that the imperfect subjunctive - not only in conditional sentences but everywhere - was at first rivalled and later ousted throughout much of the Romance domain by the pluperfect, which paradigm however initially continued also to retain its original functions, at least within conditional sentences. In other words, Si venisset, me vidisset came to subsume not only all 'past' counterfactual conditions, but also the nonpast potential usage already discussed: in translation terms, it came to mean not only 'If he had come, he would have seen me', but also 'If he were to come/If he came, he would see me.' When we recall, therefore, that the imperfect subjunctive was, in effect, temporally ambivalent from an early date, and that the pluperfect subjunctive was clearly already so as early as the time of Vitruvius (first century BC),5 and that the present subjunctive had only a very limited future in conditional sentences in Romance, it seems possible to argue that the entire distinction between past and nonpast in the realm of nonreal conditions was to some extent restricted to more formal registers and was not consistently maintained in the popular language. The only opposition clearly made at all times was that between real conditions marked by the indicative mood, and nonreal conditions, marked by the imperfect subjunctive (VENIRET) and, later, the original pluperfect subjunctive (VENISSET) paradigm, this latter form having certain more specialized alternatives, at least in certain circumstances in certain registers. 270

The historical development of si-clauses in Romance This one nonreal structure, involving as it does the 'pluperfect become imperfect' subjunctive in both clauses, and with a very wide range of modal and temporal values, clearly formed a major part of the inheritance of all the Romance languages. Only in Old French, however, do we find structures such as: Se je nefusse en tel prison, bien achevaisse cest afere retaining much (though not all, as we shall see) of the semantic ambivalence of their late Latin antecedents. Out of context, this could mean either 'If I were not in such a prison, I would settle this matter' or 'If I had not been in such a prison, I would have settled this matter.'6 This, it should be stressed, was noticeably the commonest conditional structure in Old French, whenever counterfactuality was implied, the temporal opposition therefore once again being neutralized. The 'double imperfect (< pluperfect) subjunctive' structure was not, however, lost elsewhere. While only Old French maintains descendants of Si venissem, me vidisset with the wide range of values described above, Old Spanish (Lapesa 1980: para. 97.5) and Old Italian (Rohlfs 1954, m: para. 744; Tekavcic 1972, 11: 652) also retain comparable structures, but limited from a very early date to nonpast contexts (Brambilla Ageno 1964: 363 ni). Indeed, they are so found in many southern Italian dialects to this day. The structure was, however, rivalled - and eventually ousted completely from the Romance standards - both by derivatives of other forms already present in spoken Latin, and by the creation of compound subjunctive (and conditional) paradigms analogous in form to all the other perfective paradigms in Romance. The competing structures already found in Latin had a more limited semantic range than the 'imperfect subjunctive 4- imperfect subjunctive' combination discussed above which, it will be recalled, was not unambiguously marked in respect of either of the two central oppositions under discussion (potential versus unreal; nonpast versus past) - and were available for use when occasion demanded. I have listed and exemplified the most important possible structures (Harris 1971: 28) and will not repeat them now: suffice it to say here that there were two important alternatives to the 'pluperfect > imperfect' subjunctive paradigm in spoken Latin in the apodoses of past conditional sentences, namely VIDERAT (the original Latin pluperfect indicative) and (later) VIDERE HABEBAT/HABUIT, the source of the modern 'conditional' paradigms. The former survived into the peninsular languages, where its original function was to provide, via its use in apodoses, a 'past' structure complementing the 'double imperfect subjunctive' structure which we have seen to have been restricted to nonpast values in Spanish. (For a detailed discussion of the position in Old Spanish, see Mendeloff i960.) A similar structure is widely attested in Old Italian (Rohlfs 1954, 111: para. 751), and survives to this day in numerous dialects (Tekavcic 1972, 11:653). 271

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The second Latin form mentioned above, VIDERE HABEBAT/HABUIT, was destined to prosper in Romance, and not only in conditional sentences. Derivatives of the former are found in French and Spanish and in Italian dialects, and of the latter in Tuscan, later standard Italian. (For the distribution of derivatives of VIDERE HABEBAT and VIDERE HABUIT in Italy, see Tekavcic 1972, 11: 407.) As verraitIveria/vedria and as vedrebbe respectively, these forms developed primarily as markers of later time on the past axis (Harris 1978: 137), an evolution outside the scope of the present paper. Within the apodoses of conditional sentences, however, they were from the outset modal in value and, as we have seen, their initial time reference was past. By the time of the earliest texts, however, in France and Italy, they had become (in their modal acception) nonpast in value, whereas in Old Spanish the conditional paradigm was temporally ambivalent (Harris 1971; Pountain 1983: 178), caught as it were part way through the past > nonpast change. Old Spanish, therefore - like Old French - had one frequent conditional structure which was, out of context, temporally ambiguous. At the same time, however, Old Spanish had two unambiguous structures, while Old French had a structure showing a conditional in the apodosis (Si je venais, il me verrait) which was unambiguously nonpast and which generally represented the protasis as being potential rather than counterfactual.7 (For the use of the imperfect indicative in the protasis, see below.) In standard Italian, however, se + imperfect subjunctive/conditional early emerged as the favoured (and unambiguous) marker of all nonpast nonreal conditions. 3.1 The development of compound verb forms in conditional sentences It is to the creation of temporally unambiguous compound paradigms that we must now turn our attention. One general feature of the development of the verbal system from Latin to Romance was the emergence of a set of compound paradigms incorporating the auxiliary verb HABERE and its derivatives, to mark anteriority whenever this formed part of the value of the paradigm in question. (For a general discussion of this process in relation to conditional sentences, see Pountain 1983: i84ff.) The gradual assumption by HABEO FACTUM of some of the functions of FECI is well documented, and this new syntagm provided a model for a number of other parallel forms. One of these was a new analytic pluperfect subjunctive, HABUISSET FACTUM, which is in fact attested as early as Vitruvius and which appears to have been fully grammaticalized earliest in Italian. (Brambilla Ageno 1964: 362 says that the pattern of which this paradigm forms part Si pud dire, obbligatoria gia neWantico italiano 'may be said to be obligatory already in Old Italian'.) Perhaps the only noteworthy thing about this development is how long it took for this compound pluperfect subjunctive to become the norm in past unreal conditionals both in France (where the temporal ambivalence of the commonest structure has already been discussed) and in Spain (where the former pluperfect indicative 272

The historical development of si-clauses in Romance still occupied the past unreal slot). Indeed, the slow acceptance of the new paradigm can readily be traced during, and indeed after, the medieval period, as can that of a new 'conditional perfect7 paradigm formed along precisely the same lines. Thus, the original temporally ambiguous pattern in French (imperfect subjunctive + imperfect subjunctive) provided the model for a new 'past' pattern (pluperfect subjunctive + pluperfect subjunctive) which was widely found by the sixteenth century. Equally, an analogical past conditional form developed in apodoses, first appearing in the thirteenth century and gradually becoming general (Haase 1969: para. 66B), to the point where the subjunctive is today almost entirely absent from apodoses. (For developments in protases, see below.) It is interesting to note that the resolution of the temporal ambiguity of 'subjunctive' hypothetical sentences in French did not suffice to save them, for reasons we shall allude to briefly later. Parallel changes occurred in Spanish, with the added factor that the original Latin pluperfect indicative, no doubt for morphological reasons, gradually came to be interpreted as nonpast, and thus itself provided a model for a new compound 'past subjunctive' hubiera visto alongside hubiese visto and habria visto. (For a detailed survey of this process, see Harris 1971: 30.) 3.2 The use of the imperfect indicative in conditional sentences As any descriptive grammar of Latin or of any medieval or modern Romance language will show, there is a multiplicity of other paradigm combinations which are attested in hypothetical sentences, particularly those involving a change of modal and/or temporal perspective between the protasis and the apodosis, and it would be quite impossible to discuss all these here. One other theme does, however, warrant attention, and that is the use of the imperfect indicative at various times with various values. In Latin itself, the imperfect indicative is attested in the apodoses of past unreal conditions (Gildersleeve and Lodge 1895: para. 597, Rem 2), seemingly to stress the 'reality' of the apodosis in question given merely the fulfilment of a certain condition. This usage appears to have survived somewhat tenuously in Old Spanish (Pountain 1983: 179) and throughout the history of French (Sechehaye 1905: 334), but has been particularly favoured in Italy, where the imperfect indicative has spread also to protases (Rohlfs 1954, in: para. 749). (A parallel situation is found in Rumanian: see Lombard 1974: 295.) Having been most frequent at first, apparently, with verbs which were themselves modal in value, this use of the imperfect indicative is now possible with any verb. A morphologically parallel structure is found in Spanish and in particular in Portuguese, but here generally with the more expected nonpast value, the pluperfect indicative, coming to play an analogous role in relation to past time.8 (The parallelism with the Latin use of the pluperfect indicative discussed earlier, is clear.) As an apparently quite separate and rather later development, the 'real' 273

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conditional syntagm present indicative + future indicative provided the model for the widespread introduction of the imperfect indicative into the protases of nonpast potential conditional sentences, although such usage was found as early as Plautus.9 This use of the imperfect indicative flourished in the Latin of Gaul and emerged as a (nonpast, and originally not very frequent) partial alternative to the imperfect subjunctive in protases of nonpast potential conditionals in Old French, as we have seen. Interestingly, the imperfect subjunctive resisted the imperfect indicative in protases much longer than it did the conditional in apodoses, perhaps because of the more explicitly modal value of this latter paradigm (Sechehaye 1905: 367, 369). One also finds a structure analagous to French Si je venais, il me verrait, albeit rarely, in Italian (Rohlfs 1954, HI: para. 750), apparently in particular in Sardinia and Corsica: the one imperfect indicative paradigm has thus been used with both past and nonpast values in the history of Italian, a blurring of the temporal opposition which we have come to find unsurprising. 3.3 A note on certain language-specific developments Before concluding this necessarily highly abbreviated survey of the development of 'conventional' conditional sentences in Romance, there are three specific points one might make, one each about French, Spanish and Italian. In French, the subjunctive mood has been wholly ousted from hypothetical sentences in all but the most formal registers, the standard language preferring the imperfect indicative + conditional for nonpast potential conditionals, as we have just seen, and - by virtue of a process we described earlier - the compound equivalents pluperfect indicative 4- conditional perfect in past unreal conditionals. (For a detailed discussion of the introduction of compound paradigms into past conditional sentences in French, see Sechehaye 1905: 388ff.) Note the restoration of a perfect morphological symmetry in the somewhat idealized contemporary French system: (nonpast, real) (nonpast, potential) (past, unreal)

s'il vient, il me verra s'il venait, il me verrait s'il etait venu, il m'aurait vu

However, from very early on, there has been a further pressure for the conditional (and therefore likewise the conditional perfect) to be used in the protases also (see Haase 1969: para. 66C and, for the contemporary language, Grevisse 1975: para. 1037 bis, 5), despite continual denunciation by prescriptive grammarians. This can be seen as the result of two complementary pressures. One is the pressure, already noted on several occasions, towards morphological harmony between the two parts of 'modal' conditional sentences. The second is the pressure for the conditional and related paradigms to emerge (especially 274

The historical development of si-clauses in Romance in French) as the true markers of modality in the modern language while the subjunctive becomes more and more a syntactically conditioned variant used only in certain subordinate structures (Harris 1981). (Recall our earlier observation that not even the temporal disambiguation of the subjunctive-using pattern could prevent its eventual demise.) This latter process is attested also in popular registers of Spanish and Italian, although the semantic weakening of the subjunctive mood is not so far advanced in these languages - not least, one suspects, because it is still found in modal protases!10 Certainly, the protasis of a 'nonreal' conditional sentence is a modal context par excellence. One further consequence of this fact can be seen in Spanish, where the original Latin pluperfect indicative which we have discussed before has come to be interpreted, in the standard language at least,11 exclusively as a modal form, viera (
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4. CONDITIONAL SENTENCES IN MODERN ROMANCE The modern Romance languages, for all the formal differences between them, do seem to have developed a comparable system in this domain of syntax. The distinction between 'real' and 'nonreal' conditional sentences is largely maintained, and the 'indicative:subjunctive ~ other modality marker' opposition continues. Within the 'nonreal' category, however, the distinction between 'potential' and 'unreal' conditions is not formally made (as it apparently was at least for a time in Latin, and later, it would seem, in French, and perhaps now once again in some forms of Spanish - Lavandera 1975) within either of the two time categories nonpast and past, at least not in the case of the most widely used paradigms. In effect, 'nonpast potential' ('If he came . . . ' ) is opposed to 'past unreal' ('If he had come . . . ' ) . All sentences carrying either of these values have a modal (i.e. a subjunctive or a conditional) paradigm in one or both clauses, in Spanish and Italian usually both. We have noted also a recurrent theme whereby forms having past time value come to be used for past counterfactual conditions and then drift into nonpast counterfactual, and ultimately nonpast potential, conditions. The Classical Latin imperfect subjunctive, then pluperfect subjunctive, and the Vulgar Latin pluperfect indicative have all broadly followed this route, although in French, at least, the conditional appears to have been used for nonpast potentials before nonpast counterfactuals. Instances of the imperfect and/or pluperfect indicative in the protasis have been described, but so too has clear popular pressure for these to be replaced by conditional forms, restoring the formal parallelism of Latin. One special case, that of the double imperfect indicative in Italian, has been discussed, and its ambivalence noted. Finally, we should note that the time distinction between nonpast and past, uncertain at times in Latin and positively set aside in many cases in Old French (and to some extent also in Old Spanish and Old Italian), is now fairly systematically maintained, even in popular registers, by virtue of the opposition between simple and compound tenses. All in all, the 'core' system seems - at present! - to be both simple and clear. 5. si IN INDIRECT QUESTIONS We must now look briefly at one quite separate use of si/si/se in Romance, namely as the complementizer required when the embedded sentence was originally a polar question. The Classical Latin particle NUM ('whether') was rivalled and eventually replaced, just as is happening in (spoken) English, by si (If), to the point at which si/se are the normal markers of indirect polar interrogation in French, Spanish and Italian. The development appears to have been via the meaning 'in case' from the conditional value of si, rather than from the original value of sic, discussed at the start of this paper. This process can be seen clearly in a Ciceronian example such as Canes aluntur in Capitolio ut significent si fures venerint 'Dogs were fed in the Capitol to warn whether/if 276

The historical development of si-clauses in Romance robbers were getting in', and, from Petronius, Temptemus tamen, si adhuc (ova) sorbilia sunt 'Let us see whether/if the eggs are still able to be swallowed.' As early as Plautus, one finds si in an 'interrogative' sense after certain verbs: note how one might translate the Terentian example Visam si domi est as either 'I shall see (him) if he is at home' or 'I shall see whether/if he is at home.'13 The overlap appears to have been reinforced by the shared 'nonreality' of most conditions and of indirect questions (Tekavcic 1972, 11: 610). Despite this fact, the subjunctive mood has largely been ousted from indirect questions in Romance, although it may still be used to reinforce 'nonreality' in Spanish or Italian, thus Ci chiese se potesse (subjunctive) venire, 'He asked us if he might come.' As one might expect, this role of positively marking modality in French is now frequently assumed by the conditional, as in this example cited by Grevisse (1975: para. 1039.4): Elle attendit encore unpeu pours'assurer que ces intentions seraient solides 'She waited a while longer to make sure that these plans were firm.' 6. USE OF si IN NONCONDITIONAL ADVERBIAL CLAUSES Finally, we must turn our attention to the use of si/si/se serving to introduce clauses modifying 'adverbially' the main proposition, that is, to uses functionally comparable to protases but with distinct semantic values. Such si-clauses may have a variety of interpretations in context: we shall limit ourselves, not altogether arbitrarily, to instances of causal, concessive or temporal value only. Consider first the sentence If John came, then Peter went. This is clearly liable to be interpreted in the sense that John's arrival caused Peter's departure. Naturally, the whole sequence may still be hypothetical - we may not know for certain, or may not choose to admit, that John did in fact come - but conversely it may now be taken to be true. (Compare also, / / you believe that, you are a fool or If you only paid $5 for that, you got a bargain.) What we find is that whereas a future-referring condition is in general seen only as more or less likely to be fulfilled ('real' or 'potential' respectively), in the present or past,14 it may be (taken to be) actually realized, and hence no longer a hypothesis at all. As Lehmann (1974: 236) puts it, 'it is a well-known fact that the proposition in the antecedent of a conditional sentence is not asserted but "left open". This constitutes the main difference between conditional and causal sentences .. ,'15 Once the truth of the antecedent is presupposed, then we pass immediately from 'if to 'in as much as', 'granted that' or even 'since'. However, pragmatically, the whole sequence may still be regarded as hypothetical and hence 'if (= 'assuming that', 'granted that') is still felt to be appropriate.16 Certainly, both si in Latin and si/se in Romance are used with this value, with verbal forms appropriate to causal clauses. Interestingly, Gildersleeve and Lodge (1895: para. 595) gloss si as 'when' in contexts where it occurs 277

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with indicative tenses which do not 'leave open' the question as to whether or not the protasis will be fulfilled. Our preference, for the reasons just stated, would be for 'in as much as' or 'granted that', although the choice is by no means as critical as one would infer from the categories of traditional grammar. All the descriptive grammars of the Romance languages give examples of si/se in this sense. We shall cite from Italian: Se e partito a tempo, ha preso il treno 'If he left on time, (then) he caught the train', where the value of se is clearly ambiguous between 'if and 'since' (see also Lepschy and Lepschy 1977: 235), and from French II fut hero'ique; et s'il le fut, admirez-le.'He was heroic; and as he was, admire him', where the conditional reading of si is entirely ruled out. Let us now turn to an examination of concession clauses. These seem to be at the opposite end of a spectrum from causal clauses in that, as Haiman (1978: 579) puts it, 'far from asserting a causal connection between antecedent and consequent, they actually deny it'. We may say that a causal clause requires the listener to add the facts contained within it to his stock of knowledge and then to evaluate the consequent, whereas in the case of a concession clause there is no need to do so in order to evaluate the consequent: indeed, the consequent is quite independent of the antecedent. (This argument relies heavily on Haiman 1978: 578-80, who in turn draws on Stalnaker 1975.) True conditionals lie between these poles, requiring the listener to proceed on the basis of a tentative addition of the information to his stock of knowledge, and to consider the likelihood of the consequent on this basis. As will have been apparent from what has gone before, there are no clear-cut divisions within this spectrum, an impression reinforced by the ubiquity of si and its derivatives and compounds across the range of meanings just described. In Latin, there were a number of conjunctions used to mark concession, in the sense just described. Leaving aside words such as QUAMQUAM 'although', we note ETSI and ETIAMSI 'even if, the syntax being 'that of conditional clauses' (Ernout and Thomas 1953:351). This means, of course, that the indicative was used for 'real' concessions, particularly those already known to be fulfilled, and the subjunctive was used for potential or unreal concessions, likely or certain not to be fulfilled. In Romance, the distinction between the indicative and the subjunctive (or, increasingly, the conditional in French) is made with certain conjunctions but not with others: in general, the modal forms have tended to encroach on the indicative rather than vice versa. Thus in Spanish, for example, the indicative subjunctive distinction is generally maintained with si bien 'even if, but not always with aunque 'although' (Harmer and Norton 1957: para. 237). (A detailed discussion of concessive clauses in early and classical Spanish is found in Rivarola 1976.) Likewise, in French, the subjunctive is the normal mood with most conjunctions even when the dominant nuance is 'real'; but the indicative is found not only with si itself and with meme si and other related forms, but also, perhaps increasingly, with forms such as 278

The historical development of si-clauses in Romance bien que 'although' which, by the rules of prescriptive grammar, require the subjunctive; one also, as so often in French where there are genuine modal nuances, finds the conditional. Significantly, when the 'temporal' conjunction quand (with or without mime) is used to indicate a potential or unreal concessional condition, the conditional forms of the verb are most common (and have been since Old French, see Sechehaye 1905: 343), the indicative being used to indicate a real condition. In this latter case, the sense is clearly 'even when' or 'even though' (factual) rather than 'even if (potential/unreal). (Grevisse 1975: para. 1032 lists many examples, and a range of conjunctions which behave in this way.) Let us turn, finally, in this section, to the overlap between conditional and temporal clauses. Essentially, we may say that a time clause relating to past time, or to present or future time where the intended reading is not doubtful or counterfactual, can be equated with a real condition, whereas a time clause whose actual realization is uncertain equates with a potential condition. From this it follows that conditional conjunctions are frequently used with a temporal value and that temporal conjunctions are often best interpreted conditionally. To consider the 'real' cases first, how narrow indeed is the distinction between: If he did come, it still didn't solve the problem Given that he did come, it still didn't solve the problem Even though he did come, it still didn't solve the problem When he did come, it still didn't solve the problem In each case, his coming is admitted and taken as factual: ideally, therefore, (and very largely in practice also), all such clauses should have their verb forms in the (unmarked) indicative mood. The reader will recall that in 'protases not left open', Gildersleeve and Lodge (1895: para. 595) gloss si as 'when'; we suggested 'in as much as' or 'granted that'. How minimal the semantic distinction is in such a case is now clear (see Haiman 1978: 581). Put at its simplest, si (si/se) used in this way is assimilated to the syntactic behaviour patterns of the group in which it finds itself, a similar position being found with dacd in Romanian. The overlap between iterative temporal and 'real' conditional clauses is quite clear: an antecedent which has on more than one occasion been fulfilled and has on each occasion led to a given outcome gives rise to a (factual) statement whenever x, then y (=if x, then always y). As Alice ter Meulen (this volume) points out, when and if are primarily distinguished by the degree of certainty they convey. Such an epistemic notion is just not relevant to generic statements: hence in this case the very significant degree of overlap between */and when(ever). Conversely, a time clause the content of which may or may not actually be realized is very close indeed to a potential condition. Latin DUM 'while', for example, is normally found with the indicative, but the same form in the sense of 'until' often co-occurs with the subjunctive. We have already discussed quand (meme) with a potential 279

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sense in French; Schmitt Jensen (1970: 483ff) discusses the overlap between se and quando in Italian, a discussion pursued in detail in Herczeg (1976). All in all, therefore, one can see that there are good reasons for considering simultaneously a number of clause types which have traditionally been considered as quite separate. Given three semantic oppositions thought of primarily in connection with conditional sentences - namely real, potential and unreal (counterfactual) - we have seen that the differences in meaning between such time-honoured categories as 'condition', 'cause', 'concession', and 'time' are often slim indeed. We have also seen that certain common conjunctions (especially si/si/se/daca) may need (in context) to be interpreted in one of a number of ways which shade imperceptibly into one another so that, whether or not Haiman's view of these clauses as marking topics is accepted, his underlying premise that they are a cohesive group is hard to reject. Equally, we find conjunctions whose primary value is not 'conditional' used in this sense whenever the temporal/modal value of the sentence as a whole imposes this interpretation. We thus conclude that, while we needed at the outset to make certain clear distinctions for expository reasons, we are indeed dealing with an area where a complex range of pragmatic, semantic, syntactic and morphological facts interact in such a way that a watertight system of classification or analysis is just not possible, a point clearly made in this volume by Konig regarding conditionals and concessives. 7. CONCLUSIONS As we stated at the outset, the study of si-clauses is in no way coterminous with the study of conditional sentences, and this will necessarily limit somewhat the generality of conclusions we may draw. One thing is, however, quite clear. Recent descriptivists - in one sense rightly - have been at pains to break the equation between //"-clause and protasis; not all //"-clauses function as protases, and not all protases are marked by //"-clauses. Nevertheless, we have now seen that //"-clauses do have something in common: they apparently serve to mark the topic of the sentence, the 'apodosis' providing the comment. These 'conditional topics' share with conventional topics all the normal constraints of relevance (Fillenbaum 1978: 173; Haiman 1978: 586), varying in respect of the presuppositions they require or invite the listener to make. Factual"presuppositions bring us into the area where //-clauses overlap with causals, iterative temporals and some concessives; potential presuppositions lead us into the area of overlap with future time temporals, some concessives, etc. The 'core' territory of if is 'Let us suppose for the sake of advancing this discussion'; even here, other conjunctions (or even structures) compete for favour, whereas in the areas of cause, concession and time, it is //"itself which is the minority form, more specific conjunctions generally being preferred. The use of verb forms in a Romance //"-clause depends entirely on the presupposition implied 280

The historical development of si-clauses in Romance in respect of that particular clause; or, in more familiar terms, what the precise adverbial value is of the clause in question. In this way, overlap between these various clause-types, far from being surprising, is quite expected. A similar point in respect of interrogatives has been made at various points in this paper. In sum, there is good reason to agree with Haiman (1978: 586) that 'the morphology of any language will tend to undergeneralize.' One special privilege of the diachronic Romance linguist is that there is a uniquely well-documented corpus for the study of historical syntax. In this case, perhaps the most striking thing to observe is how little the fundamental situation, the range of choices and the relevant parameters, have changed through time. Changes, yes, but visibly the same game with the same rules. Insofar as Romance data sustain a particular analysis, therefore, they have the added advantage of a substantial time depth. It is my hope that the data I have presented from within my own specialist field will help to illuminate the broader theoretical questions considered in this volume.

NOTES 1 As a result of the severe limitations of space necessarily imposed on this volume, the present article represents a substantially shortened version of the paper delivered at the 1983 Symposium. The full version of that paper, amended in the light of comments at the Symposium and thereafter, is published as Harris (1986). I would like to acknowledge here with gratitude the support provided at all times by the organizers of the Symposium, and in particular by Elizabeth Traugott. 2 Cf. Ernout and Thomas (1953: 377): Plautus, Av. 742: Deos credo voluisse; nam ni vellent, non fieret, scio 'I believe the Gods willed it; for if they had not willed it, it would not have happened, I know.' 3 Consider, for example, two Ciceronian examples cited by Ernout and Thomas (1953: 377): 5/ diceret, non crederetur 'If he had spoken, he wouldn't have been believed', and Quis audiret {eos), si maxime queri vellent? 'Who would have heard them, even if they had wished to complain?' For comparable examples from other authors, see Woodcock 1959: 155. At times (as in all languages - see Rojo and Montero Cartelle 1983), the time axis may be felt to change between protasis and apodosis, thus explaining certain instances of paradigm shift: 5/ mihi secundae res de amore meo essent {imperfect), iam dudum, scio, venissent {pluperfect) 'If any success was going to come to me in my love affair, it would have come long ago, I know.' 4 This lack of a clear-cut boundary has often been noted by Romance scholars: see, for example, the views of Merlo (1957: 275-6) and Mendeloff (i960: 5). 5 See Moignet (1959,1: 156) and Vaananen (1967: 142). 6 The example is taken from Foulet (1968: 211). For a thorough survey of conditional sentences in Old and Middle French, with a wealth of exemplification, see Wagner (1939). 7 One sees here the partial re-emergence of the opposition between potential and unreal within the nonpast category, the former expressed increasingly by the 'new' construction, with the latter still being expressed by the inherited 5/ + imperfect subjunctive/imperfect subjunctive structure. 8 Thus Fazia-o {imperfect indicative) se pudesse 'I would do it if I could', and Tinha-o 281

Martin B. Harris feito (pluperfect indicative) se tivesse podido 'I would have done it if I could have.' Note that ter (
The historical development of si-clauses in Romance peperit, cum viro concubuit 'If she has borne a child, she has slept with a man' and Quoniam peperit, cum viro concubit 'Since she has borne a child, she has slept with a man.' Note that si could be used in either sense, whereas quoniam could not. Herczeg (1972: 489) suggests that the use of 'if,' rather than 'because' in such contexts is to avoid being 'too categorical', removing all vestige of doubt. For further discussion of the relationship between conditionals and causals, see Haiman (1978: 578-9). We are also reminded by Fillenbaum (1978: 192) of another point of contact, namely that counterfactual conditionals are closely related to negative causals. Compare, to use his examples: Because he did not catch the plane he did not arrive on time and If he had caught the plane he would have arrived on time. REFERENCES Blatt, Franz. 1952. Precis desyntaxe latine. Lyon: Edition IAC. Brambilla Ageno, Franca. 1964. // verbo nellitaliano antico. Milan and Naples: Ricardo Ricciardi. Ernout, Alfred, and Franc, ois Thomas. 1953. Syntaxe latine, 2nd edn. Paris: Klincksieck. Fillenbaum, Samuel. 1978. How to do things with IF. In Semantic factors in cognition, ed. John W. Cotton and Roberta L. Klatsky, 169-214. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Foulet, Lucien. 1968. Petite syntaxe de Vancien frangais, 3rd edn. Paris: Champion. Funk, Wolf-Peter. 1985. On a semantic typology of conditional sentences. Folia Linguistica xix, 3/4: 365-413. Gildersleeve, Basil L. and Gonzales Lodge. 1895. Gildersleeve's Latin grammar. New York and London: Macmillan. Grandgent, Charles Hall. 1962. An introduction to Vulgar Latin. New York: Hafner. Grevisse, Maurice. 1975. Le bon usage, 10th edn. Gembloux: Duclot. Haase, August. 1969. Syntaxe francaise du XVlie siecle, 7th edn. Paris: Delagrave. Haiman, John. 1978. Conditionals are topics. Language 54: 564-89. Harmer, Lewis Charles, and Frederick John Norton. 1957. A manual of Modern Spanish, 2nd edn. London: University Tutorial Press. Harris, Martin B. 1971. The history of the conditional complex from Latin to Spanish. Archivum Linguisticum: 25-33. Harris, Martin B. 1978. The evolution of French syntax: a comparative approach. London: Longman. Harris, Martin B. 1981. On the conditional as a mood in French. Folia Linguistica Historical: 55-69. Harris, Martin B. 1982. The 'past simple' and the 'present perfect' in Romance. In Studies in the Romance verb, ed. Nigel Vincent and Martin Harris, 42-70. London: Croom Helm. Harris, Martin B. 1986. The historical development of conditional sentences in Romance. Romance Philology xxxix, 4: 405-36. Herczeg, Giulio. 1972. Proposizioni subordinate formalmente ipotetiche. In Saggi linguistici e stilistici, ed. Guilio Herczeg, 483-90. Firenze: Olschki. Herczeg, Giulio. 1976. 'Se'/'quando' -I- presente/passato del conjunctive Archivio Glottologico Italiano 61: 146-55. Lapesa, Rafael. 1980. Historia de la lengua espanola, 8th edn. Madrid: Gredos. Lavandera, Beatriz. 1975. Linguistic structure and sociolinguistic conditioning in the use of verbal endings in 'si'-clauses (Buenos Aires Spanish). Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International. Lehmann, Christian. 1974. A universal about conditional sentences. In Linguistica 283

Martin B. Harris Generalia i: Studies in linguistic typology, ed. Milan Romportl et al. 231-41. Prague: Charles University. Lepschy, Anna Laura and Giulio C. Lepschy. 1977. The Italian language today. London: Hutchinson. Lombard, Alf. 1974. La langue roumaine: unepresentation. Paris: Klincksieck. Mendeloff, Henry, i960. The evolution of the conditional sentence contrary to fact in Old Spanish. Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press. Merlo, Felice. 1957. La congiunzione 'se' e il sistema semantico dei periodo avverbiali. Romanische Forschungen 69: 273-304. Moignet, Gerard. 1959. Essai sur le mode subjonctif en latin postclassique et en ancien francais, 1. Paris: PUF. Palmer, L. R. 1968. The Latin language. London: Faber. Pountain, Christopher J. 1983. Structures and transformations: the Romance verb. London: Croom Helm. Rivarola, Jose Luis. 1976. Las conjunciones concesivas en espanol medieval y cldsico. Tubingen: Niemeyer. Rohlfs, Gerhard. 1954. Historische grammatik der italienischen Sprache und ihrer Mundarten, III: Syntax und Wortbildung. Bern: Francke Verlag. Rojo, Guillermo, and Emilio Montero Cartelle. 1983. La evolution de los esquemas condicionales (Potenciales e irreales desde el poema del Cid hasta 1400). Verba, Anexo 22. Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. Schmitt Jensen, J. 1970. Subjonctif et hypotaxe en italien. Odense: Odense University Press. Sechehaye, Albert. 1905. L'imparfait du subjonctif et ses concurrents dans les hypothetiques normales en francais. Romanische Forschungen 19: 321-406. Stalnaker, Robert. 1975. A theory of conditionals. In Causation and conditionals, ed. Ernest Sosa, 165-79. London: Oxford University Press. Tekavcic, P. 1972. Grammatica storia deWitaliano, II: morfosintassi. Bologna: il Mulino. Vaananen, Veikko. 1967. Introduction au latin vulgaire. Paris: Klincksieck. Vairel, H. 1981. Un modele d'analyse linguistique des conditionnelles: latin si di sunt, si di sint, si di essent. BSLP 76: 275-326. Wagner, Robert L. 1939. Les phrases hypothetiques commencant par \sf dans la langue francaise des origines a la fin du XVIe siecle. Paris: Droz. Woodcock, Eric C. 1959. A new Latin syntax. London: Methuen.

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15 FIRST STEPS IN ACQUIRING CONDITIONALS • Melissa Bower man Editors' note. Bowerman's chapter represents a search through the semantic, cognitive and pragmatic prerequisites for conditionals to discover why they appear late in a child's grammar, relative to other complex sentence types. Drawing on crosslinguistic acquisition data from English, Finnish, Italian, Polish, and Turkish, her exploration highlights the basic components of conditionals and the interaction between them. It also suggests some possible implications for universal grammar. This paper complements Harris's treatment of the components of the conditional system in Romance, as well as Reilly's on the acquisition of temporals and conditionals. 1. INTRODUCTION This chapter is about the initial flowering of conditionals, if-{then) constructions, in children's spontaneous speech.l It is motivated by two major theoretical interests. The first and most immediate is to understand the acquisition process itself. Conditionals are conceptually, and in many languages morphosyntactically, complex. What aspects of cognitive and grammatical development are implicated in their acquisition? Does learning take place in the context of particular interactions with other speakers? Where do conditionals fit in with the acquisition of other complex sentences? What are the semantic, syntactic and pragmatic properties of the first conditionals? Underlying this first interest is a second, more strictly linguistic one. Research of recent years has found increasing evidence that natural languages are constrained in certain ways. The source of these constraints is not yet clearly understood, but it is widely assumed that some of them derive ultimately from properties of children's capacity for language acquisition. If this is true, children's speech - e.g. typical error patterns, meanings initially associated with forms, order of emergence of forms - might provide clues to basic properties of language. Such clues might be especially useful in helping us understand constructions that, like conditionals, are difficult to isolate crosslinguistically and to characterize semantically or syntactically in a unified way. The chapter is divided into two major sections. The first takes the form of a detective story: why do if-(then) constructions emerge late in children's speech, relative to other structurally similar complex sentences? The cause 285

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of the delay, if found, might help us to determine how conditionals differ essentially from other ways of relating propositions. The second section examines the meanings of children's early conditional utterances, both in crosslinguistic perspective and with special attention to whether English-speaking children are sensitive to a semantic distinction that is critical in English but not in many other languages. The primary data to be analysed come from three. English-speaking children whose language development has been followed closely from the time of first words by taping and, especially, by daily diary notes: my two daughters, Christy and Eva, and Eve Clark's son Damon. These records are supplemented by reference both to the literature on English, Polish, and Italian and to unpublished notes on the expression of 'contingent relations' by children learning Turkish or Finnish. These were written by Ayhan Aksu and Dan Slobin, and me, respectively, during a workshop held at the Max-Planck Institute, Nijmegen in 1981; they will be referred to as 'MPI notes'. 2. WHY DO CONDITIONALS EMERGE LATE? Children typically produce their first explicitly marked conditional utterances in the second half of their third year (see Reilly 1982; McCabe et al. 1983, for English; Bates 1976, for Italian; Clancy, Jacobsen and Silva 1976, for Italian, German, Turkish, English; Smoczyriska 1986, for Polish). An example from Damon at 2;8 is the following: If somebody takes the newspaper, I'll be sad. Development beyond this point lasts many years, as children gradually gain control over the full verb morphology and range of meanings associated with conditionals (Bates 1976; Reilly 1982). Seen in broad developmental perspective, the emergence of conditionals is part of a more general advance of the third year in which children begin to combine propositions in a variety of ways to form complex sentences (see Bowerman 1979, for an overview). Viewed at closer range, however, conditionals pose a puzzle. Even though they are morphosyntactically similar to sentences with conjunctions such as and, when, because, so, etc., and share certain elements of meaning with these, they are consistently among the last to appear (see Clancy et al. 1976; Bloom et al. 1980). What causes this delay? Research over the last decade has focused on two major determinants of the order in which grammatical forms (construction patterns, inflections etc.) appear in children's speech: cognitive complexity and formal complexity.2 The meaning expressed by a form is thought to set a lower limit on when it will be acquired (Slobin 1973). That is, children will not acquire productive control over a form until they at least roughly grasp what it means. However, cognitive readiness is not enough for acquisition, as Slobin (1973) has argued convincingly. Children also must identify and master the formal devices conventionally used in their language to encode a given meaning (e.g. morphology, word 286

First steps in acquiring conditionals order or intonation). Some devices appear to be inherently harder than others for children to acquire (Slobin 1973; Johnston and Slobin 1979). Hence, acquisition of a form can lag behind the point at which its meaning is understood. In recent research, investigators have attended increasingly to a third possible influence on timing of acquisition: pragmatic factors, or how a form is used in context. Eisenberg (1981), for example, argues that within a semantic domain, children may sometimes learn first those items that 'get things done' - i.e. that allow them to perform important interpersonal negotiations efficiently. It seems clear that the late emergence of conditionals is not due to difficulties with form per se. In English and the other languages for which acquisition data are available, conditionals share an overall structure with a variety of complex sentence types. By the time if or its equivalent appears, children have typically been conjoining clauses with other connectives for several months, and there seems to be no formal reason why they could not do so with if as well.3 This means that the lateness of conditionals is more likely to be due to cognitive or pragmatic factors. Let us see if we can identify the culprit. 2.1 Cognitive complexity Cognitive complexity was first implicated as a determinant of the order in which complex sentences emerge in a crosslinguistic study by Clancy et al. (1976). These authors found that children learning English, Italian, German, or Turkish began to juxtapose propositions to express notions like coordination, antithesis, sequence, causality, and conditionality - and later to mark these relations explicitly - in a fairly consistent order. Since the conjoining devices differ formally across the languages, Clancy et al. concluded that the order of emergence reflects the sequence in which the relational notions appear in children's developing cognitive repertoires. In a later study of children learning English, Bloom et al. (1980) found a consistent order of emergence of both conjoined and embedded sentences. They propose that this order is determined by the cumulative complexity of the meaning relations expressed: later-learned relations incorporate all the meaning elements of earlier-learned relations, and more besides. These studies are suggestive, but the evidence they provide for the role of cognitive complexity is only circumstantial (see also Kail and Weissenborn 1984). What is it exactly about the meaning of conditionals that makes them so difficult? Is there some key cognitive ingredient that children still lack when they produce other kinds of complex sentences but not yet conditionals? Alternatively, do they control all the necessary cognitive components without being able to combine them in the right configuration? Identifying the cognitive prerequisites for conditionals is complicated by the semantic diversity of sentences with the if-(then) format. It has been difficult 287

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for philosophers, logicians, and linguists to find the common denominator that links, for example, simple future predictives {If John comes, we'll go out), counterfactuals (If John had come, we would have gone out), generics (//[?= whenever] you press this, the machine starts), comments on the circumstances under which the information given is relevant (If you're hungry, there's a sandwich on the table), and other subtypes.4 It is correspondingly difficult for developmentalists to isolate the critical cognitive ability or constellation of abilities that would enable children to acquire at least one subtype of conditional. Nevertheless we can outline a set of concepts that, in various combinations, must underlie the ability to acquire the major categories of conditionals. In what follows, I review these under the headings 'contingency', 'hypotheticality', 'inference', and 'generic events'. Using the longitudinal records of Christy, Eva, Damon and, to a lesser extent, children learning languages other than English, I will look for linguistic and behavioural clues to see whether these concepts are controlled in the period preceding the first conditionals.51 also refer to relevant findings of Bates (1976) and Reilly (1982). If certain critical concepts or combinations of concepts cannot be documented until the first conditionals emerge, then the hypothesis that conditionals are late because of their cognitive complexity can be supported. Conversely, if the concepts seem to be well in place when other complex sentences are produced but conditionals are still absent, the hypothesis is weakened. Contingency A central property of most conditional utterances is that the situation (= event, state of affairs etc.) referred to in the consequent clause somehow depends on, or is conditioned by, the situation mentioned in the antecedent clause. This contingency is typically causal (Comrie in this volume), often with a temporal aspect as well. Bates (1976) has argued that the concept of contingent relations is not the stumbling block in children's learning of conditionals. By the time her Italian subjects produced their first utterances with se 'if, they had been producing complex sentences with perche 'because' and sennd 'if-not, otherwise' for several months. In fact, there is evidence for a grasp of contingency long before the onset of complex sentences. From at least the middle of the second year, Christy and Eva called successfully on contingent relations in setting up games, justifying noncompliance and requests, and generally explaining behaviours. For example: (1)

C 1 ;4. M is trying to feed C, but C playfully tries to avoid the spoon. Every time M brings it toward her face, she grabs her bottle and sticks it in her mouth. She does not drink, however, but waits expectantly with a teasing smile until M snatches it away, and then accepts the 288

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food. This procedure is repeated several times while both C and M laugh.6 C I;IO. (M has just told C she must take some medicine. C looks anxious, says): Christy throat better (Justify noncompliance. C's throat is not in fact sore, but both M's and F's were recently, so for C being sick is linked with having a sore throat.)

To create the game described in (1) C must have recognized the contingent relation between two states of affairs: bottle in mouth-cannot be fed; bottle out of mouth-can be fed. The game's underlying logic might be phrased as 'If I'm drinking, surely you can't expect me to eat!' An utterance like (2) does not serve the speech act for which it is intended unless both speaker and listener recognize a legitimate contingency between the justification or explanation and the behaviour it is designed to illuminate. You don't need medicine if your sickness is better. After about age 2, children's expressions of contingency become more explicit as connectives are added to their repertoire. The following utterances are representative (see also Clancy etal. 1976; Bloom etal. 1980): (3) (4) (5) (6)

(7)

C 2;2. (C holding package of candy; F due home soon from work): Daddy like some when he come home C 2; 1. (Trying to open porch door to let dog out): I open door so Klaus come out C 2;2. (Holding toy beetle with line painted on for mouth): It don't bite me 'cause it don't have no mouth Katarina 2;2 (Finnish, Bowerman MPI notes) M (re: sore on K's arm): Mistas toi tuli? 'Where did that come from?' K: Se tuli kun Kata eilen kaatuu rappusi(lla) 'It came when Kata yesterday fall (on the) stairs' (kun = 'when, since, because') 2;o (Turkish, Clancy et al. 1976) Pis olunca temizliyor 'When it's dirty, she cleans'

Examples (i)-(7) illustrate not only that 'preconditional' children are capable of recognizing contingent relations, but also that they appreciate contingencies of several different kinds. For instance, direct causal agency or instrumentality, with temporal linkage as well, is shown in (4) and (6); temporal triggering in (3) and (7), and what may be called 'static precondition' in (1) and (5): the recognition that an event's occurrence may be contingent on the satisfaction of a stative physical prerequisite, for example, in (1) eating requires the mouth to be unblocked; in (5) a creature's potential for biting depends on its having a mouth. The examples also show that 'preconditional' children grasp contingencies that obtain at different times relative to the moment of speech. 289

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For instance, the situations referred to in (3) are temporally sequenced in the future, those in (6) in the past, and those in (5) co-occur in the present. In summary, long before if-{then) constructions appear in their speech, children show a grasp of contingent relations that is strong enough to support a variety of conditional subtypes in a range of temporal settings. Hypotheticality Complex sentences with because, so, when, etc. generally make assertions about situations in the real world (Bates 1976). Conditional sentences, in contrast, specify hypothetical situations. Children might therefore fail to produce conditionals, even when they are capable of complex syntax, because they are still closely tied to the real world and cannot yet conceive of situations not coinciding with actuality. This hypothesis might seem especially attractive since there is a literature arguing that the capacity for hypothetical thinking does not develop until 4;6 or even later (see Kuczaj and Daly 1979, for a review and some counterevidence). However, Bates (1976) has argued that the late emergence of counterfactual conditionals in the speech of Italian children is not caused by an inability to conceive of situations that diverge from reality. She notes that already during their second year, children engage in behaviours showing they know how to 'suspend truth', for example, pretending to go to sleep. Sometimes they also mark the nontruth of their behaviour with a remark like 'No no'. My own data accord well with Bates' conclusions on counterfactuality. To her brief and mostly nonverbal evidence more elaborate illustrations can be added. The appropriate use of almost, which appeared before age 2 in the speech of both Christy and Eva, requires the speaker implicitly to compare the actual situation with another situation that came close to occurring or has not quite yet occurred: (8)

C I;IO (M has just caught a pitcher that C had set down on the edge of the sandbox): Almost fall

Thought and wish, which appeared at about the same time, imply that the situation referred to in the embedded clause is not true (see Lyons 1977: 795 on wish as a counterfactual marker): (9)

(10)

C 2;o (C is upset when she finds that M has screwed the nipple on her bottle; she likes to do this herself): I thought me do that! C 2; 1 (C and M are sitting chatting): I wish Christy have a car. I wish me have a airplane

In sum, well before children produce conditionals they appear to be not only 290

First steps in acquiring conditionals capable of entertaining situations contrary to reality but also in some cases of marking them as counterfactual. Many conditionals refer not to counterfactual situations but to situations about whose realization in the past, present, or future the speaker is uncertain (e.g. If John came home past midnight, he found the door locked - past; / / John comes tonight, we'll go out- future). Do children in the 'preconditional' period experience uncertainty about the occurrence of a situation, and if so, can they mark their uncertainty explicitly? The answer is clearly 'yes' to both questions. As early as the one-word stage, children express uncertainty about past, present and future situations with rising intonation in languages that use this device for asking questions. By age 2, or soon after, Christy, Eva and Damon started to indicate uncertainty with additional markers of nonfactivity like maybe, probably, might, could, I think, and I guess (see also Reilly 1982 on maybe, and Shatz, Wellman and Silber 1983 on the early use of 'mental state' verbs like think to express uncertainty). For example: (11) (12) (13) (14)

C 1 ;i 1 (F enters with pack of photos): Daddy buy pictures? (past) C 1; 11 (C outdoors; friend has vanished): Missy inside maybe? (present) C 2;2 (C struggling with project): I think daddy could do it (future) E 1 ;i 1 (F hiding under the covers; M has asked where he is): I don't know. Probably in bed (present)

Intermediate between counterfactual situations and uncertain situations in degree of hypotheticality (see Comrie in this volume on hypotheticality as a continuum) are undesirable situations that might result unless steps are taken to prevent them or as a consequence of actions now contemplated. Samples from the languages I have looked at contain many references to such situations from about age 2 on, for example: (15) (16)

(17)

(18)

(19)

C 2;2 (Playing with tiny books that fit into a box): I going put them in a box so them won't fall down C 2;3 (C inside on rainy day): I don't want go outside 'cause I get wet in my diapers and in my shirt (= would get wet) D 2 3 (In response to M: Okay, would you like to climb on your plate-your seat?): I too big to climb on my plate. I might fall and cry Jas 2; 1 (Polish, Smoczyriska 1986) Nie rzucam piorka do wody, bo mokre by bylo 'I don't throw a feather into the water because it would become wet' 2 ;o (Turkish, Slobin and Aksu MPI notes) 291

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(20)

Igeri gir, igeri. Usiirsun. fok soguk 'Come inside, come. You'll get cold. It's very cold' 2;o (Italian, Clancy et al. 1976) (Re: untied shoelaces): Cudi allora . . . senno e perdo 'Close then . . . if-not (=or; otherwise), I'll lose them'

The ability to produce utterances of the form You (/) do X so that Y won't happen and You (I) don't do X, otherwise Y will happen seems to presuppose the ability to grasp the conditional relationship If you (I) do (don't do) X, Y will happen. Yet conditionals lag behind sentences like (i5)-(2o) by up to as much as 9 months. Why? Clancy et al. (1976) propose that sentences like (20) with senno 'if-not' precede those with se 'if in the speech of Italian children because the first conjunct of sentences with senno 'is supported by the immediate context and the child must deal with only one hypothetical event' (p. 78), whereas with se both of the events are hypothetical. This proposal comports with a more general hypothesis by Bates (1976). Bates suggests that the conceptual elements needed for conditionals are built up singly and are present before conditionals emerge. However, the child has difficulty in combining them. Even quite young children can refer to one non-actual or hypothetical event, according to Bates. But sentences with if make reference to two hypothetical events. Syntactically similar sentences with because come in earlier, argues Bates, because they specify only events in the real world. This hypothesis, although plausible, does not find support in the data I have reviewed. Many early utterances specifying an action taken or not taken to avoid an undesirable consequence could not be produced if the child were unable to conceptualize two contingently-linked hypothetical events, or even three (see also Smoczyriska 1986). In order to produce (18), Jas had to imagine both the hypothetical action of throwing a feather into the water and the hypothetical consequence of this act, the feather's getting wet, in order to decide not to do it. Christy's projection in (16) is similar. In (17) Damon imagined a hypothetical three-event sequence: climbing on his plate, falling, and crying. At about the same age Damon also referred to a sequence of two desired hypothetical events: (21)

D 2;2 (He has just taken his shoes off): I get my socks off! M: Keep your socks on so your toes'll be warm D: I get my socks off my toes be warm too

This sentence provides a context for if, but Damon's first conditionals are still 6 months away (see Reilly 1982, on similar examples in her daughter's speech 4 months before conditionals appeared). I conclude from these data that neither a general inability to conceive of hypothetical events nor an inability 292

First steps in acquiring conditionals to imagine or refer to a sequence of two such events accounts for the delay of if-(then) constructions in children's speech.7 Inference The logical function of conditionals, according to Braine (1978), is to state inference rules: 7 / . . . then . . . is taken to be a grammatical frame such that, when the blanks are filled in with propositions (say, a and /?), the result is the following inference rule: a//3. That is, if a has been established, then /? can immediately be concluded' (p. 8). Put more informally, conditionals 'provide an explicit machinery by which inferences may be drawn' (Fillenbaum 1978: 174). According to Donaldson (1971), important prerequisites for inference are the ability to recognize that there is something unknown to oneself that is in principle knowable, and the ability to project what this something might be on the basis of what would or would not be compatible with a known situation. Perhaps the reason children do not produce conditionals, even though they understand contingency and hypotheticality, is that they have difficulty starting from a known situation and inferring something unknown but compatible with it, such as the situation's likely cause, consequence, or further implications. However, the records of Christy and Eva indicate strongly that this is not the case. Starting in about the middle of their second year, the children showed a growing skill at moving from a known situation to an appropriate inference about the unknown. For example: (22)

(23)

C i;4 (When C is in bed in her room, F drops some silverware in the kitchen. Hearing the crash, C leaps up, saying): Spoon! (When she is brought to the kitchen, she searches the floor carefully. Inferred cause.) C I;IO (C and M about to play in tubs of water outside. M has just put a (dry) shirt on. C pats it, saying): Mommy shirt wet (Inferred consequence)

In these examples the inference is fairly straightforward. But to be able to produce certain kinds of conditionals the child must also be able to reason indirectly (note, for example, how circuitous the relationship is between antecedent and consequent in If it's Tuesday this must be Belgium). My data suggest that children are capable of relatively indirect inference at a remarkably young age. For example: (24)

E i;8 (As family waits for service in restaurant, waitress gives E's sister a glass of water. E immediately looks all around, says anxiously): Where? Where? 293

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(Then subsides when waitress returns with a glass for her. 'If Christy gets a glass of water, there must be one for me too. Where is it?') In summary, the ability to draw inferences about unknown situations on the basis of known situations emerges very early, as much as a year before conditionals appear in children's speech. Generic events Many conditionals have a habitual or 'timeless' meaning: the situations mentioned in the two clauses are seen as contingently linked whenever they occur or even if they never occur at all. Reilly (1982) terms the cognitive notion relevant for generics 'timelessness' - the ability to decentre in time, i.e. to view events from outside one's place in the time continuum. On the basis of spontaneous speech data and pther evidence, Cromer (1968) has argued that children do not develop a sense of timelessness until about age 4 to 4;6. In accordance with Cromer, Reilly (1982) proposes that children's early conditionals with the superficial look of generics are not actually statements about habitual or timeless relationships, but refer instead to a particular instance of the relationship. As evidence, Reilly notes that when her youngest subjects produced utterances that looked like generic conditionals, the situations referred to were always taking place at the time of speech (but see Reilly in this volume, for a more detailed and somewhat modified interpretation of the development of generic conditionals). In the data I have reviewed I find evidence that children grasp habitual and timeless events, and in some cases even contingent relations between two such events, well before conditionals of any type emerge. Between about age 2 and 2;6, various ways of marking generic events begin to come in. In adult Turkish, the aorist tense is used to express habitual activity, potentiality, or likelihood; it is also the main tense used in conditionals. On the basis of data from several children, Aksu (MPI notes) reports that the aorist is used productively by age 2,0 to remark on the habitual behaviour of people, animals, or things. The referent event is not necessarily ongoing at the time of speech - see (30) below. At about the same age, Christy and Eva began to use the present tense (distinguishable from an unmarked verb only in the third person singular) for habitual events, as is appropriate in English, e.g. (C 2;o) She barks, while looking at a new neighbourhood dog who often barked but was not currently barking. Words like supposed to, sometimes, and other ways of expressing generalizations also appeared in the speech of Christy, Eva, and Damon during this time, e.g. (25) and (26), also (27): (25) (26)

C 2 ;o (Trying to put a plastic part back on humidifier): This s'pose be on D 2;5 (At playground): 294

First steps in acquiring conditionals This a ladder for kids to climb up, and some ladders for . . . mens to climb up Evidence that at least some 'preconditional' children can conceive of two habitual events, contingently linked, is found in utterances like (27)-(3o); note again that the referent events are not occurring at the time of speech: (27) (28)

(29)

(30)

C 2;2 (pointing to bag of 'Instant Breakfast' powder-mix on counter): Sometimes I have 'Breakfast' when I sick D 2;o (D riding in car, talking about his toy dog that barks when pulled by the handle): Puppy dog go wuff-wuff. Hold a handle, puppy dog go wuff-wuff (D's first conditional is still 8 months away.) D 2;o (In the morning D has been listing the events of his bedtime ritual. He ends up with): Herb turn light on Damon go sleep (Turkish, Slobin and Aksu MPI notes) Adult: Nicin iciyor? 'Why does (the dog) drink?' Child (2;o): Ben su veririm ona icer 'I give (AOR) water, he drinks (AOR)' (Aorist is appropriate since referent events are habitual.)

From examples like these I conclude that 'preconditional' children do have some notion of habitual and timeless events, and at least some children can conceptualize a contingency between two such events well before if-(then) constructions emerge. Their appreciation of such events and contingencies may be limited to familiar contexts (see French and Nelson 1981), but within such limitations there seems to be no cognitive reason why utterances like (27^(30) should not be marked with if once connectives begin to come in. Summary: cognitive prerequisites Although previous researchers have proposed that the order of acquisition of complex sentences is determined by cognitive complexity, the present search has yielded no evidence that the relatively late emergence of conditionals can be attributed to the absence of any obvious cognitive prerequisites or combination of prerequisites. In fact, 'preconditional' children appear remarkably competent. They can appreciate contingencies of various sorts, entertain counterfactual, uncertain, and hypothetical situations and even sequences of two or three contingently linked hypothetical situations (although probably not sequences of counterfactual situations), draw inferences, recognize generic events, and, at least in some cases, relations between such events. These cognitive skills should in principle put a number of conditional subtypes within reach. Why then are conditionals so late? What are they waiting for? Let us explore whether there might be a pragmatic explanation for the delay. 295

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2.2 Pragmatic factors Speech acts. A recent study by McCabe et al. (1983) gives evidence for considering whether conditionals might be acquired relatively late because they are functionally superfluous at first: the speech act niche into which they will fall is already occupied by other constructions. McCabe and her colleagues studied 24 sibling pairs age 2;io~7;3. They found that 38 per cent of the conditionals recorded were used to deliver threats arid bribes, such as If you break that I'll hit you (Fillenbaum 1978, terms this category of conditionals 'inducements'). This was the only way in which some of the children were observed to use conditionals. The speech act qf 'inducements' was established well before the onset of conditionals in my English-speaking subjects. It was typically performed by sentences like Don't break that (or/;) /('//) hit you (see p. 292 on this general sentence format). It is understandable that such constructions should precede conditionals as techniques for delivering inducements: children are known to prefer 'direct' directives to indirect ones at first (Ervin-Tripp 1977), and Don't break that or I'll hit you makes direct reference to what the speaker wants of the listener, whereas If you break that I'll hit you does not. Perhaps, then, conditionals are slow because children already have a serviceable and more congenial way of formulating inducements. However, this hypothesis is not borne out by the data. With only a few exceptions, the first productive conditionals in the English, Finnish, Turkish, Polish, and Italian data I have reviewed are not threats and bribes but simply 'comments', with no obvious interpersonal function at all (examples will be given shortly).8 The speech act of 'comments' is present from the very beginning in young children's speech. The lateness of conditionals therefore does not seem to be attributable either to lack of a functional need for them or to the absence of the speech act genre for which they will initially be used.

Discourse De Castro Campos (1981) has proposed that the acquisition of conditionals is linked to a particular adult-child interaction pattern. In a study of two Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children, she found that the emergence of conditionals was preceded by dialogues like this: (31)

Daniella 2;8 (Every time D asks if she can drive, M refuses by saying that it is too dark or that the street is crowded with cars. Today's conversation in the car goes like this): D: Ta escuro, mae? 'Is it dark, Mummy?' M: Nao 'No' 296

First steps in acquiring conditionals D: Enta deixa eu guiar 'Then let me drive' In such dialogues an implicit conditional (e.g. 'If it is not dark, then you should let me drive') is segmented across turns. The child asks a question, the mother confirms it, and the child then uses this agreement to draw out a plausible inference. De Castro Campos notes that this interaction conforms to the question-confirmation-implicative assertion sequence hypothesized by Jespersen (1940) to underlie the historical development of if-(then) conditionals. She suggests that children eventually learn to produce full conditionals by internalizing such dialogues. Other investigators have also explored the hypothesis that the acquisition of conjoined sentences is mediated by children's participation in dialogue exchanges in which component propositions are distributed across adult-child turns (however, to my knowledge, only de Castro Campos has looked at conditionals). Findings have been mixed. Some researchers report that at least certain conjunctions appeared first in their data in clauses linked through discourse cohesion to preceding adult utterances (e.g. Aksu 1978, for Turkish; Eisenberg 1980, for English; Kail and Weissenborn 1984, for French). On the other hand, Bloom et al. (1980) found that the conjunctions they looked at in their four English-speaking subjects all occurred overwhelmingly more often* from the very beginning, in strings where both propositions were supplied by the child. If the acquisition of conditionals is indeed tied to discourse reciprocity, would this explain why conditionals come in late? Emergence in dialogue does not seem per se to be associated with lateness; in fact, if anything, the opposite may more often be true (see Aksu 1978). However, some types of discourse cohesion are apparently harder for children than others. Specifically, Eisenberg (1980) found that although certain exchanges came in early (e.g. using 'but . . . ' to deny expectations set up by a previous adult utterance), drawing conditional inferences based on another person's speech was infrequent and late, not appearing in her data until 40 to 46 months. Possibly, then, conditionals are late because children do not participate in the kind of dialogue that supports their acquisition until after most other complex sentence patterns have been acquired. However, this hypothesis finds no support from Christy, Eva or Damon. Dialogues of the kind de Castro Campos reports were rare or non-existent in their records before full if-(then) conditionals were produced. Equally problematic, the semantic content of most early conditionals (see section 3) does not seem to reflect a process of posing a question, presupposing an answer, and then drawing out an inference. Conditionals in the data I have examined follow the pattern reported by Bloom et al. (1980) for other complex sentences: the children could generate both clauses themselves without adult support before they participated in dialogues where clauses were segmented across speaker turns. The lateness of conditionals therefore does not 297

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seem to be due to the need for special discourse patterns between children and adults. 2.3 Summary: why are conditionals late? The search for a pragmatic explanation, like the search for a cognitive explanation, has turned up no reason why conditionals are acquired late relative to other complex sentences. Of course, I have not studied all the relevant cognitive and pragmatic factors exhaustively, and there may be important ones I have missed. A broader investigation might also have shown that although the cognitive prerequisites for conditionals are in place well before conditionals come in, the concepts needed for earlier-learned complex sentences are acquired even earlier. In other words, the sequence of linguistic development might mirror the sequence of cognitive development, but with a lag. If so, however, we would need to explain why meanings, once mastered, should queue up in an orderly fashion to await expression. What is going on between the time of cognitive readiness and the time a form is acquired? One important task, as Slobin (1973) has stressed, is simply for children to identify the forms that can be used to express the meanings they have in mind. A second task may be semantic rather than either cognitive or grammatical. Before forms can be matched to meanings in a particular conceptual domain, the child's general nonlinguistic understanding may have to be reworked into mental representations geared toward linguistic expression, in that they reflect to some extent both specific semantic distinctions that are important in the language being learned and the way in which that language partitions complex events into smaller components (Schlesinger 1977; Bowerman 1985, 1986). The processes involved in this transformation of knowledge are still little understood. There may be other problems for the child to work out as well. In sum, a more precise account of the time at which linguistic forms emerge must await a better theoretical understanding than we currently have of the complex processes underlying their acquisition. 3. THE SEMANTIC STRUCTURE OF EARLY CONDITIONALS Our failure to establish why conditionals are acquired relatively late is disappointing, since it leaves us with no answer to an intriguing developmental puzzle. Yet it also makes first conditionals, when they do appear, more interesting for the study of universal grammar. If conditionals were delayed because children initially lacked the conceptual skills necessary to understand them, the properties of the first conditionals would reflect the point at which conceptual growth finally intersects with the semantic range of adult conditionals. Whether these properties should be taken as relevant to the study of conditionals in adult language would be unclear, since adults do not operate under the same cognitive constraints as children. However, if children command a wide range 298

First steps in acquiring conditionals of relevant concepts well before their first conditionals appear, then the semantic properties of these conditionals might reflect selectivity, a 'choice' from a range of subtypes whose meanings are all in principle accessible. In this case, first conditionals would have enhanced potential for suggesting what meanings are fundamental to conditionals in human languages.

Future predictives Children's initial conditionals are indeed selective. Across samples from several languages, one semantic pattern predominates, Schachter's (1971) 'future predictives' (see also Reilly 1982, this volume). Future predictives make reference to a sequence of two future situations, with the first possible but uncertain and the second causally/temporally triggered by the first. For example: (32)

(33)

(34) (35)

(36) (37)

C 2;4 (C getting up on a rainy Sunday. This is C's first observed conditional): If we go out there we haf' wear hats C 2;4 (C wearing a bead crown which M has knocked off once by kissing her): Don't kiss me 'cause it will fall off if you do that E 2 ;8: If Christy don't be careful, she might get runned over by a car D 2;7 (Going to a picnic, D has seen sheep in a field. First observed conditional): The sheep might run away if I don't pat them 2;7 (Turkish, Aksu MPI notes): Dokulur mu acarsak 'Would it spill if we open it?' Katja 2;8 (Finnish, Bowerman MPI notes) (K and M are looking at a picture of boats. M asks 'What are they doing?' K indicates a trajectory for one boat): Jos se ajaa tuossa, sit' ne menee 'If it drives there, then they [= the other boats] go'

The predominance of future predictives among children's early conditionals suggests a possible link between universal grammar and children's linguistic predispositions. Picture a continuum of hypotheticality with counterfactuals at one end, 'given-that' clauses at the other, with clauses ranging from highly hypothetical to possible but uncertain in the middle. Haiman (1978) and Comrie (this volume) have shown that there are crosslinguistic differences in how conditional constructions partition this continuum. According to Haiman, the semantic range of the English conditional extends from counterfactuals up through hypotheticals-uncertains, but does not include 'given-that' clauses. In contrast, 299

Melissa Bowerman the conditional in Hua (a language of Papua New Guinea) extends from hypotheticals-uncertains through 'given-thats', but does not include counterfactuals (these are accorded a completely different grammatical treatment). Notice that despite these differences the middle portion of the continuum falls within the range of the conditional in both languages. What meanings are most basic to this middle portion? According to Comrie (this volume), conditionals with low hypotheticality and future time reference - (i.e. future predictives) are one of the two most basic types of conditionals in the world's languages, as judged by frequency of use and likelihood of receiving overt marking. (The other type is highly hypothetical constructions especially with nonfuture time reference, including counterfactuals.) If, as the present study suggests, children are predisposed toward associating the conditional construction of their language with a category of meaning that is central to conditional semantics across languages, this would be highly functional. It would allow them to make an accurate initial mapping between form and meaning even with relatively little linguistic evidence, and then go further by extending the conditional to other categories of meaning on the basis of language-specific experience.

If versus when in future predictives:the role of certainty The closest neighbours of low-hypothetical future predictive conditionals in English, both semantically and syntactically, are sentences that refer to two contingently-linked future events, with the antecedent regarded by the speaker as certain to occur. Sentences of the two types are identical except for the conjunction: uncertain future antecedents are introduced with if and certain ones with when (compare If John comes we'll go out and When John comes we'll go out). The obligatory distinction between certain and uncertain antecedents in future predictives is language-specific: many languages use a single construction for both meanings, e.g. German wenn, Dutch als, Polish jak plus indicative: Wenn J kommt, gehen wir aus Als J komt, gaan we uit 7//when John comes, we'll go out'9 Future predictives with when emerge before those with if in children learning English. Since the choice between when and if in future predictives rests on a fine semantic distinction that in many languages is not obligatorily marked, and since when and if overlap in other portions of their semantic range (see Reilly in this volume), we might anticipate that it takes time for Englishspeaking children to work out the division of labour between the two forms in future predictives. 300

First steps in acquiring conditionals To see whether this is so, I analysed the future predictives produced by Christy, Eva and Damon in the first few months after this construction type appeared in their speech. Each utterance was categorized according to (a) whether the conjunction was when or if and (b) whether the child was likely to have regarded the antecedent as certain or uncertain. The question of interest, of course, is whether when coincides with certainty and //"with uncertainty. The results are presented in figure i. when Certain

when

if

7

2

5

Uncertain

4 Eva2;6-3;1

Christy 2 ;0-2;6

Certain

Uncertain

if

when

if

when

8

(1?)

5

if

5

3 Damon 2;6-3;0

Damon3;0-3;6

Figure i.

The results show overwhelmingly that children appreciate the distinction between when and if from the very beginning (only one conjunction was (possibly) mischosen out of 40 examples across the three children).10 Since the outcome is so clean, the reader might wonder whether it is due to an artifact: that my classification of the antecedent as certain or uncertain was itself influenced by whether the child used when or if. I have tried to avoid this by excluding from the analysis shown in figure 1 all examples in which there are no independent grounds for assessing whether the child regarded the antecedent as certain or not. Utterances like the following, for example, were omitted: (38)

C 2;2 (C has just taken a red filter off her doll's eye; she sometimes must wear this on her own glasses, and calls it her 'light'): 301

Melissa Bowerman

She won't see me when her put her light on (Does C intend at this time to have the doll wear the 'light' again? Can't be determined.) The remaining whens fall into rather clear categories, where their use is semantically well motivated: (a) The antecedent refers to the next instance of a dependably recurrent event, e.g.: When Daddy comes home . . . (C); When we're eating dinner . . . (E); When I come home from Ana's . . . (D; Ana is his babysitter); . . . when it's your birthday (D). (b) The antecedent refers to a future time when a child or (occasionally) an inanimate object will be older: When I get bigger . . . (D); When I'm four . . . (C); When this house gets very old... (D). (c) The antecedent refers to the completion of an ongoing, clearly bounded event or process: And me shake it up when I through (as C screws nipple on her bottle); Push my chair back in when you finish with me (as M brushes E's hair); When that honey is used up . . . (E). (d) The antecedent refers to an event the child is currently planning and can reasonably expect to carry out, usually within a few minutes, or which another person is about to perform: . . . when I go outside (D); . . . it's gonna shrink very little when you cook it (E to M, of a 'Shrinky-Dink' E is preparing; these have to be baked in the oven and M has said she would do this). When none of the above conditions hold, the child has no basis on which to project with certainty that a given future event will take place. Under these circumstances the child never selects when, but always if: If I get my graham cracker in the water, it'II get all soapy (D sitting in bath), and examples (32)-(35). In summary, young English speakers are remarkably accurate, from the very beginning, in selecting between when and if in future predictives on the basis of whether the antecedent event can be expected with certainty or not. This accuracy is especially striking since there are many contexts in English in which both when and if are acceptable, and since non-native speakers often have difficulty selecting the right conjunction when their mother tongue does not obligatorily mark the distinction. Other conditionals Although future predictives predominate among the early conditionals of children in several linguistic communities, three other kinds of conditionals also occur fairly frequently: expressions of pure hypotheticality, of present-time contingencies between specific situations (Schachter's (1971) 'present conditionals') and of habitual or generic contingencies (see also Reilly 1982, this volume). In pure hypothetical, the child probably does not anticipate, however uncertainly, that the antecedent situation will take place. The antecedent, with or 302

First steps in acquiring conditionals without its consequence, is often simply posed as an interesting idea. For example: (39)

Michal 2; 1 (Polish; Smoczynska 1986): Jak by kto Michalowi urwal raczki, to co? 'If somebody tore off Michal's hands, then what?'

Present conditionals refer to a contingency between events that are instantiated at the time of speech, e.g.: (40)

D 2 ;8 (D removing block that supports a ladder in a table-top construction): What happens if I take this away?

Many conditionals that resemble generics refer to ongoing situations and so may not be statements about timeless contingencies, as Reilly (1982) noted. But some seem to be true generics, as in (41) and (42): (41) (42)

E 3;6 (During a discussion about groceries in the refrigerator): If you don't put them in for very long they won't get staled C 3;o (After going down slide in long pants; earlier she'd had trouble sliding in shorts, and M had told her to put on long pants): How come it works better to slip me down if I have on long pants?

Sentence (41) was produced during a very general conversation when no food was being put into or taken out of the refrigerator. Sentence (42) was indeed produced when the child was wearing long pants and had just slipped down, but the overall form of the question indicates that she was interested not in the specific event but in the generic relationship between the kind of pants you have on and how well you slip on a slide. The early appearance of generic conditionals is consonant with my earlier conclusion that even in the preconditional period, at least some children understand the notion of a generic contingency between events. Although future predictives and - in lesser numbers - hypotheticals, present conditionals, and generics make up most of the conditionals produced during the first year or so after the if-(then) format emerges, young children occasionally surprise us with examples of other conditional types. For instance, counterfactuals are known to emerge late relative to other kinds of conditionals (Bates 1976; Reilly 1982), yet in my data there are two strikingly early examples: (43)

(44)

C 2;4 (C and M have just crossed a narrow street when a car goes by): That car will/would hit me if I was in a street E 2; 11 (E tired during long wait in doctor's office): If we (didn't?) have to wait for so long we would have be gone a long time 303

Melissa Bowerman

Other conditional subtypes that, although rare, have been recorded in the period just after the emergence of conditionals include (a) statements of rules for establishing the identity of objects on the basis of whether they have a property entailed by that identity; (b) logical entailments; (c) conditionals with antecedents that are neither uncertain nor hypothetical but well-established, used in the sense of since to justify the proposition in the consequent; and (d) statements of a contingency holding between recurrent past events. It is difficult to assess the significance of these rare conditional subtypes, but they suggest that children's preference for certain categories of conditionals does not constitute a strict constraint on the way they can use the if-(then) sentence format. 4. CONCLUSIONS I have pursued two themes in this study of children's early conditionals: why the if-{then) construction is acquired relatively late, and what the semantic properties are of first conditionals. Formal complexity was ruled out as the cause of lateness on grounds that conditionals share overall structure with many earlier-learned complex sentences. Despite the widespread assumption that conditionals are late because they are cognitively difficult, a review of skills and concepts relevant for conditionals turned up no cognitive reason why conditionals could not be acquired earlier. Nor did the pragmatic factors investigated - speech act function and discourse cohesion - seem to be responsible. These negative outcomes suggest that further work is needed on our theoretical assumptions about what determines timing of acquisition. The study of the semantic structure of early conditionals showed that children proceed with an admirable blend of the universal and the particular. On the one hand, they 'cut in' to the semantic range of adult conditionals with a category of meaning that is apparently central to conditional semantics in languages around the world: low-hypothetical future predictives. This puts them in a good position to extend their usage to more language-specific categories of meaning on the basis of linguistic experience. On the other hand, children's linguistic predispositions are not initially so strong as to preclude sensitivity to the specific semantic contrasts drawn by the language being acquired: learners of English choose between when and if in future predictives with remarkable accuracy from the beginning.

NOTES i I am grateful to Robin Campbell, Eve Clark, Herbert Clark, and Marilyn Shatz for their invaluable comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. I also want to thank Eve Clark for her generosity in allowing me to analyse data from her diary study of her son Damon. 304

First steps in acquiring conditionals 2 A factor that received considerable attention in an earlier era was frequency of modelling: it was assumed that forms heard more often would emerge earlier than forms heard less often. However, tests of the hypothesis have indicated that the influence of frequency is very slight compared to that of cognitive and formal complexity (Brown 1973, Pinker 1981). 3 The complex verb forms required by counterfactuals and other kinds of conditionals may indeed be formally difficult for children (Bates 1976; Reilly 1982), but this cannot explain the overall slowness of conditionals since: (1) there are indicative conditional subtypes in English and many other languages; and (2) children in any event at first simply use simpler tenses where more complex ones are required (Bates 1976; Kuczaj and Daly 1979; Reilly 1982). 4 See Haiman (1978) for discussion. Haiman argues compellingly that similarity of grammatical form should be taken seriously as a guide to underlying similarity of meaning. This means that one cannot simply set the more recalcitrant if-(theri) constructions aside by ruling that they are 'not really conditionals', as has often been done. 5 This period extends to 2;8 for Damon, 2;4 for Christy, and probably 2;8 for Eva. (It is hard to be certain about Eva since she produced a contextually appropriate conditional fragment at I ; I I ; however, no more conditionals were recorded until 2;8.) My Finnish subject Katarina did not yet produce conditionals in the period from 2;o to 2;2 when I observed her. For Turkish, Italian and Polish I have relied on the judgements of Aksu and Slobin (MPI notes), Bates (1976), and Smoczyriska (1986) that the children were not yet producing conditionals. 6 The following notation is used in examples: C = Christy, E = Eva, D = Damon, M = Mother, F = Father. Names of other children are given where known; subsequent reference is with the child's initial. Age is shown in years; months. 7 However, it is possible that the cognitive prerequisites for counterfactuals are not yet established at this age since - despite children's production of single counterfactual propositions - 1 find no evidence that they can conceptualize the sequence counterfactual antecedent situation-counterfactual consequent situation. 8 I stress 'productive' because in both Turkish and Japanese the equivalent of //"occurs first in fixed or near-fixed syntactic frames that do have specific interpersonal functions. Turkish children use ister-(-se- = if)-n 7/you want . . . ' to make requests or ask permission (Aksu and Slobin MPI notes), and Japanese children use one or two sentences like sawat-tara dame (-tara - if) 'touch-//", no good' (= don't touch) to issue prohibitions (Clancy 1986). These are conventional ways of performing these speech acts in adult speech as well. In other languages routine acts of requesting, permission-asking, and prohibition are performed with nonconditional constructions by both children and adults. 9 Languages of this type may have other connectives that do differentiate the two meanings, but these are often less colloquial and learned later by children. Additionally, sentences containing the if/when connective can be made clearly hypothetical by use of the subjunctive or conditional mood in place of the indicative. The first conditionals of children learning such languages appear similar in meaning to the future predictives shown in (32^(37) (Clancy et al. 1976, for German; Smoczynska 1986, for Polish); but since children are not forced to choose between two conjunctions on the basis of certainty it is difficult to determine whether they conceive of the relationship between the propositions as temporal or conditional. 10 Errors in a speaker's choice between if and when are striking to native ears. If they had occurred in the speech of Christy and Eva I feel confident that I would have noticed them, especially since I paid particular attention in collecting data on errors of all kinds (e.g. Bowerman 1985). 305

Melissa Bowerman REFERENCES Aksu, Ayhan. 1978. The acquisition of causal connectives in Turkish. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development (Stanford University Department of Linguistics) 15: 129-39. Bates, Elizabeth. 1976. Language and context: the acquisition of pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. Bloom, Lois, Margaret Lahey, Lois Hood, Karin Lifter and Kathleen Fiess. 1980. Complex sentences: acquisition of syntactic connectives and the semantic relations they encode. Journal of Child Language 7: 235-61. Bowerman, Melissa. 1979. The acquisition of complex sentences. In Language acquisition, ed. Paul Fletcher and Michael Garman, 285-305. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bowerman, Melissa. 1985. Beyond communicative adequacy: from piecemeal knowledge to an integrated system in the child's acquisition of language. In Children's language, VOL. 5, ed. Keith E. Nelson, 369-98. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Bowerman, Melissa. 1986. What shapes children's grammars? In The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, ed. Dan I. Slobin. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Braine, Martin D. S. 1978. On the relation between the natural logic of reasoning and standard logic. Psychological Review 85: 1-21. Brown, Roger. 1973. A first language. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Clancy, Patricia. 1986. The acquisition of Japanese. In The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, ed. Dan I. Slobin. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Clancy, Patricia, Terry Jacobsen and Marilyn Silva. 1976. The acquisition of conjunction: a crosslinguistic study. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development (Stanford University Department of Linguistics) 12: 71-80. Cromer, Richard. 1968. The development of temporal reference during the acquisition of language. Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University. de Castro Campos, Maria Fausta P. 1981. On conditionals as dialogue constructs. Paper for International Encounter in the Philosophy of Language, State University of Campinas, Brazil. Donaldson, Margaret. 1971. Preconditions of inference. In Nebraska symposium on motivation, ed. J. K. Cole, 81-106. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press. Eisenberg, Ann R. 1980. A syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic analysis of conjunction. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development (Stanford University Department of Linguistics) 19: 70-8. Eisenberg, Ann R. 1981. The emergence of markers of current relevance. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development (Stanford University Department of Linguistics) 20: 44-51. Ervin-Tripp, Susan, 1977. Wait for me, roller-skate! In Child discourse, ed. Susan ErvinTripp and Claudia Mitchell-Kernan, 165-88. New York: Academic Press. Fillenbaum, Samuel. 1978. How to do some things with IF. In Semantic factors in cognition, ed. John W. Cotton and Roberta L. Klatzky. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. French, Lucia A. and Katherine Nelson. 1981. Temporal knowledge expressed in preschoolers' descriptions of familiar activities. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development (Stanford University Department of Linguistics) 20: 61-9. Haiman, John. 1978. Conditionals are topics. Language 54: 564-89. Jespersen, Otto. 1940. A modern English grammar on historical principles, VOL. V: Syntax. London: George Allen and Unwin. Johnston, Judith R. and Dan I. Slobin. 1979. The development of locative expressions in English, Italian, Serbo-Croatian and Turkish. Journal of Child Language 6: 529-45. 306

First steps in acquiring conditionals Kail, Michelle and Jiirgen Weissenborn. 1984. L'acquisition des connecteurs: critiques et perspectives. In Ontogenese des processus psycholinguistiques et leur actualisation, ed. M. Moscato and G. Pieraut-le Bonniec. Rouen: PUF. Kuczaj, Stanley A. II, and Mary J. Daly. 1979. The development of hypothetical reference in the speech of young children. Journal of Child Language 6: 563-79. Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics, VOL. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McCabe, Anne E., Susan Evely, Rona Abramovitch, Carl M. Corter and Debra J. Pepler. 1983. Conditional statements in young children's spontaneous speech. Journal of Child Language 10: 253-8. Pinker, Steven. 1981. On the acquisition of grammatical morphemes. Journal of Child Language 8: 477-84. Reilly, Judy S. 1982. The acquisition of conditionals in English. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles. Schachter, Jacquelyn C. 1971. Presupposition and counterfactual conditional sentences. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Los Angeles. Schlesinger, I. M. 1977. The role of cognitive development and linguistic input in language acquisition. Journal of Child Language 4: 153-69. Shatz, Marilyn, Henry Wellman and Sharon Silber. 1983. The acquisition of mental verbs: a systematic investigation of the first reference to mental state. Cognition 14: 301-21.

Slobin, Dan I. 1973. Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar. In Studies in child language development, ed. Charles A. Ferguson and Dan I. Slobin, 175-208. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. Smoczyriska, Magdalena. 1986. The acquisition of Polish. In The crosslinguistic study of language acquisition, ed. Dan I. Slobin. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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16 THE ACQUISITION OF TEMPORALS AND CONDITIONALS •

Judy Snitzer Reilly Editors' note. As has been widely noted, conditionals are closely related to both temporal and causal adverbials. Reilly approaches this aspect of conditionals from the vantage point of their acquisition, focusing on the interplay of linguistic and cognitive factors, as evidenced by both naturalistic dialogue and experimental data from preschool children. This paper bears a direct relationship to Harris's account of the historical development of conditionals in Romance languages and Bowerman's discussion of emerging conditionals. Reilly's approach to generic temporals is discussed at length by ter Meulen. 1. INTRODUCTION (i)

Kate

3 ;3 (pouring water on cement): When you put water on it, it sparkles/ Adult: What? Kate: If you put water on, it sparkles, see? In a volume such as this, a reader might well ask, 'Why is a chapter about toddlers and preschoolers included? Of what value can it be to scholars dealing with this complex and weighty topic?' We hope to show that the process of child language acquisition presents a fertile resource for researchers interested in the basic nature of conditional sentences and their interaction with related language structures.1 As (i) demonstrates, children at an early age display knowledge of some of the interesting relationships of their language, such as the interchangeability of when and if'm some contexts. The emerging cognitive and syntactic systems of preschoolers provide a different perspective on conditionals and allow us to see the basic building blocks of the adult system. In the adult model, the complete conditional system is incredibly complex: morphologically, syntactically, semantically, and pragmatically. Because of this complexity and the number of interacting variables in the adult system, it can be difficult to isolate the individual components and evaluate their roles. Although the child's developing system is by no means simple, or even necessarily straightforward, it does provide a more skeletal version of conditionals, and by watching the system flesh out we can see the basic notions, both morphological and semantic, underlying our own adult system. 309

Judy Snitzer Reilly Returning to the example that opened this introduction, as Kate's utterances demonstrate, in English there are certain instances in which a when temporal and a conditional clause are roughly synonymous. In fact, in many languages there is only one morpheme for some of the functions served by if and when in English, e.g. German wenn in the present and future tense: (3a) and (3b) would not be distinguished in German. However, in other cases in English when and if are not usually interchangeable: (2)

a.When Kate was six months old, she pulled a ceramic lamp down on her head

But: b.*If Kate was six months old, she pulled a ceramic lamp down on her head (although there is probably a context where sentence (2b) might be acceptable). Additionally, there are situations in which the meanings of if and when, although similar, express different degrees of expectation or certainty, as in the following: (3)

a.When Clare comes home, we'll have lunch b.If Clare comes home, we'll have lunch

In the case of (3b) we may all go hungry. Given that when and if do share some semantic functions, as well as reflect their own unique semantic fields, the acquisition and interaction of these two morphemes and their attendant semantic functions provide an excellent opportunity to investigate several issues: (a) how a child divides semantic space and maps linguistic forms onto these semantic fields; (b) how the child's cognitive abilities are linguistically realized; and (c) under what particular conditions the conceptual components can be integrated and manipulated with the appropriate, complex linguistic structure. Several researchers have examined the acquisition of temporal concepts and temporal reference (Cromer 1968; Clark 1970,1971,1973; Piaget 1971; Ferreiro and Sinclair 1971; Beilin 1975; French and Nelson 1982); others have focused on conditionals alone (Bates 1976; Emerson 1980; Jakubowicz 1981; Reilly 1982, 1983; McCabe et al. 1983; Bowerman in this volume). Additional studies have surveyed complex sentence acquisition (Limber 1973; Clancy, Jacobsen and Silva 1976; Hood et al. 1977; Bowerman 1979; Bloom et al. 1980), but only Amidon (1976) has directly compared temporals and conditionals, and her study is limited to older children, as are those devoted to conditional reasoning (Taplin, Staudenmayer and Taddonio 1974; Kodroff and Roberge 1975; Kuhn 1977; Staudenmayer and Bourne 1977). As reported in the various surveys of complex sentence acquisition, children begin to produce complex sentences between the ages of 2 and 3 years, with tokens of most complex sentence types being produced by age 3;i (Limber 310

The acquisition of temporals and conditionals 1973). In the vast majority of cases, the temporal conjunction when appears in a child's grammar before if. Researchers focusing on the interaction of conjunctive forms and their functions (Bloom et al. 1980) have reported that the acquisition of when preceded that of if, but that, more interestingly, when was used by two of their subjects for a temporal and also an epistemic function. When //"was finally acquired, it too was used for an epistemic function.2 These data suggest that, quite early on, children are sensitive at some level to the semantic overlap of when and if Providing a crosslinguistic perspective on conjunction acquisition, Clancy et al. (1976) carefully examined the acquisition of temporal concepts. As in other studies (Hood etal. 1977), they first reported the appearance of unmarked juxtaposed propositions, then conjoined clauses which expressed a variety of functions: coordination, antithesis, sequence and causality, and lastly, conditional notions. They found that soon after the appearance of conjoined clauses, when was used for both conditional and sequential temporal functions, and then for the expression of habitual occurrences. Further, when in signalling sequential notions preceded its use in simultaneous or overlapping phenomena. From these reports, we might conclude that temporal subordinate clauses precede the acquisition of conditional clauses. However, like conditional sentences (and other complex structures), when temporal sentences are not limited to expressing one semantic function. And, as previous work has shown (Reilly 1982), children do start to produce conditional sentences at about age 2i, but they do not fully control the entire conditional system until about 8 years of age. We should, therefore, expect to find that acquisition of the full set of meanings associated with when subordinate clauses is not instantaneous, but rather extends over a period of time. This period should in part coincide with the acquisition of conditionals. The specific goal of this chapter is to provide a detailed picture of the sequence of acquisition of the linguistic forms when and if, which will in turn provide a means to answer the original questions of how children map these forms onto the various semantic functions associated with them, and in what contexts the child can integrate the necessary conceptual notions with the appropriate linguistic form. These results will hopefully provide another perspective on the nature of the adult conditional system. The remainder of the chapter includes a discussion of the role of when and if in adult speech, the experimental subjects and procedures, the sequence of acquisition of when and //"and, finally, discussion and conclusions. 2. WHEN AND IF IN ADULT SPEECH Before looking at the acquisition data, it may be helpful to present a short description of conditional and when temporal sentences, and show where they overlap semantically, in the adult model. For a description of conditionals,

Judy Snitzer Reilly I have drawn on Schachter's (1971) semantic classification of conditionals as a basis for data collection and analysis. Schachter distinguishes two major categories of conditionals: simple conditionals and imaginative conditionals (see table 1). Simple conditionals refer to events in the real world and include present, past, generic and predictive conditionals. Present conditionals refer to events taking place at the time of the utterance; past conditionals refer to events which may have taken place; generics are statements of timeless dependencies; they can be paraphrased by whenever and occur in a variety of tenses;3 and predictives forecast the occurrence of some event in the future. The imaginative conditionals reflect some notion of irrealis, and they include hypotheticals and counterfactuals.4 The various conditional sentence types all share the basic ifX, then Y structural description and entailment relationship. Further, for all conditionals, the morpheme if signals the speaker's supposition of the possibility of the antecedent event's occurrence. It is the auxiliary of either or both clauses which formally differentiates the individual conditional types. Morphologically, the simple conditionals use the indicative mood whereas the imaginatives use the conditional, signalled by would, in the consequent. When temporal and conditional clauses share a variety of characteristics: in their role as subordinators they both link simultaneous or sequential events, often implying a causal relationship, and they both can occur either pre- or post-main clause. In both constructions, the different semantic types are distinguished by the auxiliary verb. However, a significant difference between these two complex sentence types is reflected by the morphemes when and if. When implies certainty, or at least the speaker's expectancy, of the occurrence of the event expressed in the antecedent clause, whereas //"signals the speaker's supposition of the antecedent event. The occurrence of the event expressed in the antecedent is thus a possibility to be considered (see JohnsonLaird in this volume). In sum, the speaker's attitude toward the antecedent event or state, believing it to be fact or merely supposing the possibility of its existence, is the criterial feature distinguishing the basic when/if structures. (Given that the subjects in this study are young children, it is assumed that they use the language literally, that they are sincere and are not using conditionals ironically.) Possibility and supposition, as signalled by if, exist in both real and unreal or hypothetical situations, and accordingly, conditional sentences are used to refer to both realis and irrealis situations. In contrast, fact, as signalled by when, is restricted to the real world, or at least to events the speaker believes to be true (except in explicitly marked fantasy sequences - see note 6). Hence, we would expect the overlap between when and if to occur with reference to events in the real world. In the conditional sentence types reviewed in the previous section, this includes the simple or indicative conditionals (present, generic, past and predictives). Among these four types of conditionals and 312

The acquisition of temporals and conditionals Table i. Types of conditional sentences, based on Schachter (1971) Simple conditionals Present Past Generic Predictive

If I touch my eye, it hurts If the cat is in the kitchen, he's eating the meat on the counter If it rained last year in Egypt, the Nile overflowed If the tortoise has a runny nose, he sleeps in the house (Reflecting a less dependency) If Kate sees the ice cream, she will want some (Forecasting a real world event) Imaginative conditionals

Hypothetical Counterfactual

If he ate all those doughnuts, he would be ill (Might occur) If I were a boy, I would have curls (Present counter/actual: could not occur) If you had been awake, you would have heard the coyote (Past counterfactual: did not occur)

their morphologically comparable when temporals we find degrees of semantic overlap. Heinamaki (1978) suggests that this overlap occurs in cases where there is a regular co-occurrence relationship between two events, for example: I wh

I J a r m e drinks cranberry juice, he gets a rash

In (4), a generic conditional, when could be replaced by whenever reflecting a regular relationship; and since //-clauses refer to a possible instance of this regular co-occurrence, //-clauses are also acceptable in these cases (Heinamaki 1978). This interchangeability also holds true for present conditionals. The semantic overlap decreases for predictive (5) and past conditionals (6) where the speaker's expectations pertaining to the occurrence of the antecedent event or state distinguish the two structures. For predictive and past conditionals, the speaker is supposing the antecedent; it is a possibility. In predictive when temporals, however, the antecedent is expected to occur, and in past temporals the antecedent is in fact known to have occurred: I Wh

I *^e s t r a w t ) erries are in, we'll make fresh strawberry pie

I Wh

I *l r a m e c * * ast v e a r

m

EgyP1' t r i e Nile Delta flooded

Thompson (personal communication) has suggested that the more regular the co-occurrence relationship between the antecedent and consequent events, the more interchangeable the when and if structures. This characterization would allow inclusion of all those conditionals based in reality, i.e. the simple conditionals, as well as allowing for the decreasing interchangeability due to

Judy Snitzer Reilly the changing attitude of the speaker toward the antecedent event in the predictives and past conditionals. Assuming that the area of overlap between when and if is generally restricted to the simple conditionals (an exception is discussed below), we are left with the imaginative conditionals which refer to hypothetical and counterfactual situations. This is exactly where the when and //"structures are not interchangeable: (7)

J If 1 Kate told that joke to her grandmother, I would be morti*When I fied

I *w^-« ^ Kate were a boy, she would be Batman I *wk— ^ ^ a t e ^ac* b e e n

a

boy, she would have been taller

In general, then, there is semantic overlap for when and //"where they refer to situations occurring, having occurred, or predicted to occur, in the real world, i.e. the simple conditionals: present, past, generic, and predictive conditionals. Thus if is left to refer uniquely to hypothetical and counterfactual situtions (the imaginative conditionals). This distinction, where if and when overlap in the semantic areas referred to by the simple conditionals, holds true except in those cases where the speaker knows what actually occurred in the past: (10)

j *Tf

r Kate was 6 months old, she was bald

This exception holds, of course, because //"signals supposition and possibility; if //"were used in (10) it would leave open the possibility that Kate did not exist. However, since we know she exists and was once 6 months old, we cannot (with a simple conditional) readily suppose, as if does, that she was never 6 months old.5 In contrast, when implies some sort of factual knowledge or certainty, and in speaking of past events, when exclusively refers to events which have actually occurred.6 To summarize, when and //"structures overlap semantically in so far as they both link real-world sequential or simultaneous events. It appears that the more regular the co-occurrence relationship between these events, the more interchangeable the when and //"structures. Furthermore, w/ien-clauses, including those referring to past events, are restricted to refer to fact and reality, whereas //"-clauses suppose the possibility of a state or event in potentially real as well as irrealis situations. From this discussion we can see that the semantic overlap and non-overlap of when and if reflect fairly subtle and complex distinctions and provide an 314

The acquisition of temporals and conditionals interesting context for looking at how children map forms onto semantic fields, as well as how they divide the semantic pie in the process of acquiring adult form-function relationships. Given the partial overlap in semantic function, as well as the extended acquisition period, there are several possible outcomes in the sequence of acquisition of these two linguistic forms, if and when, and their interaction with the semantic functions to which they refer. The hypothesis is that the child will produce those types of when temporals and conditionals that are semantically simpler before producing or comprehending the more complex types. Since the content of children's early language concerns the 'here and now', we can assume that those structures referring to reality are conceptually simpler than those where the child must envision an imaginary situation. This is supported by the findings of Kodroff and Roberge (1975), where children were more successful with hypothetico-deductive tasks when the content was concrete rather than abstract. With regard to conditionals and temporals, this would indicate that those semantic functions referring to the real world (that is, the indicative or simple conditionals and temporals) would emerge prior to hypothetical and counterfactual conditionals. Further, since the semantic overlap occurs with reference to reality situations, it is anticipated that neither the when temporal nor the conditional system is acquired first completely and independently, but rather both will be acquired concurrently and interactively. 3. SUBJECTS AND PROCEDURES Naturalistic data were collected in the form of a diary of the speech of my daughter Kate from age 12 months to 52 months. Two other children were audio-taped for between ii and 2 hours every three months from ages 2,9 to 4; 1 years in naturalistic play situations, and a third child was audio-taped every three weeks from 2;6 to 2 ; n . Also used were diary data on temporals and conditionals from a fourth child from 2;4 to 3;6. For the experimental data on conditionals, tasks based on Schachter's framework were designed and administered to 28 children, ranging in age from 2| to 9 years. There were four children in each of the age groups: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 years. From diary data it appears that the full system of when temporals is controlled by about age 4. Tasks were given to a second group of children to test temporal and conditional production and comprehension: three children in the 2;6-3;o age group, three 3 year olds, and three 4 year olds. In all cases, attempts were made to embed the task questions into the ongoing conversation so that they appeared naturally motivated. Task I: What if? Given that conditional types vary according to the auxiliary verbs in both clauses, the children were asked What if? questions with different auxiliaries to elicit different consequent responses. Many of the questions were based on a story we were reading together. It was assumed that different auxiliary

Judy Snitzer Reilly verbs in the response, triggered by the auxiliary in the antecedent question, reflected the child's morphological capabilities as well as understanding of the function of different conditional types. For example, What if you eat three ice creams? might elicit a present tense response You get sick (a present or generic consequent) or the simple future You will get sick (a predictive consequent). Task II: Bears and pigs. To test counterfactual comprehension and to elicit counterfactual consequents, the What if? paradigm was extended. The child was read The three little pigs and The three bears, and then shown a picture with a known result, e.g. the straw house which is blown down by the wolf. Then the child was asked a series of questions where each situation was varied in some crucial aspect: for example, What if the straw house had been made of bricks? Task III: Pretend. To investigate the child's comprehension of hypotheticals, we played a 'pretend' game and the child was asked to pretend to be or do something. The experimenter provided several model hypothetical conditionals, for example, / / / ate ioo marshmallows, I would get sick. Then the child was asked to pretend to do something and tell about it. If the child used a different syntactic form, a prompt was given: Can you say it just like I did? Task IV: When sentence completion. To test comprehension of the different types of when temporal clauses, children were given when subordinate clauses with different verb tenses (present and past, punctual and stative or durative). They were then asked to complete a sentence, When you get home . . . or When your Daddy was at work . . . If the child hesitated or asked What? the adult prompted: Tell me or You tell me. Task V: Familiar items and familiar events. To elicit generic w/ieft-clauses, the children were asked what they did with certain familiar items that are used for or occur in very specific and well-defined contexts, e.g. What do you do with rain boots? Prompts included All the time? or Every day? 4. SEQUENCE OF ACQUISITION This section integrates the naturalistic and experimental data to present a description of the acquisition sequence of temporals and conditionals (schematized in table 2). 'Stage' is used to help organize the data in reporting it; it is not meant necessarily to imply a linear sequence, as a child may be at two stages simultaneously or stages may be collapsed. Many of the examples are taken from Kate, as her data are more complete, having been collected very frequently and over the longest time period. However, her development is consistent with the other data. Stage I. As in the development of other complex stuctures, in these data the children first juxtapose two independent propositions before the marked complex structure appears in their grammar. For example:

The acquisition of temporals and conditionals (11)

Kate 2 ;4 (climbing into her crib): Climb in/ Be fun/

and she toppled in, laughing. Using rich interpretation (Brown 1973), we can infer that some semantic relationship exists between these two clauses, be it temporal, conditional, and/or causal, and further, that it is based in the ongoing situation. A week or so later Kate produced a similar example: (12)

Kate 2 4 (she was on top of the jungle gym with a sheet draped over it. She pointed to the sheet): Sit here/ Fall down/

In this particular instance, Kate did not in fact enact her prophecy, thereby expressing a burgeoning sense of hypotheticality as well as the notion of sequence, conditionality, and causality. These early collocations nicely support the points made by Mann and Thompson (forthcoming) with regard to adult usage of juxtaposed propositions to imply complex relationships. At this point, then, the germs of these relationships are all available to the child, even though Kate has not yet independently produced any complex sentences where these relationships are explicitly marked with subordinate conjunctions. Stage II. The next development is formal: complex sentences with marked subordinate clauses. For our purposes, those denoting sequence (13) and particularly the first when-c\auses, (14) and (15), which initially signal predictive/ future sequences, are of interest: (13) (14) —> (15)

Kate 2;6 (at bedtime, after collecting bugs in a jar): I go see jar then go to bed/ Kate 2;6: Can I have some gum? Mother: No, we don't have gum/ Kate: I have gum when I'm older?/ Lauren 2;6: When I go to Grammy's, I'll eat with my fingers/

The use of when for predictive sequences is not limited to Kate and Lauren, but rather appears throughout the data from other children, as well as other available sources (Clancy et al. 1976; Bloom et al. 1980; Bowerman in this volume). Stage III. For some children, the next step after when predictives involves using when for a new semantic function, to relate familiar objects to their distinctive contexts: (16)

Adult: What are umbrellas for? Lauren 2;7: When rain comes, we put an umbrella on top of us/ 317

Judy Snitzer Reilly As it is unclear whether this is a true generalization on Lauren's part, we will call these 'protogenerics'. At this third stage, where Lauren produces when predictives and when protogenerics, she has not yet produced any conditionals, nor is she able to respond contingently to What if? questions.Rather, she interprets the What if? in (17) as a suggestion and denies the presuppositions in bite, thereby rejecting the possibility of the antecedent's occurrence: (17)

Adult: What if a snake bites? Lauren 257: Snakes have any mouths and teethes/

This is a very common response to What if? questions in the task data from both the 2 and 3 year olds.7 Stage IV. Three weeks later, however, at 2;8, Lauren responded more appropriately, although inconsistently, to What if?: (18)

Adult: What if you fall in the water? Lauren 2;8: I'll get eaten by a shark/

But there continue to be instances where the child rejects the antecedent as a possibility and appears unable or unwilling to produce the conditional consequent: (19)

Adult: What if Use (the dog) bites you? Lauren 2;8: Her doesn't bite me/

At this same point in time, at 2;8, when she is beginning to respond hypothetically as well as predictively to What if?, Lauren produces her first spontaneous conditional. It is interesting to see her attempts at sorting out the appropriate relations by relying on discourse support, both in form and content, across several turns. Even so, she switches the roles of the antecedent and consequent clauses: (20)

Adult: Laurie, what if your baby cries? Lauren 2;8 (putting doll in cradle): Wants Mommy if her cry/ Adult: What sweetheart? Lauren: Cries/ Want Mama/ (two turns later) Lauren: Her cry if her want me/

During this period, then, Lauren is using w/ien-clauses for future sequences (predictives) and to express regular co-occurrences for familiar items and their specific contexts (protogenerics). Her first conditional also seems to be a predictive sequence, even within the context of pretending, and coherent answers to What if? questions also serve a predictive function. Although one might 318

The acquisition of temporals and conditionals be tempted to think of this first conditional (20) as a potential generic, it seems premature to draw this conclusion, since the verbs are bare, rather than necessarily present tense. (Third person singular marking on present tense verbs for Lauren at this stage appears to be optional, e.g. cry/cries and want/wants in (20) above.) Data from the other 2 year olds, including Bowerman (this volume), support this trend; the first conditionals of six of the other seven 2 year olds are also present or predictive conditionals (i.e. sequences where the antecedent may or may not be present or in the process of occurring): For example, Kate (2; 10) has hurt her eye: (21)

Adult: How does your eye feel? Kate (with her finger in her eye): If I touch it, it hurts/

Another development at this stage is Lauren's production of w/ie/t-clauses to refer to co-temporal past events where a punctual incident occurred within the time frame delineated by the w/ien-clause, as in (22). Since Lauren does not consistently mark tense, it is only by knowing that Lauren had just spent four days at her grandmother's house that we could know that the when-dause refers to an extended period in the past: (22)

—>

—>

Lauren 2;8 (pointing to a bite on her arm): This bite/ Adult: What sweetie? Lauren: Bite me/ Adult: What bites you? Lauren: One time I had a [siydow] bite/ Adult: You had a mosquito bite? Lauren: Umhmm/ When I go to my Gramma's house/

As in previous instances where new complex structures and new functions for complex structures appeared, here too the child uses several turns, relying on discourse support. The additional turns providing the opportunity to repair and elaborate seem to allow the child to extend or surpass her previous syntactic/ semantic productive abilities (but see Clark and Andersen 1979 and Reilly 1981 for further discussion). In this same period, a fourth use of when appeared in the sentence completion test when Lauren was asked to talk about her older sister Clare. She gave the following response: (23)

Adult: When Clare was a baby . .. Lauren 2;8: Her drowned an' her/ an' her Mommy quickly saved her/

Upon questioning the mother, this turned out to be pure fantasy. It appears, then, that for Lauren at this stage, when with a stative past tense where she has no true knowledge to draw upon can be equated with Once upon a time.

Judy Snitzer Reilly The other 2 year olds given when completion tasks also responded this way, e.g.: (24)

Adult:

Right this minute, you're this teeny? (holding hands 8 inches apart) Amanda 2 ; n : I was that/ this little when I was when I was/ when I was that small and then, um (X3) that that, um that (X3) that/ the panda bears bite me/

The amount of repetition and hesitation suggests that Amanda was trying to think of an answer, and that its truth value was not a major consideration. Later on in the conversation with Amanda when we were doing sentence completions, Amanda denied her response in (24): (25)

Adult: When the panda bears bit Amanda . . . Amanda 2;i 1: He din't/ He din't hit me or din't bit me/

Example (25) shows that Amanda does in fact differentiate reality and irrealis in the past, but she still uses when for fantasy in the past (24) as well as in when predictives: (26)

Amanda 2;i 1: When I older than Lindsay, then I'm the big sister/

However, she uses //for protogenerics: (27)

Adult: Can you tell me what umbrellas are for? Amanda 2 ; I I : They are for putting on ( ) if it rains then we have to have umbrella/

Although similar to Lauren's form-function mapping, Amanda's when-if distribution for semantic functions differs slightly as she uses if and Lauren uses when for protogenerics. As in the initial stages of acquiring conditionals, there is individual variation in the mapping of linguistic forms onto the various semantic functions (Reilly 1983). However, after the child's initial entry into a particular grammatical/semantic system, the choices are fewer and developmental sequences exhibit more uniformity. In the case of temporals and conditionals, when a form is first acquired there seem to be several means of parcelling out the shared semantic functions. Some children, like Lauren, acquire one form and then two semantic functions before acquiring the alternative form if. Once the second form appears, it shares both semantic functions. Other children, like Amanda, show a preference for 1-1 mapping, initially using separate forms for separate functions: if'for protogenerics and when for predictive sequences.8 Soon thereafter, Amanda's use of when generalized to include the protogeneric function: (28)

Adult: Do you go to bed at night? Amanda: We go to bed when it's dark/ 320

The acquisition of temporals and conditionals Stage V. ditionals: (29)

The next development is the production of hypothetical con-

Ryan 2;io: If Bulldozer man saw a fire, he would call the fire department/ 9

even though the adult-initiated questions are often still denied: (30)

Adult: Ryan 2;io: Adult: Ryan:

What if your car broke on the way? Well, but when we drove here, our car didn't broke/ Well, what happens, what if your car did break? It doesn't break/ I told you!

At this same point in time, Ryan was also denying the possibility of past when statives outside his personal experience: (31)

Adult: What about when Ditter was a little boy? Ryan 2;io: Ditter isn't a little boy, this day/ He's a big brother this day/

These denials may stem from an inability to hypothesize a departure from reality at the request of another speaker, and/or they may be due to misinterpreting the intended speech act as a suggestion and then denying or rejecting that suggestion. This is especially possible when the question proposes something implausible to the child as in (30). It is as if he can only suppose those states or events which he has personally imagined or experienced.1" Stage VI. The next step towards recognizing the delineation between actual fact and supposition, and by implication differentiating some of the functions of when and if, is for the children to be able linguistically to suspend reality at the implicit request of the interlocutor hypothesizing any situation. This occurs for most children some time between the ages of 3! and 4 years: (32)

Adult: Molly, what if you ate three chocolate cakes? Molly 3;6: You would have a tummy ache/

Stage VII. In this last stage, at about age 4, there are developments in several areas which may reflect a significant cognitive reorganization, corroborating the change found at this point by Cromer (1968). First, the individual and non-overlapping functions of when and //are more clearly differentiated, as shown by the following repair: (33)

Grant 3; 10: When I was/if I was a tiger, I would cook pa/popcorn/

Grant's repair suggests that when and if are linked, and since this is a selfrather than an other-initiated repair, it demonstrates his awareness that //rather than when is the appropriate choice for irrealis situations. 321

Judy Snitzer Reilly Also during this period, individual semantic functions of when expand. In contrast to the earlier protogenerics, where specific objects were associated with their usual contexts, when now begins to reflect more abstract and generalized notions: (34)

—>

Kate 3; 11: Daddy, I want you to have a beard/ You look so handsome/ Mother: What? Kate: I want Daddy to have a beard 'cuz when men have beards they look so handsome/

Kate has never seen her father with a beard, so not only is this a hypothetical situation but it also reflects a generalized relationship where specific instances are abstracted from their individual occurrences in real time and generalized to a timeless status ('whenever'), as in a true generic. Third, there is much greater success on the counterfactual tasks for the 4 year olds (93 per cent correct as opposed to a low of 36 per cent for the 3 year olds). Fourth, spontaneous utterances reflecting counterfactual notions also begin to appear as in (35): (35)

Kate 4; 1 (driving in a sedan with eight people): We shoulda taked the grey car 'cuz it has a way-back (The grey car is a station wagon.)

Finally, we also find at this point generalized and habitual past activities which are now within the child's own memory. These reflect an ability to generalize instances of specific events over time and suggest that the child has differentiated the individual functions of//"and when: (36)

Kate 4;i: When I was three, I used to brush my teeth with plain water/ 4.1 Review of the developmental sequence

/. As in the development of other complex sentences, in acquiring when temporals and conditionals, children first produce unmarked juxtaposed propositions. //. Then, at about age 2;6, when (as well as other subordinators) appears and is used spontaneously for predictives. These refer to future sequences where the events referred to in both clauses are yet to occur, or in which one of the events is presently occurring in the immediate context. ///. Soon thereafter, given the appropriate context, when is used for simultaneous events (in these data, to relate familiar objects to their specific contexts, as in You eat medicine when you're sick). To some degree, the time at which a linguistic form is acquired is arbitrary and varies with individual children. 322

The acquisition of temporals and conditionals Table 2. The acquisition of temporals and conditionals Function

Forms

I.

Sequence

Juxtaposed propositions (unmarked)

II.

Predictive (future sequence)

when

III.

Predictive Simultaneous (proto-generic)

when

IV.

Predictive Simultaneous/present

when and/or if (individual variation)

Co-temporal past punctual *Past fantasy

when

V.

VI.

VII.

Predictive Present and generic Co-temporal past punctual *Past fantasy

when and if when

Hypothetical production Hypothetical (comprehension)

if if

Predictive Generic

when and if

Past punctual Past stative or habitual (reality)

when

Hypothetical (production and comprehension)

if

Note:* Not in the adult model except when a fantasy narrative has been established.

It may be that for some children this function (protogeneric) does not appear until the next stage, after the child has acquired if. IV. At this stage (from ages 2 ;6~3 ;2 in this set of data), the first conditionals marked with //"appear. Some children use when and if for both functions, i.e. for this group of children, once the conditional structure is established it is used to relate familiar items to their contexts (protogenerics) as well as for predictive sequences. Other children initially use when constructions to refer to one semantic function and conditionals to refer to another. Soon thereafter, however, the scope of both forms is extended to include both semantic functions. These initial when.-and //"productions are often dependent on discourse support. Also at stage IV, when acquires two additional functions: (1) it is used to refer to cotemporal events in the past, where at least one clause refers to a punctual event; and (2) in cases where when occurs with a past stative, and children have no personal experience to draw upon, they may use it to introduce fantasy or make-believe. This function is appropriate in the adult model only when a fantasy mode or context has been established by the speaker. Children 323

Judy Snitzer Reilly may be unaware that when is limited to factual assertions except in this special instance, or it may be that they lack the pragmatic/discourse knowledge or the ability to signal that they are initiating a fantasy sequence. V. At stage V (which may begin as early as 2;io and continue until 3;u) children begin to produce hypothetical spontaneously. However, they generally respond to the What if? questions which demand hypothetical responses by denying or rejecting states'outside their personal experience, or situations they may view as implausible or undesirable. This grounding in reality occurs in response to adult-initiated probes and task situations. It seems to reflect an inability to integrate the component cognitive abilities with the necessary linguistic structure and a difficulty in suspending present reality at the implicit request of the other speaker. It could also stem from a misinterpretation of the adult's intended speech act. This ability to produce hypothetical, but inability to respond to What if? questions implies that often children can manipulate the linguistic and cognitive components more easily when they have created the fantasy scenario than when they must disambiguate another's perspective (but see Reilly 1983 for a discussion of individual variation in this particular area). That analysing another's perspective can increase complexity is further supported by the fact that children do better with hypothetical questions when the adult gives the additional cue to 'pretend' and a model. In these cases, children who deny the hypothetical and subjunctive counterfactual What if? questions are often capable of producing subjunctive (were/ would) counterfactuals: (37) (38)

Adult: What if you eat three ice cream cones? Katie M. y,j: You don't have three hands/ Adult: Can you pretend to be something, like, 'If I were a horse, I'd wear a saddle'/ Can you think of something like that? Katie M. 357: If I was a elephant, I should have a trunk/ '

VI. In this next period (which begins as early as 2;io and as late as 3;8 in my data) hypothetical questions are no longer denied and they receive appropriate conditional responses. Counterfactuals, however, continue to be problematic until about age 4 (all the 4 year olds were very successful on the counterfactual comprehension test). With the production and comprehension of hypotheticals, children have successfully generalized their suppositional abilities to hypothetical situations of another's creation, and the semantic scope of //"begins to expand and distinguish itself from that of when. VII. At stage VII, when is limited to real past events and, eventually, past habituals become frequent in the naturalistic data. In essence, then, children first acquire those semantic functions that refer to the real world, which just happen to be where the two forms overlap. Then 324

The acquisition of temporals and conditionals gradually the independent functions, hypotheticality and counterfactuality (irrealis) for if, and past stative (reality) for when, emerge. 5. CONCLUSIONS The general trends found in the interaction of temporal and conditional acquisition in this study confirm and support the major results of conditional acquisition reported on earlier (Reilly 1982, 1983). The data show the process of language acquisition to be a constant readjusting of the balance between linguistic forms and their semantic functions, reflecting the largely separate but interactive systems of language and cognition. The structural linguistic sequence usually reflects the child's semantic capabilities, which are in turn dependent on the ability to manipulate the requisite cognitive notions. To counterbalance this, it is also true that a child will use specific linguistic forms, in this case both temporals and conditionals, without controlling the entire semantic system to which these structures refer. The 2 year olds producing predictive when temporals and predictive conditionals do not use when temporals for past habitual activities, nor do they productively use hypothetical or counterfactual conditionals. Learning the various semantic functions of a particular linguistic structure requires an extended period of time; the acquisition of a new semantic function for an already acquired linguistic form appears to be motivated by the child's increasing capacity to incorporate developing conceptual abilities into the appropriate linguistic structure. These independent spurts of growth in the domains of linguistic form and semantic abilities lend further support to the view that semantic and syntactic competence, while interactive, are largely independent. A recurrent theme characterizes the acquisition of temporals, conditionals, and the interaction of these structures. Both structures are used initially to refer to the familiar and to the immediate context. Development is a progression from the 'here and now' to the more general and abstract. These changes reflect the child's developing cognitive abilities, i.e. the increasing ability to handle more complex and abstract ideas and to integrate these ideas with the appropriate linguistic form. This sequence from specific to general is evident across the entire domain of temporals and conditionals as well as within any one specific type of temporal or conditional sentence. The acquisition of timeless or generic structures provides a good example. The child's first generic type of utterance is single propositions such as Cows say moo or Brooms are for sweeping. Cromer (1968) calls these 'timeless characterizing descriptions' (see also Bowerman in this volume). Next, when temporals relate known and familiar items to their unique and specific contexts. Then, once conditionals are productive, they also appear in the same context. In script data, where children told about familiar activities, French and Nelson (1981, 1982) found generic conditionals very occasionally in data from the 2 ; I I - 3 ; I O group and more frequently in the 3 ; I I - 4 ; I O 325

Judy Snitzer Reilly

group. Finally, when temporals are used to encode more abstract generic concepts into generic or habitual relationships, as in Kate's example of 'when men have beards they look so handsome'. From a broader perspective, the trend from concrete to abstract and specific to general is apparent in the way that the two structures are acquired. It is those structures which refer to the real world that are the earliest to be acquired, and they are first used in present and familiar situations. They happen to be the semantically overlapping structures. Compared to the imaginative conditionals (hypothetical and counterfactuals) where only f/is appropriate, the indicative or simple conditionals and temporals (the structures where if and when overlap) refer to the real world and are the conceptually less abstract. Given a semantic complexity metric such as Brown's (1973), the indicative structures would be predicted to be acquired first. It is interesting that initially the child uses new structures in the most concrete contexts, even though the components required by the more abstract uses may be accessible independently. For example, children pretend a great deal by 2| years, and comments such as I'm teasing, I'm just pretending or I'm just joking are common by age 3. They do not seem to be able, however, to integrate and encode this conceptual ability of hypothesizing imaginary situations into the conditional structure at the initial stages of their conditional careers. Rather, they need some time for the structure to establish itself before they can incorporate this additional semantic complexity to produce and respond hypothetically. (See Bowerman, this volume, on the late acquisition of conditionals despite the presence of their prerequisites.) It may be that the acquisition of a new structure taxes children to the point where they can only focus on one aspect at the time and are thereby limited to the simpler conceptual use(s) that the structure signals; or it may be that in learning any new structure, as Piaget (1954) has suggested, regardless of the children's level of performance and cognitive abilities in other areas, they proceed through the developmental stages with regard to that particular structure. As we have seen in this form-function balancing act, children vary and exhibit individual mapping strategies. Some children, like Amanda, divide the shared semantic field between the two forms, resulting in 1-1 mapping. Others, however, have a more inclusive strategy. Once a semantic function is controlled and a specific form acquired, it is used in addition to any existing forms to refer to that semantic function. The greatest variation seems to be in the initial stages, when the child first enters the system. Once the forms are established, however, progress is general. Both forms expand their semantic roles in accordance with Slobin's adaptation (1973: 184) of Werner and Kaplan's (1963) adage, 'New forms first express old functions, and new functions are first expressed by old forms.' Once both forms are used for two functions, from our data we can infer that the child is continually readjusting the form-function balance within the 326

The acquisition of temporals and conditionals domain of temporals and conditionals, rather than performing a wholesale reanalysis after all the functions have been acquired. For instance, Kate's repair in (i) demonstrates that before she controlled all of the semantic functions of either if or when, she was equating the two forms for that particular semantic function. This brings us to the question of whether and in what contexts the child differentiates when and if In the present and protogeneric examples, the forms appear to be interchangeable. For predictives, Bowerman (this volume) has found evidence that children distinguish when and //"predictives based on their expectation of the antecedent's occurrence, although some children also use predictive conditionals where the antecedent is in fact in the process of occurring: (39)

Kate 2; 10 (she hit me with a string bag as I was laughing) Adult: Don't hit me/ Kate: I'll do it again if you laugh/

In past structures there appears to be some confusion between forms, at least in the initial stages of acquiring new semantic functions, as we saw with Lauren and Amanda's use of when for past tense fantasy and Damon's examples below: (40) (41)

Damon 2;8: When I was a big boy, I used Herb's knife/ (Diary notes, '= future irrealis conditional') Damon 2;8: When I put these in my hair, I would look like a woman/ (Diary notes, 'hypothetical')

It appears then that conditionals and temporals may be distinguished by children in certain contexts, but not in others, at least in the initial stages of using them for new semantic functions. And what the exact distinctions might be may well vary with individual children because of their differing initial mapping strategies. With respect to the specific area of child language acquisition, there are several conclusions to be drawn from these data: (i) (ii) (iii)

Given that the temporal and conditional systems overlap semantically, they are acquired concurrently and interactively. With the acquisition of a new linguistic structure for a particular function, there appears to be a step-by-step reorganization of the system. Children are generally able to produce more complex and abstract structures when they establish the context themselves than when it is necessary for the child to read and disambiguate the interlocutor's perspective. This suggests that certain pragmatic variables play a role in determining those contexts in which children can maximally display their linguistic competence and linguistically realize their conceptual abilities. 327

Judy Snitzer Reilly

(iv)

(v)

When the child enters a grammatical/semantic system, there is individual variation in how the form-function relationship is distributed. As he or she progresses, the acquisition sequence becomes more uniform and general. These data confirm previous findings that language and cognition stem from largely independent sources developing in parallel, although not necessarily at a matched pace. It appears that the semantics of a structure, and implicitly the underlying cognitive notions, are responsible for the general course of language acquisition. Children acquire the semantically simpler structures before the more complex and abstract. In contrast, children are also using forms, both temporals and conditionals, before they control the entire temporal and conditional systems. To 'acquire' a certain structure then, it appears that the child need only master a sliver of its potential semantic pie.

Concerning the broader issues of the adult conditional system, not only do children's first conditionals reflect a semantic type found in most of the world's languages synchronically (see Bowerman and Comrie's chapters in this volume), but according to Harris's discussion (this volume) on the history of conditionals in Romance, children use their first conditionals in a manner that has been available to speakers of Romance languages for the past two thousand years! Another relevant facet of the acquisition data is children's generalizing of semantic functions to other linguistic forms and the complementary use of alternate forms for similar semantic functions. These phenomena demonstrate that, even in the initial stages, children are sensitive to the nondiscreteness of conditionals as a semantic category. The subtle fading of conditionals to neighbouring semantic fields, e.g. temporals and causals, is also evident in the first conditionals, where the most frequent relation between antecedent and consequent is causal in nature. Once again, this seems to be an extension of the child's pre-existing semantic abilities appearing in the guise of a new form; complex sentences marked with so and because precede the appearance of if. It also reflects, however, the child's awareness, at some level, of the multiple semantic functions of conditionals. These acquisition data, much like Harris's historical data, provide further motivation to look at conditionals from a broader semantic perspective. Acquisition data, then, elucidate the developmental process and also serve as an investigatory tool which not only corroborates hypotheses and data from other sources but can also suggest new questions concerning the nature of the adult system. NOTES i I would like to thank Sandra Thompson, Elinor Ochs, Daniel Kempler and Alice ter Meulen, Elizabeth Traugott, Marina Mclntire and Charles Ferguson for their 328

The acquisition of temporals and conditionals

2 3 4

5 6 7

8

9

10

thoughts and criticisms. Also, I am extremely grateful to Eve Clark for her generous sharing of Damon's diary notes. I would further like to acknowledge the support and patience of the mothers and children who participated in this study. They define epistemic as 'a dependency relation involving certainty or uncertainty about the event or state in the second clause' (p. 245). The example sentences are / don 7 know X and / think that X. For a different perspective on generics, see ter Meulen (this volume). In Schachter's model, the categories 'reality' and 'unreality' are also used to classify conditionals; predictives, which forecast an event in the real world, are classified as unreality conditionals along with the imaginatives because they refer to something which has not yet occurred. For this example, as in the case of many starred sentences, exceptions can be found and an appropriate, if somewhat bizarre, context can be constructed if sufficient effort is expended. As briefly mentioned earlier, this is true except in narratives where there are additional linguistic cues that one is leaving reality, e.g. Once upon a time . . . or Long ago ... Adults also deny What if? questions in certain instances, responding as if the question were a suggestion, e.g. What if we go to the beach today? No, it's gonna rain, or OK. The difference here lies in the fact that in the task data there is a qualitative change in responses from the 2 year olds' denials and acceptances to uniquely conditional consequent responses by age 4. From these data, it is not clear whether Amanda used when for a protogeneric function or if that function did not arise until the acquisition of //. In any case, soon thereafter, Amanda began to use when as well as //for the present or generic function. Damon, Ryan and Lauren are certainly very verbal children and appear to be quite precocious. As with all child language data, the chronological age varies a great deal with individual children and is not particularly significant, but the sequence in which the various constructions and semantic functions occur, after the initial entry into the system, is quite general. Personality or differences in personal style may play a role in how comfortable a child is in imagining unusual or hypothetical events.

REFERENCES Amidon, Arlene. 1976. Children's understanding of sentences with contingent relations: why are temporal and conditional connectives so difficult? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology 22: 423-37. Bates, Elizabeth. 1976. Language and context: the acquisition of pragmatics. New York: Academic Press. Beilin, Harry. 1975. Studies in the cognitive basis of language development. New York: Academic Press. Bloom, Lois, Margaret Lahey, Lois Hood, Karin Lifter and Kathleen Fiess. 1980. Complex sentences: acquisition of syntactic connectives and the semantic relations they encode. Journal of Child Language 7: 235-61. Bowerman, Melissa. 1979. The acquisition of complex sentences. In Language acquisition, ed. by Paul Fletcher and Michael Garman, 285-305. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Roger. 1973. A first language. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Clancy, Patricia, T. Jacobsen, and Marilyn Silva. 1976. The acquisition of conjunction: 329

Judy Snitzer Reilly a cross-linguistic study. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development (Stanford University Department of Linguistics) 12: 71-80. Clark, Eve V. 1970. How young children describe events in time. In Advances inpsycholinguistics, ed. Giovanni B. Flores d'Arcais and William J. M. Levelt, 275-84. Amsterdam: North-Holland. Clark, Eve V. 1971. On the acquisition of the meaning of before and after. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 10: 266-75. Clark, Eve V. 1973. How children describe time and order. In Studies of child language development, ed. Charles A. Ferguson and Dan I. Slobin, 585-606. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Clark, Eve V. and Elaine Andersen. 1979. Spontaneous repairs: awareness in the process of acquiring language. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development (Stanford University Department of Linguistics) 16. Cromer, Richard. 1968. The development of temporal reference during the acquisition of language. Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University. Emerson, Harriet F. 1980. Children's judgements of correct and reversed sentences with 'if. Journal of Child Language 7: 137-55. Ferreiro, Emilia and Hermina Sinclair. 1971. Temporal relationships in language. International Journal of Psychology 6: 39-47. French, Lucia and Katherine Nelson. 1981. Temporal knowledge expressed in preschoolers' description of familiar activities. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development (Stanford University Department of Linguistics) 20: 61-9. French, Lucia and Nelson, Katherine. 1982. Taking away the context: preschoolers talk about 'then and there'. The Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition 4: 1—12. Heinamaki, Orvokki. 1978. Semantics of English temporal connectives. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Texas, Austin. Hood, Lois, Margaret Lahey, Karin Lifter and Lois Bloom. 1977. Observational descriptive methodology in studying child language: preliminary results in the development of complex sentences. In Observing behavior, ed. G. P. Sackett, VOL. I: Theory and applications in mental retardation. Baltimore, Md.: University Park Press. Jakubowicz, Celia. 1981. L'acquisition des phrases conditionnelles. In Problemes etperspectives en psycholinguistique de Venfant, ed. J. P. Bronkart, M. Kail, and G. Noizet. Geneva: Delachaux et Niestle. Kodroff, Judith K., and James J. Roberge. 1975. Developmental analysis of the conditional reasoning abilities of primary grade children. Developmental Psychology 11: 21-8. Kuhn, Deanna. 1977. Conditional reasoning. Developmental Psychology 13: 342-55. Limber, John. 1973. The genesis of complex sentences. In Cognitive development and the acquisition of language, ed. Terence E. Moore, 169-85. New York: Academic Press. Mann, William C. and Sandra A. Thompson. (Forthcoming) Relational propositions in discourse. MS. McCabe, Anne E., Susan Evely, Rona Abramovitch, Carl Carter, and Debra J. Pepler. 1983. Conditional statements in young children's spontaneous speech. Journal of Child Language 10:169-85. Piaget, Jean. 1954. The construction of reality in the child. New York: Ballantine Books. Piaget, Jean. 1971. The child's conception of time. New York: Ballantine Books. Reilly, Judy S. 1981. Children's repairs. Paper presented at the Second International Congress for the Study of Child Language. Vancouver, British Columbia. 330

The acquisition of temporals and conditionals Reilly, Judy S. 1982. The acquisition of conditionals in English. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. Reilly, Judy S. 1983. Acquiring conditionals: how language and cognition interact. Paper presented at the Eighth Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development. Schachter, Jacquelyn C. 1971. Presupposition and counterfactual conditional sentences. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles. Slobin, Dan I. 1973. Cognitive prerequisites for the development of grammar. In Studies in child language development, ed. Charles A. Ferguson and Dan I. Slobin, 175-208. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Staudenmayer, Herman and Lyle Bourne. 1977. Conditional reasoning: a developmental study. Developmental Psychology 13: 616-22. Taplin, John, Herman Staudenmayer and John Taddonio. 1974. Developmental changes in conditional reasoning: linguistic or logical? Journal of Experimental Psychology 17:360-73. Werner, Heinz and Bernard Kaplan. 1963. Symbol formation. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

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17 CONDITIONALS ARE DISCOURSE-BOUND Noriko Akatsuka Editors' note. Akatsuka argues against a truth-conditional perspective in favour of a linguistic, specifically a pragmatic, approach. Using Japanese, English and some German data, she shows that we must consider discourse context as well as the speaker's attitude and prior knowledge to account for the semantics of conditionals. Conditionals in context are also the focus of Ford and Thompson's chapter; attitudes and beliefs are discussed by Adams, Barwise, and Fillenbaum. Akatsuka also suggests a 'core' meaning for conditionals that may or may not be morphologically defined, providing a link to the various discussions of marking, and of the relation of conditionals to causals, concessives, and to temporals and other domains.

1. INTRODUCTION What I want to show in this chapter is that conditionals do not belong to the static domain of mathematical logic, but to the dynamic domain of discourse where individuals with different belief systems confront each other now.1 I will demonstrate that we must consider discourse factors in (i) the preceding context and (ii) the speaker's attitude; and also that there is a connection between p and q, that is, every construction with the meaning 'if p, q" shares an abstract, grammatical meaning similar to 'correlation/correspondence between p and q\2 The evidence will be developed as follows: section 2 will examine two types of English conditionals, both of which have generally been regarded as counterexamples to the 'connection' theory; section 3 will show that consideration of factors in (i) and (ii) leads us to distinguish information and knowledge; section 4 will show that this distinction leads us to reject Haiman's (1978) view that conditionals are givens; section 5 is a conclusion. 2. THE CONNECTION 2.1 Indicative counterf actuals Consider the following example, taken from Smith (1983): (1)

If you're the policeman, I'm the King of China 333

Noriko Akatsuka It is widely held that the antecedent and the consequent of (i) have truth values 'F' and (i) as a whole has the truth value T . Therefore, conditionals of this type are sometimes called 'counterfactuals' in the literature. I will henceforth refer to them as 'indicative counterfactuals'. What is the difference then, if any, between indicative counterfactuals and subjunctive counterfactuals such as in (2)? (2)

If only I hadn't given her the car keys, this accident wouldn't have happened

For example, is there any difference between the two 'F's in the antecedents of the two counterfactuals? Now, compare (1) with (3b). Example (3) is a true story that was reported in the Chicago Sun Times in July 1979: (3)

a. Pope to a telephone operator in a small Swiss village: I'm the Pope b. Operator: If you're the Pope, I'm the Empress of China!

It has been observed that indicative counterfactuals such as (1) are used to assert ~p. However, since conditionals have usually been discussed without their discourse contexts, it has escaped the attention of previous researchers that/? does not originate in the speaker's own mind. Indicative counterfactuals always require a preceding context.3 This is because such conditionals are always in emphatic disagreement with somebody, conveying the message, 'That's absurd!' Subjunctive counterfactuals, on the other hand, can initiate discourse. Consider (4): (4)

(At the funeral of a daughter who was killed in a car accident) Mother: If only I hadn't given her the car keys, this accident wouldn't have happened Father: Don't blame yourself. If you hadn't given her the keys, she would have taken the extra set

Observe the difference of emotion associated with indicative counterfactuals and true counterfactuals. Indicative counterfactuals can never express, as do the true counterfactuals, the heartfelt sorrow or longing of the speaker. Instead, they invariably express the speaker's cynical or sarcastic attitude toward the believer of p. I am not aware of any formal system which can explain on a principled basis the inherent differences between the two types of counterfactuals we have observed here. Where does the reading, 'That's absurd!' come from? I propose that the answer lies in the inherent connection between/? and q. It is generally believed that the connection between p and q is not a part of the meaning of conditionals. Indicative counterfactuals have been widely used as examples to show the correctness of that position. Still, logicians have long noted that normally there is some kind of connection between p and 334

Conditionals are discourse-bound q in any construction with the meaning if p, q. It was partly due to difficulty in pinpointing the exact nature of this connection that they generally concluded, irrespective of their personal stand on the analysis of if, that this connection should be treated as a problem of pragmatics rather than grammar (e.g. Quine 1950; Stalnaker 1968, 1976; Grice 1975; D. Lewis 1976). The position of these logicians has been more or less inherited by linguists (e.g. Geis and Zwicky 1971; Kempson 1975; Haiman 1978; Gazdar 1979; Karttunen and Peters 1979; McCawley 1981; Smith 1982). However, in contrast to this standard practice of taking a purely pragmatic approach, I believe the 'connection' to be an integral part of the 'if p, q" construction's linguistic meaning. That is, each conditional sentence shares an abstract, grammatical meaning similar to 'correlation/correspondence between p and q\ What is contextually determined is the specific nature of the 'connection/correspondence' in each conditional sentence, for example, 'causal link'. Since the major concern of logicians has been truth values, virtually no attention has been paid to the speaker's attitude towards p and q. I maintain that there is indeed a connection between p and q of indicative counterfactuals in the evaluative judgement of the speaker: namely, the degree of absurdity in p correlates/corresponds to the degree of absurdity in q. Thus, in (3) the telephone operator is asserting, 'Your claim is just as absurd as saying that I am the Empress of China!' Hence the reading of 'That's absurd!' Notice that the speaker is not just saying that p is 'F'. Rather, she is emphatically claiming ' F + !'. (F+ ! is not a logical notation.) My analysis fits well with the common observation that q of indicative counterfactuals must be a blatant falsehood. It has often been claimed that indicative counterfactuals exemplify the correctness of the j/-as-3 theory because there is no connection between p and q and because they are instances of the fourth line of the classical truth table. However, to my knowledge, no truth functionalist has ever provided an adequate explanation for why q must be a blatant falsehood, nor for why indicative counterfactuals are marked by a special disbelief intonation, as observed by Smith (1983). It will be interesting to see how Sperber and Wilson's (1981) theory of irony, which is intended to supersede Grice's maxim of relevance in explanatory power, will account for the fact that indicative counterfactuals are always an ironical way of rejecting someone's claim/belief. Recall that Gazdar (1979), who subscribes to Stalnaker's (1968) non-truthfunctional theory of if, has remarked that Geis and Zwicky's (1971) invited inference phenomenon remains just as puzzling to Stalnaker's framework as to the systems of other philosophers. I maintain that invited inference is a natural consequence of the inherent connection between p and q, and also the speaker's and hearer's understanding of what type of speech act the conditional is being used for. Working within the framework of the /f-as-3 theory, Geis and Zwicky noted 335

Noriko Akatsuka that there is a strong tendency for beginning students in elementary logic courses to interpret the meaning of 'if/7, q" as a biconditional. For example, given (5): (5)

If you mow the lawn, I'll give you five dollars

many students propose (6) and (7) rather than (6) alone: (6) (7)

M => G ~MID~G

They hypothesize that this phenomenon is due to 'a connection between linguistic form and a tendency of the human mind' to 'perfect' conditionals into biconditionals. Unfortunately, Geis and Zwicky failed to notice that their example (5) is normally understood to mean (8): (8)

If you mow the lawn, I'll give you five dollars as a reward

A reward must be earned. Hence the reaction of students, as in (7). Their hypothesis forced Geis and Zwicky to claim that indicative counterfactuals also suggest ~pz>~q. Their claim notwithstanding, few non-logicians will infer (10) from (9), taken from McCawley (1981): (9) (10)

If Nixon was innocent, then geraniums grow on the moon If Nixon was not innocent, then geraniums do not grow on the moon

Both Geis and Zwicky's example (5) and McCawley's example (9) share the abstract, grammatical meaning, 'correlation between p and q\ What differentiates them is the type of speech act they are being used for. 2.2 Subjunctive counterfactuals Consider the following example, which differs from our earlier example (2) in that there is no explicit q in the mother's statement - overwhelmed by sorrow, she could not finish what she wanted to say: (11)

(At a funeral of a daughter who was killed in a car accident) Mother: If only I hadn't given her the car keys . . . Father: Don't blame yourself. If you hadn't given her the keys, she would have taken the extra set

Everybody will agree that the mother is blaming herself for the fatal accident and the father is trying to comfort his mourning wife. The question I wish to raise is this: why is it that we reach this unanimous agreement, even though there is no q in the mother's statement? I claim that this is because we know that the essential form of the dialogue in (11) is the following, and we also know that the father is rejecting the mother's assertion: 336

Conditionals are discourse-bound (12)

Mother: I f ~ p , ~ q Father: (Even) if ~ p, q

Compare (11) with the following: (13)

Mother: If only I hadn't given her the car keys, this accident wouldn't have happened Father: Don't blame yourself. (Even) if you hadn't given her the keys, this accident would still have happened, since/because she would have taken the extra set

The essential difference between (11) and (13) is that the missing q has been supplied. The true q is often missing in natural conversation when it is understandable from the context. For example, consider: (14)

If you get hungry, there's a hamburger in the fridge

The true q is, I claim, not the existential statement, as usually assumed, but rather the speaker's suggestion, 'eat the hamburger' which does not appear in the sentence. This is much easier to see in Japanese syntax, where the sentence can end with Japanese counterparts of because / since p, implying that q is missing. Compare (a) and (b) below, both of which are Japanese counterparts of (14): (15)

a. Onaka ga suitara, reizooko ni hanbaagaa ga aru kara stomach SBJ. empty if fridge in hamburger SBJ. exist because ne PARTICLE

Lit. 'If you get hungry, because there's a hamburger in the fridge (eat it)' b. Onaka ga suitara, reizooko ni hanbaagaa ga aru yo stomach SBJ. empty if fridge in hamburger SBJ. exist PARTICLE 'If you get hungry, there's a hamburger in the fridge' Likewise, in the Japanese counterpart of (11), the father's statement can end with 'because/since/?': (16)

Omae ga kagi o yaranakat-tara, yobi no kagi o tsukatta you SBJ. key OBJ. gave-not-if extra of key OBJ. used daroo kara ne would have because PARTICLE Lit: 'If you hadn't given her the keys, (this accident would still have happened), because she would have used the extra keys'

To recapitulate, in order to understand that the mother is blaming herself merely by hearing her say If only p, it must be the case that we know: (i) This is an unfinished conditional statement, 'If ~ p, ~ q' 337

Noriko Akatsuka (ii) A conditional statement is the speaker's claim about the connection (= correlation) between the antecedent and the consequent (iii) 'If — p, ~ q' here conveys something like 'There is a connection between the mother's having given the car keys to her daughter and the fatal accident' In order to understand that the father is trying to comfort the mother, it must be the case that we know: (iv) 'If ~ p, q' here conveys something like, 'There is no such connection as you claim' In short, in ( n ) both the mother and the father know that the following two events actually occurred: (17)

/?: Mother gave her daughter the car keys q: The fatal accident happened

The mother believes that the two events are related, whereas the father is rejecting her belief as incorrect. We have seen, then, that to understand the two people's speech acts in (11), we must conclude that the connection between p and q of 'if p, q1 is necessarily an integral part of the meaning of 'if/?, q\ It turns out that logicians, notably Chisholm (1946) and Goodman (1955), have long been aware of the interaction between negation and the 'connection'.4 In his now classic chapter 'The problem of counterfactual conditionals', Goodman notes as follows: Ordinarily a semi-factual conditional [false antecedent and true consequent] has the force of denying what is affirmed by the opposite, fully counterfactual conditional. The sentence Even had the match been scratched, it still wouldn't have lighted, is normally meant as the direct negation of Had the match been scratched, it would have lighted. That is to say, in practice full counterfactuals affirm, while semi-factuals deny, that a certain connection obtains between antecedent and consequent. (Goodman 1955: 5-6) Both logicians and linguists generally believe that the above observations show that to maintain the 'connection' hypothesis, one has to abandon semifactuals as conditionals (e.g. Stalnaker 1968; Haiman 1978).5 Thus, Stalnaker proposed a formal system which 'can avoid this difficulty by denying that the conditional can be said, in general, to assert a connection of any particular kind between antecedent and consequent'. However, this well-recognized 'difficulty' disappears when we realize that the speaker of semifactuals, just like the speaker of indicative counterfactuals, is rejecting the previous speaker's assertion. It has often been assumed that indicative counterfactuals and semifactuals are counterexamples to the connection between p and q. I have shown that such a view is an artifact of analysing conditionals in terms of truth values 338

Conditionals are discourse-bound rather than making an appeal to such notions as prior contexts in the discourse and the speaker's attitude towards what the interlocutor has just said. A simple appeal to the falsehood of the antecedent of indicative counterfactuals and semifactuals will not allow us to explain why it is that the former is interpreted as a judgement of the absurdity of another's assertion while the latter is not. Also, the connection itself can only be understood if the two counterfactuals are taken as a way of rejecting the previous speaker's assertion. 3. CONTEXTUALLY GIVEN p 3.1 New information The form of the dialogue between the Pope and the operator (3) in section 2 can be represented as follows: (18)

Pope: p Operator: If p, as you say, q

Note that/? here stands for a quotation. Indeed, manyps are quotations, especially quotations of the new information which has been just 'given' to the speaker at the discourse site. And q is the speaker's reaction to the newly provided information,/? (see Akatsuka 1985). How the speaker reacts to the new information, namely the speaker's attitude towards p, will largely depend on the content of the information and the speaker's familiarity with the source of the information. Even when p does not represent as incredible a claim as 'I am the Pope', the speaker's reaction can still vary, as in the following: (19)

(20)

Speaker A: Ken says that he lived in Japan for seven years was a kid Speaker B: I didn't know that! If he lived in Japan that long, nese must be pretty good Speaker A: Ken says that he lived in Japan for seven years was a kid Speaker B: Well, if he lived in Japan that long, why doesn't any Japanese at all?

when he his Japawhen he he speak

In (19), speaker B readily accepts p to be 'factual' information, while in (20) speaker B does not. The quotative nature of //"can account for the otherwise puzzling behaviour of the future tense marker will It has been observed that the future will does not usually occur in /?, as illustrated in the following contrast: (21)

a. If it rains, I'll take an umbrella b. *If it will rain, I'll take an umbrella 339

Noriko Akatsuka However, as Comrie (1982) points out, examples such as the following are grammatical only if p is already provided at the discourse site, typically having been uttered in the preceding context: (22)

If it'll definitely rain, (as X says), then I'll take my umbrella

It should be noted that this quotative nature of if is not shared by when. The following example is ungrammatical in any context: (23)

*I'll take my umbrella when it'll definitely rain

To my knowledge, Ross (1969) was the first to recognize the relationship between the exceptional behaviour of the future tense marker will and contextually given p. He conjectured that 'probably such sentences [sentences with future marker will in p] are only acceptable with a sense parallel to that of "if you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" which, as Paul Kiparsky has observed, means "if what you say is right, why aren't you rich?'" Observe that the speaker's attitude towards the utterer oip is similar in (24) and (25) below: (24) (25)

If you're the Pope, I'm the Empress of China! If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?

In both, the speaker is communicating the message, 'I don't believe you!' The parallelism between conditionals such as (25) and indicative counterfactuals has long escaped the attention of previous researchers because, according to logicians' standard analysis, questions do not have truth values, and because what the speaker is communicating with those conditionals has not been the researchers' central concern. 3.2 Unsharable knowledge/belief The form of dialogue in (26): (26)

Speaker A: p Speaker B: Ifp,q

can be regarded as a reflection of epistemological reality that unsharable knowledge/belief necessarily exists between the two Ts at any given now. The inner world of consciousness of other people belongs to unsharable knowledge. It is impossible for anyone to enter other people's minds and directly experience their feelings, emotions, or beliefs. What is registered in their mind now is only indirectly accessible to us as 'information' through observations of external evidence, including linguistic communication. This is reflected in the use of if in the following dialogue: (27)

(A mother and her son are waiting for the bus on a wintry day. The son is trembling in the cold wind.) a. Son: Mommy, I'm so cold! 340

Conditionals are discourse-bound b. Mother: Poor thing! If you're so cold, put on my shawl (She puts her shawl around his shoulders). First, note that the son cannot express his present state in the form of if p. Instead of //he must use because or since. (28)

Son: *If/because/since I'm so cold, please let me use your shawl

Second, even though the mother regards p to be 'factual', it is newly learned information to her rather than her own knowledge, and therefore, it is expressed in the form of if p. That the mother's being an external observer, and not the actual experiencer, is a crucial factor to this situation becomes clearer when we examine the following example: (29)

Son

(looking out of the window): It's raining, Mommy Mother: If it's raining (as you say), let's not go to the park Observe that the son, who is a direct experiencer of/?, cannot say, if p. (30)

Son: (Looking out of the window and noticing the rain) *If it's raining, let's not go to the park!

Similarly, the mother's reply is acceptable if and only if she remains an indirect experiencer. Assume that upon hearing her son she too goes to the window and sees that it is indeed raining. Then, the dialogue in (29) is no longer felicitous. The following is not acceptable: (31)

Mother (going to the window and noticing the rain herself): You're right. *If it's raining, let's not go to the park

In this context, she will have to use because p or since p. (32) Mother: You're right. Let's not go to the park because/since it's raining The above discussions show that epistemologically, because p and since p belong to the same conceptual domain as /?, while if p does not. The fact that p and if p are epistemologically distinct sheds light on the incorrectness of the widely held view that the if in indicative counterfactuals is identifiable with the =). Compare (33) and (34): (33) (34)

Speaker A: Nixon was innocent Speaker B: If Nixon was innocent, then geraniums grow on the moon P ••q

The form of a dialogue shown in (33) looks like unfinished modus ponens. The resemblance, however, is only superficial. The two ps in modus ponens 34i

Noriko Akatsuka (34) are exactly the same entities, and therefore it is impossible to assign different truth values to each of them. However, in the discourse context of indicative counterfactuals (33) the first p is T ' to Speaker A, whereas the second p is 'F' to Speaker B. Similarly, in the case of the fourth line of the truth table, both p and q are 'F' to any speaker. In contrast, in (33B) p is 'F' to speaker A alone, whereas q must be 'F' to both Speaker A and Speaker B. Another point that the son-mother examples show is that 'factual' information must be differentiated from knowledge: only the former belongs to the domain of conditionals. It must be noted that the necessity of this distinction means that natural language conditionals are not truth-conditional. T in the sense of mathematical logic is inadequate in accounting for natural language conditionals, since it fails to distinguish between factual information and knowledge. 4. CONDITIONALS ARE NOT GIVENS In this section, I will re-examine Haiman's view of the semantics of conditionals in the light of the present discussion. Haiman's (1978) 'Conditionals are topics' is an important ground-breaking work in that for the first time the study of conditionals was connected with the study of the discourse notion 'topic'. Discovering morphological identities between markers for the antecedent of conditionals and markers for the topic in several languages of the world (e.g. Hua, Japanese, Tagalog), Haiman has argued that the antecedents of conditionals function pragmatically as givens (old information, shared knowledge between speaker and hearer) in the discourse and, therefore, they are topics. I will demonstrate that his analyses of the semantics of conditionals are inadequate mainly because he has not sufficiently considered the two discourse factors: (i) the preceding context, and (ii) the speaker's attitude. My conclusion will be that conditionals are not givens and that simply identifying conditionals as topics does not shed light on their meaning. I will further suggest that conditionals are related to 'contrastive' topics rather than 'thematic' topics, although Haiman (1978) explicitly rejected the distinction between the two categories. 4.1 Conditionals and questions In many languages, conditionals and questions exhibit a close relationship. In English, for example, //"and whether are interchangeable in indirect questions: (35)

I am not sure if/whether that is true (cf. *I am sure if/whether that is true)

Haiman claims that this phenomenon cannot be explained by any semantic 342

Conditionals are discourse-bound equivalence between the two categories, but it does follow from the identification of conditionals as topics, namely, givens. (See also Haiman in this volume.) Haiman's argument is based on Jespersen's (1940: 374) suggestion that conditionals are questions with implied positive answers. Consider Haiman's examples (i8)-(2o) and his explanation for them: 18

A: Is he coming?

19

B: (Yes)

20

A: Well, then, I'll stay

What is speaker A's purpose in asking question 18 of his interlocutor? He is obtaining B's assent to the validity of the proposition expressed in the declarative counterpart of 18. Once this assent has been given, either aloud - or, as is usually the case, by silence - it follows that both A and B will agree on the validity of 18 which then functions as the basis for further discussion (20). By 18-19, the declarative counterpart of 18 is established as a given, or a topic in 20. (Haiman 1978: 571; my emphasis - NA)

To begin with, it must be noted that questions with implied positive answers are marked questions. In unmarked questions the speaker does not know the answer in advance. Just like 'contextually given p\ the answer is to be 'given' to him by his interlocutor. Since both Jespersen and Haiman have failed to take into account the existence of 'contextually given/;', their hypothesis cannot explain why in the following example conditionals and questions are interchangeable in A's answer to B. (36)

B: He's coming a. A: Gee! Is he coming? Then, I'll stay b. A: Gee! If he's coming, then I'll stay

Contrary to Haiman's claim, I maintain that it is precisely the shared abstract meaning, i.e. the speaker's uncertainty/uncontrollability of the situation, which is responsible for the close relationship between conditionals and questions. Perhaps the best way to show that the relationship cannot be explained by claiming that conditionals are givens or shared knowledge between the speaker and the hearer, will be to ask why sentences such as (37) are unacceptable and why they become acceptable if they are read with question intonations or with tag questions: (37)

*You feel cold/hungry/tired/bored, etc. (cf. You feel cold?/You feel cold, don't you?)

In section 3.2. we have already seen that the world of inner consciousness of other people belongs to the domain of conditionals precisely because it represents unsharable knowledge between the speaker and the hearer. In the early days of transformational grammar, the unacceptability of sentences such 343

Noriko Akatsuka as (38) attracted the attention of Ross (1969) and Jackendoff (cited in Ross 1969). Both felt, correctly, that (37) ought to be accounted for on the same principle as (38): (38)

Blondie announced to Dagwoodj that

felt cold

For Ross, (37) and (38) presented another piece of evidence for postulating an abstract indirect object YOU in his performative hypothesis. That is, there is a syntactic constraint that the subject of such 'subjective' predicates as be cold, be hungry, love, etc. cannot be identical to the indirect object of the immediately higher sentence. Sentences such as (37) and (38d), which describe the internal state of the interlocutor, are unacceptable because the speaker is acting like a mind reader. It is normally understood that in (38) the referents of /, you and they let their internal state be known to Blondie prior to her speech act. 4.2 Hypotheticality My position that the prototypical meaning of 'if/?' is the speaker's uncertainty/ uncontrollability of p is meant to be an elucidation, and not a denial, of the intuitive insight of the popular characterization of conditionals as 'hypothetical'. Haiman's view that conditionals are givens (old information, shared knowledge between speaker and hearer), on the other hand, has led him to make the unique claim that conditionals are not necessarily hypothetical. Let us examine the factors which led Haiman to this conclusion. First, in languages such as Japanese and German, exactly the same sentences can be translatable into English ifp, q and whenp, q. So, for example, consider: (39)

Japanese: Syuzin ga kaette ki-tara, tazune masyoo husband SBJ. returning come if/when ask will 'If/When my husband comes home, I'll ask' German: Wenn mein Mann zuriick kommt, werde ich fragen When/If my husband back come will I ask 'If/When my husband comes home, I'll ask'

Haiman contends that this morphological identity of if and when argues for his position that conditionals are not necessarily hypothetical (see also Haiman in this volume). However, it is because he has not considered the speaker's attitude that he has been led to make such a claim. For it is only when the speaker is uncertain about the readability of p that sentences such as (39) 344

Conditionals are discourse-bound get the 'if p reading in those languages. That is, if the speaker takes for granted that her husband will come home, it is a temporal expression. If she is not absolutely sure that he will come home, it is a conditional. Haiman is aware that the subject-verb inversion takes place both in questions and in the antecedent of conditionals in many languages, including English. Unfortunately, however, he has failed to notice that the inversion in German takes place in (39) only when the antecedent has the 'if/?' reading, yielding (40): (40)

Kommt mein Mann zuriick, werde ich fragen come my husband back will I ask 'If my husband comes home, Til ask'

The fundamental view underlying Haiman's claim is that conditionals are morphologically definable. If that is indeed the case, however, why is it that any native speaker of English knows that in the following example the missing word in (41a) is when and in (41b) it is if? (41)

(On an extremely cold day in Chicago) a. Speaker A: jz( spring comes, even the ice in Lake Michigan will melt b. Speaker B (Ironically): Don't you mean ^?

Similarly, why does any native speaker of Japanese know that in the following example, (42a) only has the 'when p, q reading, while (42b) only has the 'if p, q reading, and it only makes sense as a joke? (42)

a. Speaker A: Haru ga kitara, Michiganko no koori mo tokeru Spring SBJ. come-when lake's ice even melt yo particle 'When Spring comes, even ice in Lake Michigan will melt' b. Speaker B (Ironically): Mosi Haru ga kitara ne by any chance Spring SBJ. come-if particle 'If Spring comes at all.. .'

The difference between {/and when in both English and Japanese is epistemological. Based on their experiences, the speakers of English and Japanese know that Spring comes to Chicago without fail every year. But, the speaker can pretend that he is not certain about the arrival of Spring, and, of course, he knows that the interlocutor knows that he is pretending. It is this tacit knowledge shared by the two speakers about the difference between if and when that enables if to function as an irony-creating device. Notice that questions can also be utilized to obtain exactly the same effect, as illustrated by the following example: (43)

Speaker A: When Spring comes, even the ice in Lake Michigan will melt 345

Noriko Akatsuka Speaker B: Well, is Spring coming at all? Now, in light of the above discussion, compare the dialogue in (44) with the conditional in (45), taken from McCawley (1981). (44)

(45)

A: My client is innocent B: You really think so? A: Is2 + 2 = 4? If 2 + 2 = 4, my client is innocent

At first, conditionals such as (45) look like counterexamples to my analyses in two ways; (a) there is no connection between p and q, and (b) p is a certainty to the speaker, since it invariably expresses an obvious truth. Now, it is usually said that this type of conditional is used to assert q. However, McCawley has pointed out that in (45) 'the speaker is conveying not just that his client is innocent but that his client's innocence is as clear as the obvious fact that 2 + 2 = 4'. I argue that as in the case of indicative counterfactuals, there is indeed a connection between p and q here in the evaluative attitude of the speaker; the degree of certainty of/? correlates with/corresponds to the degree of certainty of q. Jespersen's and Haiman's view that the antecedent of conditionals is the question with implied positive answers does not explain ordinary conditionals, but it does explain this type of conditional, which is a rhetorical device for the speaker to ironically assert, 'q + !'. In (45), the speaker is utilizing the grammatical meaning, while in (44) the speaker is utilizing conversational implicatures for accomplishing the same purpose. Now, again returning to our examination of Haiman's claims, we see that he loses sight of the fact that in many languages, including German, the neutralization of if and when is possible when p refers to the future tense, that is, p represents the state of affairs not yet realized. This brings us to his argument from Hua. Compare the (a) and (b) sentences below, taken from Haiman (1978:581): (46)

a. hi - s u - mamo future b. h u mamo

'if I do it' 'given (when/because/since) that I do it'

In Hua, the 'given that /?' construction expresses the meaning of English when p, because /?, and since p. The 'given that/?' construction and the 'if/?' construction in Hua share the verbal ending mamo, where ma is the relative desinence and mo is the topic particle. Haiman argues that since the two constructions share mamo, we are forced to identify both of them as conditionals in Hua, i.e. one is a 'nonhypothetical conditional', the other a 'hypothetical conditional'. Notice, however, that Haiman cannot explain, first, why Hua has chosen to differentiate between the 'if /?' construction and the 'given /?' construction at all, and second, why it is that Hua has chosen the future tense for symbolically 346

Conditionals are discourse-bound marking the 'if/?' construction. I say 'symbolically', since the 'given/?' construction also can refer to a future event, as in (46b) above. I maintain that the Hua data do not show that their 'given that p ' and 'if /?' are both conditionals. Nor do they support Haiman's claim that conditionals are not necessarily hypothetical. What they actually show is that the two constructions in Hua are the subcategories for a single supercategory, 'topic' (cf. mo = topic marker). There are good reasons to believe that the dichotomy of 'given that /?' and 'if /?' in Hua corresponds to the dichotomy of 'thematic' topics and 'contrastive' topics. I would like to substantiate this view in the next section. 4.3 Conditionals are 'contrastive' topics It is well-known that 'topic' is still a very elusive concept and that there is no universally accepted analysis for it. However, many researchers seem to agree that functionally there are two types of topics, 'thematic' and 'contrastive'. For example, Kuno (1972) analyses the discourse function of Japanese topic marker wa in X wa as follows: (47)

thematic = 'Speaking of X' - X must be old information contrastive = 'As for X' - X can be new information

Haiman (1978), on the other hand, explicitly rejected the necessity of distinguishing between the two categories, claiming that all topics are 'old information, shared knowledge between speaker and hearer'. However, I suggest that conditionals are only related to contrastive topics and not to thematic topics. Moreover, it is likely that only when the speaker is uncertain about the intention of the interlocutor does a close meaning relationship obtain between the contrastive topic reading and the conditional reading. Consider Haiman's (1978: 577) Tagalog example, taken from Schachter (1976: 496): (48)

Kung tungkol kay Maria hinuhugasan niya ang mga pinggan if about PROPER washing she the PL. dishes 'If it's Maria you want to know about, she's washing the dishes/As for Maria, she's washing the dishes'

Haiman thought this example was a case 'where the regular mark of the conditional is also the regular mark of the topic'. However, according to Schachter (personal communication), kung is not a regular topic marker, but a regular question marker. The fact that kung is a regular question marker comes to make sense when we realize that the paraphrasal relationship as in (48) obtains when the speaker is uncertain about the intention of the interlocutor, for example: (49)

(Speaker A notices that Speaker B is looking for someone) 347

Noriko Akatsuka A to B: If it's Maria you want to know about, she's washing the dishes/ As for (*Speaking of) Maria, she's washing the dishes Speaker A is not certain if Maria is the person Speaker B is looking for. Japanese also offers illuminating examples. In Japanese, conditionals with the contextually given p are grammatically realized as a separate conditional pattern, p no nara q. This pattern cannot function as a temporal expression. Consider the following: (50)

Ame ga zettai ni huru no nara (*hut-tara), kasa rain SBJ. definitely fall that if (fall if/when) umbrella o motte ikimasu OBJ. taking go 'If (it is the case that) it'll definitely rain, I'll take my umbrella'

Quite significantly, it is nara and not tara which can replace wa only when wa marks a contrastive topic. Consider (51), which is parallel to the Tagalog example: (51)

(Speaker A notices that Speaker B is looking for someone) A: Maria wa/nara sara o aratte imasu if dishes OBJ. washing is 'As for (*Speaking of) Maria, she's washing dishes/If it's Maria you want to know about, she's washing the dishes'

It is clear that Maria in (51) cannot be said to be 'old information, shared knowledge between the speaker and the hearer'. In this section, I have argued that conditionals are not givens. However, I am not disagreeing with Haiman's view that conditionals are topics. I am only disagreeing with his premise that all topics are givens. Not all topics are givens. I maintain that only by admitting that conditionals are not givens can the study of conditionals and the study of topics benefit from each other. Despite the fact that the discourse notion 'topic' was his major concern, Haiman's (1978) analyses of the semantics of conditionals were essentially static and not discourse-oriented. This was because he attempted to unify the logicians' analyses of the semantics of conditionals and the linguists' study of topics. That is, underlying Haiman's analyses was a belief that the semantics of conditionals can be accounted for in the domain of mathematical logic. Thus, subscribing to Stalnaker's (1968) possible world semantics, Haiman, like Stalnaker, explicitly rejected the connection between p and q as an integral part of the meaning of the 'if/?, q" construction. Simply identifying conditionals as topics does not by itself lead us to a correct understanding of the semantics of natural language conditionals. 348

Conditionals are discourse-bound 5. CONCLUSION Conditionals are discourse-bound because they do not make sense without their discourse contexts. The semantics and workings of conditionals can be understood, not by referring to the truth values of their component parts, but only by referring to such pragmatic factors as (i) the preceding context, and (ii) the speaker's attitude. In section 2 I have demonstrated that, far from being counterexamples, both indicative counterfactuals and semifactuals are evidence for the connection between the antecedent and the consequent. But this connection can only be understood by appealing to the context in which they can be uttered: the speaker is rejecting the previous speaker's assertion. Conditionals are discourse-bound because the fundamental question, 'What is a conditional in natural languages?' itself is unanswerable without postulating a specific speaker and that speaker's attitude towards the state of affairs expressed by the antecedent. Conditionals are not only definable morphologically. In section 4 I have shown how a simple reliance upon static morphology without necessary consideration for discourse factors has led Haiman to claim that conditionals function as givens (old information, shared knowledge between speaker and hearer) in the discourse. The findings of section 4 that (i) p of 'if p" can be new information to the speaker, and (ii) a speaker's use of 'if /?' is sometimes a reflection of epistemological reality that unsharable knowledge/belief necessarily exists between / and you at any given now, are sufficient to refute Haiman's claim.

NOTES 1 This paper is a product of my long-range research project, Subjectivity and grammar. I am using 'subjectivity1 in the sense of Benveniste (1971). Earlier versions were presented at UCLA in March 1983, and at the University of Chicago in May 1983. I have benefited from comments offered on these occasions and at the Conditionals Conference at Stanford University in December 1983. My special thanks go to Bernard Comrie, S.-Y. Kuroda, Jim McCawley, Paul Schachter, Sandy Thompson and Elizabeth Traugott for stimulating discussions and valuable criticisms. 2 I hope that in my future publications I can say something more specific than 'correlation/correspondence between p and q\ what I have said is symmetric between p and q, and I need something asymmetric. Recall that all the well-known analyses of //"proposed by logicians (i.e. C. I. Lewis 1912; Stalnaker 1968; D. Lewis 1973; Anderson and Belnap 1975; Grice 1975) treat if'on a par with the coordinate conjunctions and and or. Consequently, nobody's framework requires that p precede q in any sense. However, McCawley (1981) observed that in all English conditionals, p is temporally and/or causally and/or epistemologically prior to q. 3 The preceding context does not have to be verbal; observe Thompson's example (personal communication): (Noticing that a friend is trying to lift a huge box) Speaker: If you can lift that box, I'm a monkey's uncle 349

Noriko Akatsuka 4 Through Stalnaker (1968) I have learned the important observation made by Chisholm (1946) and Goodman (1955). 5 The terms 'semifactual' and 'concessive conditional' are often mistakenly used interchangeably: although all semifactuals are concessive conditionals, all concessive conditionals are not semifactuals, i.e. indicative concessive conditionals such as Even if it rains, the game will continue. For further discussions on concessive conditionals, see Haiman, Konig, and Van der Auwera in this volume.

REFERENCES Akatsuka, Noriko. 1985. Conditionals and epistemic scale. Language 61: 625-39. Anderson, Alan R., and Nuel D. Belnap, Jr. 1975. Entailment, VOL. I . Princeton: Princeton University Press. Benveniste, Emile. 1971. Problems in general linguistics. Miami, Fla.: University of Miami Press. Chisholm, Roderick M. 1946. The contrary-to-fact conditional. Mind 55: 280-307. Comrie, Bernard. 1982. Future time reference in the conditional protasis. Australian Journal of Linguistics 2: 143-52. Gazdar, Gerald. 1979. Pragmatics: implicature, presupposition and logical form. New York: Academic Press. Geis, Michael L., and Arnold M. Zwicky. 1971. On invited inferences. Linguistic Inquiry 2: 561-6. Goodman, Nelson. 1955. Fact, fiction, and forecast. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Grice, H. Paul. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Syntax and semantics 3: Speech acts, ed. Peter Cole and Jerrold L. Morgan, 45-58. New York: Academic Press. Haiman, John. 1978. Conditionals are topics. Language 54: 564-89. Harper, William L., Robert Stalnaker, and Glenn Pearce. 1981 (eds.). Ifs: conditionals, belief, decision, chance, and time. Dordrecht: Reidel. Jespersen, Otto. 1940. A modern English grammar on historical principles, VOL. 5: Syntax. London: George Allen and Unwin. Karttunen, Lauri, and Stanley Peters. 1979. Conventional implicatures. In Syntax and semantics, 11: Presupposition, ed. C.-K. Oh and D. A. Dinneen, 1-56. New York: Academic Press. Kempson, Ruth M. 1975. Presupposition and the delimitation of semantics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kuno, Susumu. 1972. Functional sentence perspective. Linguistic Inquiry 3: 269-320. Lewis, C. I. 1912. Implication and the algebra of logic. Mindws 21: 522-31. Lewis, David. 1973. Counterfactuals. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Lewis, David. 1976. Probabilities of conditionals and conditional probabilities. In Harper etal. (1981), 129-47. Li, Charles N. 1976 (ed.). Subject and topic. New York: Academic Press. McCawley, James D. 1981. Everything that linguists have always wanted to know about logic* (*but were ashamed to ask). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Quine, Willard Van Orman. 1950. Methods of logic. New York: Henry Holt and Co. Ross, John Robert. 1969. On declarative sentences. In Readings in English transformational grammar, ed. R. Jacobs and P. Rosenbaum. Waltham, Mass: Ginn. Schachter, Paul. 1976. The subject in Philippine languages. In Li (1976), 491-518. Smith, N. V. 1983. On interpreting conditionals. Australian Journal of Linguistics 3: 1-23. 350

Conditionals are discourse-bound Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wilson. 1981. Irony and the use-mention distinction. In Radical pragmatics, ed. Peter Cole, 295-318. New York: Academic Press. Stalnaker, Robert. 1968. A theory of conditionals. Reprinted in Harper et al. (1981), 41-56. Stalnaker, Robert. 1976. Indicative conditionals. Reprinted in Harper et al. (1981), 193-210.

351

18 CONDITIONALS IN DISCOURSE: A TEXT-BASED STUDY FROM ENGLISH • Cecilia E. Ford and Sandra A. Thompson Editors' note. The discourse function of conditionals is a major concern in virtually every paper in this volume. Ford and Thompson's contribution is, however, the only one which analyses actual, rather than constructed or experimental, data. It sets out to test Haiman's (1978) hypothesis that conditionals are topics, and to ascertain similarities and differences in the function of conditionals depending on clause order.

1. INTRODUCTION The literature on natural language conditionals, including many of the contributions to this volume, has contributed much to our understanding of the internal structure of conditional sentences and of their 'meanings'.1 What has been less well discussed is the discourse function of conditionals. Two grammars of English are exceptions: Modern English by Marcella Frank (1972) and The grammar book by Marianne Celce-Murcia and Diane Larsen-Freeman (1983), both of which begin to characterize conditionals with reference to their patterns of occurrence in discourse. Mead and Henderson (1983) also provide an enlightening discussion of conditionals in a particular context, looking at how they function in an economics textbook. Winter (1982) discusses some of the general factors involved in the positioning of various adverbial types, including conditionals. Linde looks at some of the factors which play a role in the positioning of //"-clauses either before or after a main clause. Her basic finding is that, with the exception of certain irrealis //"-clauses, the order of clauses does not 'reverse the order of events in real time' (Linde 1976: 280). However, Linde's database is limited and may be representative of only one discourse type, 'discourses whose organizing principle is temporal ordering' (1976: 283). We have used a somewhat less restricted database here. In his provocative article 'Conditionals are topics', Haiman (1978) presents crosslinguistic evidence for a relationship between topics and conditionals in terms of marking and function. Unfortunately, Haiman supports the parallel by citing authoritative definitions of 'topic' and misses the chance to use discourse evidence for his characterization of the work performed by conditionals. Nevertheless, the central insight of his paper will turn out to be quite powerful 353

Cecilia E. Ford and Sandra A. Thompson

as we refine our ability adequately to define both topics and conditionals in discourse terms. While Haiman's bringing together of the concepts of 'topic' and 'conditional' has provided a research question for further study of conditionals (Akatsuka in this volume), we insist that what is lacking is a perspective on how conditionals are used in authentic, naturally occurring texts. Perhaps this is a general problem in linguistics at the present time, but it seems strange to us that contrived examples, isolated sentences and utterances taken out of context should provide the initial source of data for a comparison of conditionals with such an inherently discourse-based notion as topic. What we have attempted to do in the present study, with the aim of testing Haiman's proposal on real texts, is to contribute a portion of the necessary groundwork for an adequate description of conditionals as they occur in English discourse. Baseline data on what types of conditionals occur and how they relate to their discourse contexts are essential if we hope to explain how conditionals are used rather than how we think they are used. If we simply consider conditional clauses in terms of frequency, two observations can be made. First, there is good evidence that conditionals occur with greater frequency in spoken English than in written. For our corpus, we found that our spoken data contained an average of 7.2 conditionals per 1000 words, while our written data contained an average of only 4.6 conditional clauses per 1000 words. Our findings confirm those made by Hwang (1979): she found an average of 4.2 //"conditionals per 1000 words in a spoken corpus of 63,000 words but only 2.7 //"conditionals per 1000 words in a written corpus of 357,000 words taken from newspapers and Scientific American. Second, in both written and spoken English, initial conditional clauses outnumber final conditional clauses by a ratio of about three to one. The preponderance of initial versus final conditional clauses appears to be a language universal. In at least one other language that we know of, Godie (Marchese 1976), text counts reveal an even more striking tendency for initial conditionals (100 per cent in 135 pages of transcribed speech), and on an intuitive level grammarians seem to agree that initial order for conditional clauses is either preferred or required; Greenberg (1963) states this as a universal and Comrie (this volume) claims to have discovered no counterexamples to it. From the perspective of Haiman's suggestion that conditionals can be thought of as a type of topic, this skewing may represent evidence for the discourse function of conditionals. Haiman's definition of conditional clauses reflects the similarity in function he sees between topics and conditionals: A conditional clause is (perhaps only hypothetically) a part of the knowledge shared by the speaker and his listener. As such, it constitutes the framework which has been selected for the following discourse. (1978: 583) Further insight into this notion of 'framework selected for the following 354

Conditionals in discourse: a text-based study from English discourse' can be gained by a consideration of Givon's concept of 'unchallengeability' (1982: 98-9). As Lee puts it, in talking about the Korean 'topic marker' nin, The speaker can propose certain information and expect it to be unchallengeably shared for the subsequent discourse. That is, the addressee is expected to take it as GIVEN - i.e., as a premise in the sense that it implies an agreement between the speaker and the addressee to take for granted its relevance to the ongoing discourse. (to appear) Topics, then, can be defined in discourse terms as constituting an agreement on the unchallengeability of the information they are conveying, and it is this property that allows them to serve as a 'framework' for the subsequent discourse, the function which Haiman correctly attributes to them. We will refer to Haiman's claim throughout our discussion; for now, the point is that this definition of conditional clauses provides us with a partial explanation for their tendency to occur before the material for which they are the 'framework'. This way of viewing the notion of topic as a strategy of communication goes quite far in eliminating one of the greatest weaknesses in using the concept of topic to understand the discourse function of conditionals: the notion is not a theoretically stable one, each scholar adhering to one or another definition. Furthermore, topics are often analysed as elements in units defined at the sentence level. In our analysis we will look at conditionals as they function in relation to both preceding and following discourse material, and attempt to relate these functions to Haiman's definition of topic. Let us now turn to a discussion of the discourse functions of conditional clauses in the English data which we examined. Section 2 looks at conditionals in written English and section 3 considers conditionals in spoken English. 2. CONDITIONALS IN WRITTEN ENGLISH DISCOURSE 2.1 The database The texts used for the written English portion of this study were three books, representing three different 'genres': 1. 2. 3.

Bertrand Russell's Unpopular essays (= BR), a series of twelve essays exemplifying highly skilled uses of argumentation Randall K. Richard's Auto engine tune-up (= AE), a book for professional auto mechanics, containing both description and procedures Herbert Terrace's Nim (= N), a personal narrative account of a project to train the chimpanzee Nim Chimpsky to use American Sign Language

All the conditionals in these books, comprising 854 pages, were tabulated according to position, as well as a number of other parameters. Because we were primarily interested in the work that conditionals do with respect to the 355

Cecilia E. Ford and Sandra A. Thompson Table i. Numbers of initial and final conditionals in each of the three written texts

Bertrand Russell Auto engine tune-up Mm Totals

Initial (%)

Final (%)

Total (%)

111(69) 189(86) 77(70 377(77)

49(30 32(14) 32(29) H3(23)

160(100) 221(100) 109(100) 490(100)

discourse in which they occur, we excluded four types, represented by small numbers of tokens. We excluded conditionals which appeared somewhere in the middle of the 'consequent' clause, as in: (1) (2)

The sudden transition will, if it occurs, be infinitely painful to those who experience it, . . . (BR 35) Mr. Homo, if he has a good digestion and a sound income, thinks to himself how much more sensible he is than his neighbour so-andso,... (BR82)

We also excluded truncated conditionals without subjects such as if possible, if necessary, if so, etc.; conditionals preceded by only or even; conditionals whose connector is unless. However, three conditionals beginning with had or were instead of if were counted, since it was felt that the question of clause order would not be affected by the more formal inversion style. As can be seen in table 1, the number of conditionals in initial position in each of our text types is much greater than the number in final position.

2.2 Types of initial conditionals in the written texts The most striking observation about sentences with initial conditionals in the written English texts that we looked at is that there is a small set of relationships which the conditional clause can bear to the preceding discourse. In this section we will discuss and exemplify those relationships (see also Longacre and Thompson 1985). The first three of these relationships are tied in very direct ways to the preceding discourse.2 Perhaps the most obvious way in which a conditional clause can serve as shared knowledge for the following material is the case of a conditional which repeats an earlier claim. A schematic formula for this relationship, exemplified in (4) and (5), is: (3) (4)

X. Assuming X, then Y From the very start of the project friends kidded me about being Nim's 'daddy'. After all, I had no children of my own. . . . //indeed there was a sense in which I was regarded as Nim's father, it would really 356

Conditionals in discourse: a text-based study from English

(5)

be as paterfamilias of an often unruly family, breadwinner, listener, comforter, and peacemaker. (N 189) But perhaps, if the Alliance were sufficiently powerful, war would not be necessary, and the reluctant Powers would prefer to enter it as equals rather than, after a terrible war, submit to it as vanquished enemies, //this were to happen, the world might emerge from its present dangers without another great war. (BR 42)

A conditional clause, then, may serve as a framework for the following discourse by assuming something which has been mentioned in the preceding discourse. A second way in which a conditional clause serves as a topic by providing shared knowledge for the following material is the case in which the conditional offers a contrast to something which has gone before. The formula for this subtype, exemplified in (7), is: (6)

X. (But) if not X, then Y

(7)

There is another intellectual virtue, which is that of generality or impartiality . . . When, in elementary algebra, you do problems about A, B, and C going up a mountain, you have no emotional interest in the gentlemen concerned, and you do your best to work out the solution with impersonal correctness. But if you thought that A was yourself, B your hated rival and C the schoolmaster who set the problem, your calculations would go askew, and you would be sure to find that A was first and C was last. (BR 31)

In cases like (7), a hypothetical contrast with a preceding claim is presented in the initial //"-clause, and the consequent presents a new outcome, often undesired, that would result from that hypothetical situation. Another way in which contrast can be indicated, of course, is by means of a counterfactual. Here is a very clear case from Nim illustrating a counterfactual conditional clause which serves to indicate contrast with a previous claim: (8)

Nim's aggression increased mainly because of the necessity of introducing more and more teachers into his life . . . / / i t had been possible for him to have grown up with a small and stable group of caretakers, he would have experienced far fewer separations from his trusted caretakers and had far fewer opportunities to test his dominance through aggression. (N145)

The third type of situation in which an initial conditional can provide a shared information 'framework' for the following material is that in which it provides exemplification. This type of conditional introduces a particular 357

Cecilia E. Ford and Sandra A. Thompson case or illustration of a generalization.3 The schematic formula for this function would be: (9)

Generalization. (For example) if X, then Y.

Here are two examples of this function: (10)

(11)

The whole philosophy of economic nationalism, which is now universal throughout the world, is based upon the false belief that the economic interest of one nation is necessarily opposed to that of another . . . / / you try to explain to someone, say, in the steel industry, that possibly prosperity in other countries might be advantageous to him, you will find it quite impossible to make him see the argument, because the only foreigners of whom he is vividly aware are his competitors in the steel industry. (BR 155) Any solution, if it is acid, base, or salt, can be used as an electrolyte if it will act chemically more readily on one electrode than it will on the other. For example, if electrodes are placed into an orange, a potential difference will appear between the electrodes. (AE 47)

In each of these cases, the sentence containing the conditional is serving to present a special instance of the generalization expressed in the previous discourse. The fourth and final situation in which a conditional clause can serve as a topic for the following material is a situation in which it has none of the direct relationships with the preceding material described above, but rather opens up new possibilities whose consequences are to be explored. As shown in table 2, this subtype accounted for more than 50 per cent of our written data, and, in fact, included most of the initial conditionals (79 per cent) from Auto engine tune-up. A formula for this function would look like this: (12)

X. If Option Y, then Z.

Let us consider an example of the exploring of options function of conditionals: (13)

If things are allowed to drift, . . . there will be an atomic war. In such a war, even if the worst consequences are avoided, Western Europe, including Great Britain, will be virtually exterminated. //America and the U.S.S.R. survive as organized states, they will presently fight again. (BR37) The above example illustrates an instance of a single option being explored. It can also happen, of course, that a pair of contrasting options is presented: (14)

The condition of a discharged battery may be tested by passing current through it . . . / / t h e cell voltages vary more than 0.1 volt, replace the battery, //the cell voltages are all within 0.1 volt, test the total battery voltage (charger still operating). (AE 61) 358

Conditionals in discourse: a text-based study from English Table 2. Initial conditionals in the written texts

Exploring of options Contrasting Particular cases Assuming Totals

Nim

Auto

Russell

Overall

38

79

37

57

i8

15

21

33

4

ii

2

27 15

17-5 17-5

100

100

100

100

(n = 84)

(n=i93)

(n=i28)

(n = 4O5)

8

So far, then, we have seen that the initial conditionals in our written English data serve as a framework for the following clause, either in direct reaction to something in the preceding context or by exploring options relevant to the situation expressed in the preceding context. Table 2 summarizes the types of initial conditionals occurring in our written texts. The table also shows the frequency with which each type appears. 2.3 Final conditional clauses in the written texts Earlier we remarked that initial position for conditional clauses seems to be the unmarked position in terms of the discourse function which conditionals have, that of providing a 'framework' for the following material. In English, however, it is obvious that conditionals do occur, both in writing and in speaking, in final position, that is, after the consequent. Table 1 shows that in our written corpus final conditionals account for only 23 per cent of the conditionals, but the question remains as to why even this small a percentage of conditional clauses should occur in final position, given the discourse function for conditionals that we have described. Our research suggests that there are patterns which account for a majority, roughly 85 per cent of final conditional clauses. We turn to these now. When a conditional clause occurs within a nominalization, an infinitive, or a relative clause, there is a tendency for it to occur in final position. Here is an example of each type of situation: (15) (16) (17)

Imagine the difficulty of understanding this information if it were presented one word at a time. (N 10) The pressure or blowoff valve . . . acts as a safety valve to relieve the pressure in the system if it should increase above the safe level. (AE 139) Similarly the men who devote their lives to philosophy must consider questions that the general educated public does right to ignore, such as . . . the characteristics that a language must have if it is to be able, without falling into nonsense, to say things about itself. (BR 23) 359

Cecilia E. Ford and Sandra A. Thompson Thus, one of the most striking factors which seem in written English to preclude a conditional occurring in initial position, before its consequent, is the embedding of the conditional and consequent within a nominalization, an infinitive, or a relative clause. While we are not in a position to offer an explanation for this fact, it seems to have something to do with the incompatibility between the discourse work of qualifying a noun or verb performed by these incorporated clauses and the 'topic for the following clause' work performed by the conditional clause.4 One of the factors which seems to work against a conditional clause appearing in initial position is the tendency for an 'interesting' subject to be introduced in a nondependent, rather than in a dependent, clause. Consider the following conclusion to a Bertrand Russell argument: (18)

Our confused and difficult world needs various things if it is to escape disaster, and among these one of the most necessary is that, in the nations which still uphold Liberal beliefs, these beliefs should be wholehearted and profound, not apologetic towards dogmatisms . . . (BR 20)

The subject of the first clause in this passage is Our confused and difficult world, which is a new, heavy, and important referent in the text. Now, if we are correct in suggesting that conditional clauses provide shared, unchallengeable, background for the following proposition, then it stands to reason that interesting, new, or heavy subjects don't really belong there, but rather deserve to be mentioned in the ttcwbackground portion of the sentence.5 Here is another example, also from Bertrand Russell: (19)

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity towards those who are not regarded as members of the herd. So it was in the French Revolution, when dread of foreign armies produced the reign of terror. The Soviet government would have been less fierce if it had met with less hostility in its first years. (BR 109)

In this passage, the subject of the consequent, the Soviet government, is being compared with the preceding mention of the French Revolution; it is clear that the comparison between the French Revolution and the Soviet government with respect to the question of collective fear is most effective if the compared items both appear in main clauses. Written English, then, prefers to introduce new, heavy, or compared NPs in the main clause instead of in the dependent clause; this will sometimes necessitate postposing a conditional clause which might otherwise appear in initial position. Another factor which seems to warrant a conditional's tendency to migrate to final position is its length. While not all the final conditionals were longer than their consequents, many were, and for those, this seemed to be the primary 360

Conditionals in discourse: a text-based study from English factor precluding their appearing in initial position. Here is an example from Nim: (20)

If Lana wanted a piece of apple, she had to press the sequence please machine give apple. Lana would not receive any apple if she pressed such incorrect sequences as: please machine apple give or machine please give apple. (N 24)

Though very little work has been done on length of initial dependent clauses as a variable in difficulty in processing of sentences in discourse contexts, we predict that such research might provide processing evidence to support the tendency of writers to avoid initial dependent clauses which are disproportionately long with respect to their associated main clauses. What we have tried to show in this discussion of final conditional clauses, then, is that there are several factors which seem to conspire to warrant a writer's deciding to place a conditional after, rather than before, the clause for which it provides the condition. We do not claim to have offered an explanation for the choice of final over initial position, but we do hope to have suggested what some of the factors are which motivate this choice. Genuine explanations will have to wait until we know more about how written language is processed, and about how writers adjust their style to respond to their understanding of these processing factors. 2.4 Summary: conditionals in written English Conditionals in written English occur much more frequently in initial position than in final position with respect to the main clause with which they are associated. We have suggested that this is related to the fact that conditionals do serve, as Haiman (1978) suggests, as topics, that is, as shared knowledge which serves as a framework for the following material. What we have tried to do here is to show the way in which these initial conditional clauses offer information which is appropriately termed 'shared'. That is, we have tried to show that the information in the conditional clause relates to the preceding discourse in one of just four ways: (i) by repeating an assumption present earlier in the text; (ii) by offering a contrast to an earlier assumption; (iii) by providing exemplification of an earlier generalization; (iv) by exploring options made available by earlier procedural or logical steps. Conditionals in final position, on the other hand, while they may bear these relationships with the preceding discourse, seem to be used when other factors are at work in the discourse to make the shared background function less important than such considerations as incorporation of other clause types, participant tracking, comparative focus on other elements, or clause length. In the next section, we will see that many of the same generalizations are valid for spoken English as well.

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3. CONDITIONALS IN SPOKEN ENGLISH DISCOURSE 3.1 The database The sources of data for the spoken English portion of this study include the following: 1. 2. 3. 4.

A university engineering lecture (=ENG), a lecture on the measurement of failure criteria for specific materials (c. 4060 words) A university management lecture (= MAN), a lecture on the dynamics of oligopoly, i.e. several larger firms sharing a market (c. 8000 words) A presentation by a graduate student (= GS), a lecture on the language situation in Belize, Central America (c. 1400 words) Transcripts from a set of conversations centred around Treasury Secretary Henry Morganthau (=MD); meetings transcribed include anywhere from two to 18 persons, usually with a task at hand - i.e. not 'free' conversation (c. 43,000 words)

In isolating conditionals in the spoken data, we observed the same general exclusions listed in the section describing the written data. In total there were 406 conditionals in our spoken data, 331 initial //"-clauses and 75 non-initial //"-clauses. Even more so than in the written data, there is a strong preference for placement of the //"-clause before associated utterances. Table 3 shows initial //"-clauses appearing in 82 per cent of the conditionals in the spoken data. Again, this is not surprising; it seems reasonable that rather than take the risk that a listener might misinterpret one's meaning, a speaker would provide the crucial background or qualification prior to delivering the propositions that are to be qualified. Once again, the proposed parallel between topics and conditionals seems appropriate. Table 3. Distribution of initial and non-initial if -clauses in the spoken texts

Conversations Lectures Totals

Initial (%) 256 (81) 75(83) 331 (82)

Final (%) 60 (19) 15(17) 75 (18)

Total (%) 316(100) 90(100) 406 (100)

In a paper which describes topic-like elements in spoken English, Keenan and Schieffelin (1976) examine what have been termed ieft-dislocated' elements in spoken discourse. Because the notion of left-dislocation carries the suggestion that the initial element in question is in some way a part of the associated proposition, Keenan and Schieffelin prefer to use the label 'Referent + Proposition' for constructions which are characterized by a noun followed 362

Conditionals in discourse: a text-based study from English by a related proposition. Avoiding the terms 'topic' and 'left-dislocation' allows the researchers to view these constructions as reflecting a strategy used in spoken discourse as speakers call different referents to the attention of their interlocutors and thus into focus in the discourse itself. They suggest that this strategy may in a sense be creating referents for subsequent propositions rather than embodying referents which are already assumed to be shared by both listener and speaker: Rather than presenting information that is already in the foreground of the listener's consciousness, the speaker brings a referent into the foreground of a listener's consciousness ... With respect to the interactional history of the interlocutors, the referent is usually not currently a 'center of attention'. (1976: 242; emphasis in original)

Continuing to expand on Haiman's comparison of conditionals and topics, we will try to compare initial //"-clauses in spoken English discourse with the 'referents' described by Keenan and Schieffelin. This will maintain our focus on //"-clauses as they tie in with their discourse contexts and as they represent strategies of communication rather than elements in sentence-level units. 3.2 Types of initial conditionals in the spoken texts A large portion of the initial {/-clauses in the spoken data fell quite naturally into the four basic types introduced in section 2 on written discourse: assuming, contrasting, expressing particular cases, and exploring options. In addition to these, we have found that an interpersonal function of {/-clauses involving polite requests is recurrent in the spoken data and warrants a separate category. We begin with the four types of conditionals which are most like those which occur in the written texts. As in written discourse, initial {/-clauses in spoken discourse may encapsulate an assumption from the preceding discourse; the following clause or clauses are related to, and interpretable with reference to, the assumption in the ifclause. The following example contains an 'assuming' conditional: (21)

D: Well, didn't you tell me last night at supper that you were disturbed about it [a letter] going out? M: I'm very much disturbed and . . . D: Well, that's what I thought. M: Well, I . . . D: You were - {/ you were disturbed, you needn't announce to the Press that - express surprise that we didn't like it. (MD)

In example (21) speaker D restates the claim that both he and his interlocutor have made, and then comments on that claim. Twenty-five per cent of initial conditionals in the spoken data tie in with the discourse context by encapsulating or restating an assumption. In the written data a much smaller proportion of the initial conditionals fits into this category. Possible explanations for this 363

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difference in frequency might be that a listener needs to have frames of reference more explicitly stated than a reader does, and that a writer can control the building up of background to a greater degree than can a speaker, especially in conversation. Initial //"-clauses in spoken discourse may also offer a contrast to an assumption from the prior discourse. Clauses following the contrasting //"-clause take the situation introduced in that clause as their background. The following example has such a contrasting //"-clause: (22)

B: Do you want to write a letter to the Director of the Budget? M: No. I won't write any letter. / / I do I will say I am opposed to it. (MD)

Another type of relation which a conditional in spoken discourse may have with its discourse context is one of providing a particular case of an abstract idea under discussion, //-clauses which embody illustrations of concepts from the preceding discourse function similarly in both our spoken and written data. In the next example an abstract discussion is made more concrete through an illustration: (23)

One point may be worth repeating, that the Fund is always worth the same amount in gold; it always has the same value, //you start with an eight billion dollar Fund, it is always worth eight billion, //currency depreciates, either by one circumstance or another, or //"there should be a default or liquidation, a country has to put in more of its currency to make up for the difference. So that money in the Fund is always worth the same amount. It is always worth eight billion dollars. (MD)

An initial //"-clause may also represent a step subsequent to a situation established in the preceding discourse, a step which involves one or more possible options whose consequences are to be considered. Conditionals which develop the discourse by exploring options are different from assuming and contrasting conditionals. They open up options, but they do not restate or contradict what has come before them in the discourse. In examples (24) and (25), the conditionals develop the discourse by exploring options: (24) (25)

Well, let me do this, will you? Let me send you a copy of this thing that I had prepared and if it doesn't make horse sense, call me back. (MD) (Discussing 'borrowing an employee') M: . . . I want him for his professional knowledge of finance and banking. O: Yes. M: And if I say to you that I want him for a year and you say, 'Now, please don't come to me in December and beg me to make it another year' - why I won't do it, that's all. (MD)

In addition to the four basic relations an initial conditional can have with the preceding discourse in both written and spoken English, there was one 364

Conditionals in discourse: a text-based study from English Table 4. Initial conditionals in the spoken texts Conversational data (MD) Exploring of options Assuming Contrasting Particular case (Illustrating) Polite directives Totals

Lecture data (ENG, MAN, GS)

Overall frequency

30 25

43

33

25

21

11

25 18

15

21

17

9

—

7

100

100

100

(n = 256)

(n = 75)

(n = 33O

type that occurred only in the spoken data: the conditional expressing a polite directive. The fact that conditionals can encode polite directives may be due to a combination of the softening effect of hypotheticality and the fact that conditionals seem to imply an option with alternatives. Twenty-three out of 331 initial {/-clauses in the spoken data, or 7 per cent, express polite directives; all of these are found in the conversational data. Since this use of the conditional form is one of the least compatible with logical interpretation, it is not surprising that in many cases a consequent clause is very difficult to isolate. As can be seen from the following examples, the response of the interlocutor to whom a polite directive is addressed quite often reflects the understood intent of the utterance: the second speaker responds with assent: (26)

(27)

M: //you could get your table up with your new sketches just as soon as this is over I would like to see you. T: All right. Fine. (MD) M: But if you'll call Irey over and get together with him on Tuesday or Wednesday, whenever you fellows are ready I'm ready. J: Yes, all right, that's fine. (MD)

Table 4 summarizes the types of initial conditionals occurring in our spoken data. The table also indicates the frequency with which each type appears; the order of the list reflects the relative frequency of the types. As reflected in the categorizations, initial //-clauses in our spoken data constitute pivotal points in the creation of texts. This is especially true for the four core categories which include an overwhelming majority (93 per cent) of initial conditional clauses in the data: assuming, contrasting, illustrating and exploring conditionals. These initial //"-clauses create links between prior and subsequent discourse and provide explicit frameworks for the interpretation of propositions which follow them. 365

Cecilia E. Ford and Sandra A. Thompson 3.3 Final conditional clauses in the spoken texts Unlike initial //"-clauses,final//"-clauses do not serve this linking and backgroundcreating function. While non-initial //"-clauses do serve to qualify associated utterances, they do not seem to work, as do initial //"-clauses, as pivotal points in the development of a text. However, given the strong preference for initial placement of //-clauses, the question of why an //"-clause should ever follow the clause it modifies (18 per cent of the conditionals in our spoken data) is worth pursuing. As was the case with non-initial conditionals in our written data, a substantial portion of those which occur in the spoken data (89 per cent) show patterns that suggest possible explanations. We offer a summary of these factors with the intention of providing a focus for further study. In spoken English, as in written, there is a tendency for conditionals occurring with nominalizations and infinitives to be postposed. The following is an example in which two identical //"-clauses qualify successive infinitive phrases: (28)

They feel that countries who have the responsibility ought to be subject to some pressure through the Fund - penalty charges which we will indicate later - to force the countries, //"they can, or to influence the countries, //"they can (MD)

Although this pattern can be described as grammatically conditioned, it is also likely that the syntax of these conditionals reflects the relative importance of their work at particular points in the formation of texts. The qualification that this type of //"-clause makes has a scope which is limited to an embedded clause. The grammatical pattern which results from the encoding of a clause as an infinitive can ultimately be traced back to the discourse factors which have made the embedding of a clause a favourable option. For example, the fact that a clause is encoded as an infinitive probably has everything to do with the role that that clause is playing in the development of the discourse. In the following example, gold is what is being discussed. Evidence for the topicality of gold in this stretch of discourse can be found in the sheer frequency with which it is mentioned relative to other nouns. The //"-clause qualifies dollars, a referent introduced as an oblique phrase. (29)

S: Will there always be the same amount of gold in the Fund? W: No, the currency will always be worth the same amount of gold. The gold will be used for the purpose of dollars if they get scarce. Other countries need money because they are borrowing — S: Is there a minimum of gold that will always be in the Fund? (MD)

Again, the grammar of stating a qualification on an oblique phrase may condition the appearance of a final //"-clause, but the discourse processes which result in the appearance of dollars as an oblique phrase are the factors which must be understood if we are to explain this type of conditional. 366

Conditionals in discourse: a text-based study from English With respect to another factor that reflects the pragmatics of complex clause formation, there are cases in our spoken data in which an //"-clause comes after the qualified clause when the slot preceding the main clause is already burdened with one or more other adverbial clauses. The following is one such case: (30)

It has to be done more slowly than that. Even if it used up its dollars in gold, the Fund functions almost exactly the same; even if the Fund then has the power to borrow, if it wishes it can borrow, if somebody will lend it. (MD)

In this example two adverbial clauses lead up to the main clause. While the final //"-clause could be preposed (with an adjustment in anaphora), the fact that that slot is already to some extent occupied probably influences its placement. A further similarity between final //"-clauses in our written and spoken data is the possible influence of length on the positioning of a conditional clause with regard to the proposition it qualifies. There were several cases in our spoken data in which a final conditional was notably heavy. In the following example, the //"-clause is long and, in addition, contains a complement clause: (31)

Then it would be up to the Congress to determine whether or not they would go in the subsequent bill //"the Attorney General should convince them that he was right and change the language of the bill or appropriate the five hundred and seven million dollars (MD)

We emphasize again that further study is necessary if we are to understand the roles that length and complexity play in the sequencing of clauses in discourse. There are several factors peculiar to the spoken mode which play a role in the positioning of a conditional clause with respect to an associated proposition. While conditionals are normally placed before the utterances they qualify, speakers sometimes produce conditionals as afterthoughts or reminders. This may be due to the less planned nature of spoken discourse; the need to remind the listener of background assumptions is probably a factor as well. In the following example, a condition is originally introduced through an initial //"-clause; the //"-clause introduces a situation in which a company lowers its prices. The consequent clause states that other companies will change their prices. A few clauses later, another speaker restates the same original conditional, this time placing the //"-clause after the consequent. We suggest that the second //"-clause, rather than establishing an explicit framework or background, serves as a reminder. In this example, the speakers are the Instructor (T) and a Student ('S'): (32)

I: You are here at this price [pointing to a diagram] and uh you raise it, you lose your customers. Too bad for you. Other people are 367

Cecilia E. Ford and Sandra A. Thompson happy to gain market share at your cost. But if you lower yours to try to gain the market share, everybody follows you, because they don't want you to take away from them. [Responding to a raised hand] Yes. S: I mean, the assumption is . . . one assumption is that they could not follow you if you lower your price because they can't. (MAN) In this example the suggestion that the firms could not follow is in contrast with the prior statement everybody follows, which is the claimed consequence of the original initial //"-clause. Serving as a reminder, the second //"-clause keeps the original background operating. There are a number of cases in our conversational data in which one speaker adds qualification to a claim made in the preceding text by another speaker. In these cases, the speaker who states the condition does not repeat the main clause, but merely gives the condition which relates to a preceding proposition (albeit not the speaker's own claim). In the following example, the instructor responds to the student with a qualification: (33)

S: Is it practically impossible to have that [a certain demand curve]? I: //you have this base. (MAN)

When a second speaker qualifies what another speaker has said, it is often in response to a question or some hypothesis-checking structure. The nature of face-to-face communication also carries certain rules for politeness. As we have seen, initial //-clauses can be polite forms for directives. Among the non-initial conditionals in our data, a large proportion serve another politeness function, that of showing deference. In these cases, the speaker either proposes action or makes a request in the main clause. The //"-clause then expresses the speaker's respect for, or deference to, the authority of the interlocutor. The conditional in the next example shows the speaker's deference to the judgement of the addressee: (34)

I'd like to talk to him about the possibility of his getting a leave of absence from your bank to come with the Treasury, if that would be agreeable to you. (MD)

Another point to be noted is that a large number of the non-initial //"-clauses in the spoken data (39 per cent) are associated with main clauses which either make evaluations of, or form questions regarding, the situation expressed in the //"-clause. While there is no obvious explanation why such a pattern should exist, we believe it is a finding that should be both reported here and examined more thoroughly in future work. Twenty per cent of the non-initial conditionals in the spoken texts have main clauses expressing evaluations. In the following example, the main clause evaluates the //"-clause: (35)

I think it would be better //"you're there 368

(MD)

Conditionals in discourse: a text-based study from English The fact that only 10 per cent of the initial conditionals have evaluating main clauses suggests a trend, but any explanation would be mere speculation at this point. Finally, 19 per cent of the non-initial conditionals in our spoken data and only 5 per cent of initial conditionals appear in questions. Here is an example: (36)

M: Well, he - the normal thing would have been, he would have been up there at 10:30. D: Well, why should he come this morning if he hadn't been sitting in [on the meeting]? What - he's not been helping any. (MD)

In this example the information in the //"-clause is to some degree shared. It has already been established in the discourse previous to this quote that the individual being discussed had not been going to meetings. The statement in (37) comes three transcript pages earlier: (37)

Well, to tell you the truth, he's not been doing anything down here, so Stam tells me, he's not been even meeting with them. (MD)

For a number of the non-initial {/-clauses occurring with questions, the content of the //"-clause is to some extent shared information. Final //"-clauses in questions may be functionally related to the reminder-type final conditionals described above. We have reported here some of the patterns which characterize the non-initial conditionals in our spoken data. As was the case with the written data, at particular junctures in a text, discourse and grammatical factors seem to combine to make initial placement of an //"-clause a less favourable option. We have not explained non-initial placement of conditional clauses in our discussion here, but we hope to have provided some possible foci for future research. 3.4 Summary: conditionals in spoken English Conditionals in our spoken data display patterns of occurrence remarkably similar to those found in our written data. As the locations for explicit background information, initial //"-clauses are pivotal points in the local organization of a text. Not only do they limit the frame of reference for subsequent discourse but they also connect to the preceding discourse in a limited number of ways. Final conditionals in the spoken data, as in the written, seem to occur in discourse contexts where a shift in frame of reference is not the central organizing principle for the text.6 4. SUMMARY: CONDITIONALS IN ENGLISH DISCOURSE Taking the notion of 'topic' to include relations with both preceding and following discourse, we have found that Haiman's claim that 'conditionals are topics' 369

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provides a productive starting point for the investigation of the discourse functions of conditionals in written and spoken English. We have seen that initial conditionals create backgrounds for subsequent propositions. Furthermore, in terms of their connection with preceding discourse, initial conditionals (with the exception of the polite directives in the spoken data) can be classified into four basic types: assuming, contrasting, illustrating/particular case, and exploring options. An assuming conditional makes explicit an assumption present in the preceding discourse, while a contrasting conditional offers an alternative to a preceding assumption. Assuming and contrasting conditionals are tied to their preceding discourse in a manner similar to what Keenan and Schieffelin (1976) have called 'alternative' referents. They also describe a type of referent which connects to the preceding discourse as a 'particular case'. Their 'Referent + Proposition' constructions represent strategies by which a speaker brings referents into the discourse, which become background for subsequent discourse. It is this type of strategy that initial conditionals also seem to perform. In English, a conditional brings a complex referent - explicit background information expressed in a clause - into the discourse. Subsequent propositions take the content of the //-clause as their necessary background. Whether an //-clause reiterates an assumption, makes a contrast, introduces a particular case or explores an option, it represents a limitation of focus and provides an explicit background for utterances which follow. One thread which runs throughout the cases of non-initial conditionals in the data is the question of the degree to which information in an //-clause may be said to be shared or background information in the discourse. Non-initial conditionals may tend to occur in places where such background is either less crucial to the understanding of the main clause, or where other material is more felicitously placed at the beginning of an utterance. A non-initial //-clause qualifies an associated proposition, but it does not display as clear a connection with preceding and subsequent discourse as does an initial //-clause. In the discourse contexts of the non-initial conditionals in our spoken data, as in our written data, identifiable factors seem to be working to make the option of initial placement the less favourable one. In addition, at least in the spoken data, certain types of main clauses (i.e. evaluations and questions) are particularly associated with non-initial //-clauses. While these patterns are suggestive, we stress that any real explanation will have to await further research on discourse organization and processing.

NOTES We are pleased to acknowledge the help we have received in the preparation of this paper from the following people: Marianne Celce-Murcia, David Hargreaves, Hyo Sang Lee, Lynell Marchese, Christian Matthiessen, Tom Payne, Anne Ste'wart, 370

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2

3 4 5

6

R. McMillan Thompson and Elizabeth Traugott. The authors have made roughly equal scholarly contributions to the paper; Cecilia Ford is primarily responsible for the spoken English database, and Sandra Thompson for the written. The relationships we are drawing on here are of the type discussed by Mann and Thompson (to appear) as 'relational propositions': relationships among clauses in a text which account for the text's cohesiveness, for its being perceived as a text. These relationships are often not explicitly signalled. This category was inspired by similar ones proposed in the analysis of Keenan and Schieffelin (1976) and Mead and Henderson (1983). See Haiman and Thompson (1984) for a brief discussion of'incorporation' of clause types. It might be argued that this tendency for 'interesting' subjects to occur in the main clause does not rule out the possibility of an initial conditional clause, since we could have a sentence in which the conditional clause is initial and contains a cataphoric reference to the 'interesting' subject in the next clause. In both (18) and (19), and in the other such instances in our data, there are other text-based reasons why this would not be an option: the cataphoric reference would be mistakenly interpreted as an anaphoric one. A limitation in our analysis of the properties of non-initial conditionals in our spoken texts is that we have not analysed them with respect to intonation. Chafe (1984) makes some provocative suggestions regarding the distinct behaviours of adverbial clauses depending on what types of intonation patterns they display with regard to main clauses. Certainly, future research should look closely at the degree to which intonation contours may reflect the status of clauses in discourse.

REFERENCES Celce-Murcia, Marianne, and Diane Larsen-Freeman. 1983. The grammar book: an ESLjEFL teacher s course. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House. Chafe, Wallace. 1984. How people use adverbial clauses. In Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Frank, Marcella. 1972. Modern English. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Givon, Talmy. 1982. Logic vs. pragmatics, with human language as the referee: toward an empirically viable epistemology. Journal of Pragmatics 6: 81-133. Greenberg, Joseph. 1963. Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In Universals of language, ed. Joseph H. Greenberg, 73-113. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Haiman, John. 1978. Conditionals are topics. Language 54: 564-89. Haiman, John, and Sandra A. Thompson. 1984. 'Subordination' in universal grammar. Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Hwang, Myong Ok. 1979. A semantic and syntactic analysis of //"-conditionals. Unpublished M. A. thesis, Univsity of California at Los Angeles. Keenan, Elinor Ochs, and Bambi B. Schieffelin. 1976. Foregrounding referents: a reconsideration of left-dislocation in discourse. Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley, Ca.: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Lee, Hyo Sang. To appear. Discourse presupposition and discourse function of the topic marker N+N in Korean. Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana Linguistics Club. Linde, Charlotte. 1976. Constraints on the ordering of //"-clauses. Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. Berkeley, Ca.: Berkeley Linguistics Society. Longacre, Robert, and Sandra A. Thompson. 1985. Adverbial clauses. In Language 371

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typology and syntactic description, ed. Timothy Shopen. Cambridge University Press. Mann, William C , and Sandra A. Thompson. To appear. Relational propositions in discourse. Discourse Processes. Marchese, Lynell. 1976. Subordination in Godie. MA thesis, University of California, Los Angeles. Mead, Richard, and Willie Henderson. 1983. Conditional form and meaning in economics text. The ESP Journal 2: 139-60. Winter, Eugene. 1982. Towards a contextual grammar of English. London: Allen and Unwin.

SOURCES OF DATA Richard, Randall K. 1968. Auto engine tune-up. Indianapolis, Ind.: Theodore Audel and Co. Russell, Bertrand. 1950. Unpopular essays. New York: Simon and Schuster. Terrace, Herbert. 1979. Mm: A chimpanzee who learned sign language. New York: Washington Square Press.

372

INDEX OFNAMES

Abramovitch, R<5ha 286,296,310 Adams, Ernest W. 8, 17, 66, 148, 156, 166, 170, 173, 174 Akatsuka, Noriko 7, 12, 97, 167, 203, 229, 230,243,339,354 Aksu, Ayhan 286,291, 294, 295, 297, 299, 305 Amidon, Arlene 310 Andersen, Elaine S. 319 Anderson, Alan Ross 166,349 Anderson, Lars-Gunnar 217 Anderson, Stephen R. 98 Aoun, Joseph 120 Atlas, Jay David 239 Austin, J. L. 61 Bara, Bruno 71 Bartsch, Renate 116 Barwise, Jon 17, 22, 34,40, 116, 129, 131, 138, 141, 144,174 Bates, Elizabeth 13, 286, 288, 290, 292, 303, 305,310 Baumler, Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig von 263 Beilin, Harry 310 Beke, Odoen 215 Belnap, Nuel D. Jr. 166, 199, 349 Beneviste, Emile 349 Bennett, Jonathan 232, 233, 237 Benthem, Johan van 145 Blake, Barry 219 Blatt, Franz 267 Bloom, Lois 286, 287, 289, 297, 310, 311, 317 Bolinger, Dwight 212, 234 Bourne, Lyle 310 Bowerman, Melissa 13, 286, 289, 298, 299, 306, 310, 317, 319, 325, 326, 327, 328 Braine, Martin D. S. 15, 56, 57, 60, 61, 62, 293 Brambilla Ageno, Franca 271, 272 Brandson, Lee 97, 219 Brown, Gillian 10 Brown, Roger 305,317,326 Brugmann, Karl 212 Carlson, Gregory 124, 127, 140-1, 143, 144 Carter, Carl M. 286,296,310

Celce-Murcia, Marianne 353 Chafe, Wallace 371 Chao, Yuen-ren 215 Chierchia, Gennaro 145 Chisholm, Roderick M. 60, 67, 338, 350 Chomsky, Noam 9, 13, 63 Clancy, Patricia 286, 287, 289, 292, 305, 310, 3H,3i7 Clapp, Edward B. 252 Clark, Eve V. 184-5, 286, 310, 319 Clark, Herbert H. 184-5 Comrie, Bernard 5, 9, 95, 230, 243, 245, 288, 291,299,300,328,340,354 Cooper, Robin 116 Cooper, WilliamS. 166,167 Cormack, Annabel 116 Cornulier, Benoit de 236 Craik, Kenneth 3, 12, 15 Cresswell, M. J. 167 Cromer, Richard 294,310,321,325 Culicover, Peter W. 212 Daly, Mary J. 290, 305 Danielsen, Niels 19 Dardjowidjojo, Soenjono 91 Darmesteter, Arsene 216 Davidson, Donald 39,126 Davies, Eirlys E. 234 Davies, Eitian C. 98 Davies, John 219 Davison, Alice 199 De Castro Campos, Maria Fausta P. 296, 297 Delbruck, Berthold 248 Deseriev, Jurij 219 Donaldson, Margaret 293 Donaldson, Tamsin 84, 219 Downing, P. 33,47 Ducrot, Oswald 194, 204, 205, 230, 236, 238 Dudman,V. H. 98 Dummett, Michael 199 Eisenberg, Ann R. 287, 297 Eisenberg, Peter 231 Emerson, Harriet F. 310

373

Index of names Erdmann, Oskar 212 Ernout, Alfred 266, 267, 278, 281, 282 Ervin-Tripp, Susan 296 Evans, Gareth 105-6, 107, 117-18, 120 Evans, Jonathan St B. T. 57 Evely, Susan 286, 296, 310 Farkas, Donka 141 Fauconnier, Gilles 244 Fennell,T. G. 94 Ferguson, Charles A. 10, 88 Ferreiro, Emilia 310 Fiess, Kathleen 286, 287, 289, 297, 311 Fillenbaum, Samuel 8, 13, 14, 60, 181, 182, 184, 185, 193,194, 206, 212, 254, 280, 283, 293,296 Fillmore, Charles 194 Ford, Cecilia E. 7 Foulet, Lucien 281 Frank, Marcella 353 Fraser, Bruce 232 Frege, Gottlieb 15, 17, 18 French, Lucia A. 295,311,325 Funk, Wolf-Peter 267 Gardiner, Alan 215 Gazdar, Gerald 153, 167, 231, 335 Geis, Michael L. 5, 13, 183, 236, 335-6 Gelsen, H. 94 Geukens, Steven K. J. 212 Gibbard, Allan 34 Gildersleeve, Basil L. 251-2, 256, 273, 277, 279 Givon,Talmy 355 Goodman, Nelson 60, 338, 350 Goodwin, William Watson 248, 251-2, 255, 263 Grandgent, Charles Hall 266 Greenbaum, Sydney 79 Greenberg, Joseph H. 5, 6, 9-10, 11,83, 2 2 i , 263,354 Grevisse, Maurice 212, 274, 277, 279 Grice, H. Paul 59, 78, 147, 148, 166, 169, 171, 175-6, 182, 190, 199, 254,335,349 Griggs, Richard A. 57 Groenendijk, Jeroen 153,155 Haase, August 273, 274 Haik, Isabelle 106, 107, 108, 118, 120 Haiman, John 5, 9, 10, 86, 87, 88, 97, 205, 212, 215, 216, 217, 219, 220, 221, 225, 230, 232, 234, 235, 237, 251,278,279-80,282,283, 299^ 305^ 333. 335^ 338,342,343^ 344^ 345. 346,347,348,349,350,354,355, 361,363, 37i Harmer, Lewis Charles 278 Harper, William 16,19

Harris, Martin B. 7, 11, 217, 218, 219, 220, 225, 230, 267, 269, 271, 272, 273, 274, 281, 328 Havers, Wilhelm 215 Haviland, John 219 Heim, Irene iO4ff Heinamaki, Orvokki 313 Henderson, Willie 353,371 Henle, Mary 14 Herczeg, Giulio 279, 282 Heringer, James Tromp 199, 212 Herzog, Marvin 10 Higginbotham, Jim 115,116 Highsmith, P. 244 Hoa, Nguyen-Dinh 215,218,220,221 Hofstadter, Douglas R. 16 Holdcroft, David 199, 200, 203 Hood, Lois 286, 287, 289, 297, 310, 311 Hughes, G. E. 167 Hwang, Myong Ok 354 Ibanez, R. 234 Inhelder, Darbel 14, 57 Inoue, Kyoko 8, 203 Isard,S.D. 65 Jackendoff, Ray 344 Jacob, Judith 218 Jacobsen, Terry 286, 287, 289, 292, 305, 310, 3ii,3i7 Jakubowicz, Celia 310 James, Deborah 95 Jeffrey, Richard 174,175 Jensen, John T. 93 Jespersen, Otto 209, 212, 261, 282, 297, 343, 346 Johnson-Laird, Philip N. 14, 15, 56, 57, 58, 59, 63, 64, 69, 71, 97, 189, 225, 235, 313 Johnston, Judith R. 287 Kahler, Hans 91 Kail, Michelle 287, 297 Kamp,Hans 18, 108, 133, 142, 144 Kaplan, Bernard 326 Karttunen, Lauri 154, 232, 335 Keenan, Edward 116 Keenan, Elinor Ochs 362, 363, 370, 371 Kempson, Ruth 115,116,232,335 Kennedy, B. H. 88,93 Kiparsky, Paul 340 Kodroff, Judith K. 310,315 Konig, Ekkehard 7, 12, 205, 225, 231, 244, 280,350 Koppers, Bertha Theodora 264 Kratzer, Angelika 155 Kripke, Saul A. 166 Kuczaj, Stanley A. 11 290, 305

374

Index of names Kuhn, Deanna 310 Kiihner, Raphael 212 Kuno, Susumu 347 Laberge, Suzanne 88 Labov, William 10 Lahey, Margaret 286, 287, 289, 297, 310, 311 Lapesa, Rafael 271, 282 Larsen-Freeman, Diane 353 Lauerbach, Gerda 167, 199 Lavandera, Beatriz 5,276 Lawler, John M. 206, 212 Lee, Hyo Sang 355 Lee, Young-Sook C. 215 Leech, Geoffrey 79 Legrenzi, Paolo 59 Lehmann, Christian 9-10, 11, 86, 277, 282 L'Engle, Madeleine 244 Lepschy, Anna Laura 278 Lepschy, Giulio C. 278 Levinson, Stephen C. 231, 236, 239 Lewis, C. I. 158, 167,349 Lewis, David 17, 28, 29, 32, 44, 47, 63, 67, 111,112,113,171,335,349 Lewis, Geoffrey L. 87, 215 Li, Charles N. 97,219,221 Lifter, Karin 286, 287, 289, 297, 310, 311 Lightfoot, David 248 Limber, John 311 Linde, Charlotte 353 Lobner, Sebastian 116 Lodge, Gonzales 273, 277, 279 Lombard, Alf 273,282 Long, Peter 199 Longacre, Robert 356 Lyons, John 155 290 Mackie, John L. 199,204,212 Magometov, A. 215,220 Mann, William C. 317,371 Marchese, Lynell 7, 354 Marcus, Sandra L. 64 Martin, Samuel 215 Maxwell, E. A. 33 May, Robert 109, 115 McCabe, Anne E. 286,296,310 McCawley, James D. 335,336,346,349 McGee,Vann 176 Mead, Richard 353, 371 Mendeloff, Henry 271,281 Merlo, Felice 281 Miller, George A. 69 Milsark, Gary 116 Moignet, Gerard 270, 281 Monro, David Binning 264 Montero Cartelle, Emilio 281 Murane, Elizabeth 219

Nelson, Katherine 295,310, 325 Norton, Frederick John 278 Oakhill,J. V. 57 Ong, Walter J. 5 Osherson, Daniel N. 57 Palmer, L. R. 266 Partee, Barbara Hall 63, 145 Pearce, G. 16, 19 Peirce, Charles Sanders 198 Pepler, Debra J. 286, 296, 310 Perry, John 22,34,40,52,129,131,141, 144, 174 Peters, Stanley 167,232,335 Piaget,Jean 14,15,57,310,326 Pilhofer, George ,219 Pinker, Steven 305 Pollock, John 63 Pountain, Christopher J. 272, 273 Putnam, Hilary 63 Quine, Willard Van Orman 72,199,335 Quirk, Randolph 79

25, 27, 39, 51, 59,

Ramsey, Frank Plumpton 56, 62, 67, 220 Reilly, Judy Snitzer 6, 13, 14, 123, 124, 136, 137, 139, 143, 145, 286, 288, 291, 292, 294, 299,300,302,303, 305,310,311,319, 320, 324, 325 Reinhart, Tanya 18, 120, 142, 225 Rescher, Nicholas 62 Richard, Randall K. 355 Rips, Lance J. 57, 64 Rivarola, Jose Luis 278 Rivero, Maria-Luisa 218 Roberge, James J. 310,315 Rohlfs, Gerhard 271, 273, 274 Rojo, Guillermo 281 Ross, John Robert 212, 217, 218, 340, 344 Russell, Bertrand 63, 355, 360 Ryle, Gilbert 60 Salone, Sukari 87,95 Sankoff, Gillian 88 Scha, Remko 116 Schachter, Jacquelyn C. 299, 302, 312, 328 Schachter, Paul 145,215,218,347 Schieffelin, Bambi B. 362, 363, 370, 371 Schlesinger, I. M. 298 Schmitt Jensen, J. 279 Scott, Graham 219 Searle, John 13, 189 Sechehaye, Albert 268, 273, 274, 279 Serebrennikov, M. 220 Seuren, Pieter A. M. 201

375

Index of names Shatz, Marilyn 291 Silva, Marilyn 286, 287, 289, 292,305, 310, 3H,3i7 Simenon, Georges 244 Sinclair, Hermina 310 Slobin, Dan I. 286, 287, 291, 295, 298, 305, 326 Smith, Neilson V. 5, 333, 335 Smoczyriska, Magdalena 286, 291, 292, 303, 305 Soames, Scott 53 Sonnenschein, Edward Adolf 263 Sperber, Dan 335 Sportich, Dominique 120 Stalnaker, Robert C. 15, 16, 17, 19, 28, 29, 32,34,50,51, 52, 53, 56, 59, 61, 62,63, 67, 138, 156, 166, 167, 278, 335, 338, 348, 349, 350 Staudenmayer, Herman 14,310 Stockwell, Robert 145 Stokhof, Martin 153,155 Strawson, P. F. 167, 173 Sugioka, Y. 141 Svartvik, Jan 79 Sweetser,Eve E. 97 Taddonio, John 310 Tagart,J. 57,59 Tai, James 217 Taplin,John 310 Tarski, Alfred 39, 169, 170 Taylor, F. W. 220 Tekavcic, P. 271, 272, 275, 277, 282 terMeulen, Alice 6, 18, 145, 279 Terrace, Herbert 355 Thomas, Francois 266, 267, 278, 281, 282

Thomason, Richmond H. 29, 52, 166 Thompson, Sandra A. 7,97, 219, 221, 225, 313,317,349,356,371 Toulmin, Stephen 176 Traugott, Elizabeth Closs 11, 12, 225, 230 Vaananen,Veikko 281 Vairel, H. 267 Van der Auwera, Johan 7, 189, 190, 197, 198, 200,204,212,244,350 Van Dijk, Teun A. 199,212 Veltman, Frank 7, 158, 167, ch. 8passim Vincent, Nigel 216 von Wright, Georg Henrik 199 Wacke,O. 219 Wagner, Robert L. 281 Wason, Peter C. 14, 56, 57, 59, 189 Weinreich, Uriel 10 Weissenborn, Jiirgen 287,297 Wellman, Henry 291 Werner, Heinz 326 West, Dorothy 219 Wexler, Kenneth 212 Wilson, Deidre 335 Windfuhr, Gernod L. 93 Winter, Eugene 353 Woodcock, Eric C. 268, 281 Woodward, Pamela 219 Wunderlich, Dieter 212 Yule, George

10

Zuber, Richard 199 Zwicky, Arnold M. 11,13, 2 3 6 , 335~6

376

INDEX OF LANGUAGES

Akkadian 262 Arabic 241: Classical Armenian 95,262 Avestan 248 Bengali

6, 7. 259

6,7,10,88

Indie, Old 262 Indo-European 94,248 Indonesian 91,240 Iranian 240 Italian 13, 229, ch. i^passim, 286, 287, 288, 290, 292, 296,305: Old 271. 272, 276

Cambodian 218 Cebuano 219 Chinese 6. 7, 215

Japanese 348

Daga 219 Dutch 167,230,241,300

Kate 219 Kobon 219 Korean 215,355

Egyptian, Middle 215 English, 6, 11, 13,77,79,80,84,85,87,88, 89, 91, 92, 94, 95-6, 97, 98, 167, 212, 217, 218, 220, 221, 222, 225,229,230,239-41,243, 247, 250, 254, 256, 258, 259, 263, 269, 276, 282, 287, 288, 294, 296, 297, 299, 300, 302, 310, 342, 344, 345, 346, 349, ch. 18passim: Early Modern 219, 241; Middle 241; Old 12 Finnish 13, 232, 240, 286, 289, 296, 299, 305 Fore 219 French 92-3, 212, 215, 220, 229, 235, 237, 239, 240, 241, 244, 261, ch. 14passim, 297: Old 270-1, 272, 276,279,281 Gende 97,219 German 6, 9, 12, 82, 87, 88, 93, 97, 167, 212, 217, 220, 225, 230, 232, 234, 235, 240, 241, 243, 244, 259, 286, 287, 300, 305, 310, 344, 345,346 Germanic 215 Godie 7,354 Greek 215: Classical 7, 11, 93, 212, ch. 13 passim; Homeric 247, 248, 264 Guugu-Yimidhirr 219 Hausa 220,262 Haya 87,95 Hua 6,87, 217, 219, 221, 300,342,346-7 Hungarian 219,220

8, 230, 305, 337, 342, 344, 345, 347,

Latin 6, 9, 93, 212, 217, 220, 223, 232. ch. 14 passim: Classical 276; Vulgar 266, 276 Latvian 93,94,95 Malayalam 240 Maltese 87,93 Mandarin 82,84,85,87,91,97, 219, 221, 235 Maring 219 New Guinea Pidgin 88 Ngiyambaa 84,87,93,98,219 Ono 219 Papuan 217,219 Persian 93: Old 262 Pitta-Pitta 219 Polish 13, 286, 291, 296, 300, 303, 305 Portuguese 95, 273,281, 282,296-7 Romance 7. 9, 11, 217, 218, 219, ch. 14 passim, 328 Rumanian 273,279,282 Russian 6,88,93,219,229 Sanskrit 248 Serbo-Croatian 240 Sotho 240 Spanish 218, 220, ch. i^passim: Old 273,276

377

271-2,

Index of languages Tabasaran 215,220 Tagalog 215,342,347,348 Tocharian 262 Turkish 13,83,87,215,241,263,286,287, 289, 291, 294, 295, 296, 297, 299, 305 Tuscan 271

Vietnamese 215,218,220,221 Votyak 220

Uralic

Yapese 93

215

Wojokeso

219

Xinalug 219

378

INDEX OF SUBJECTS

Acquisition 3: errors in 306; individual differences 320,323, 326, 327, 328; of complex sentences 285, 286, 295, 304, 310; of conditionals 13-14, 137, ch. i$passim, ch. 16passim; of logical reasoning 14; of temporals ch. 16 passim Actions 19,291 Adequacy: criterion of material adequacy 170-1; pragmatic criteria of 170, 171,172, 173 Anaphora 18-19, c n - 5 passim, 128, 129, 141, 142, 144 Anchors 1290° Antecedent (see also protasis) 5, 15, 18, 70, r 33> ! 34-5' r 36, 138, 288, 301, 304, 312, 318; false 5, 16, 25, 162; indefinites in 104; principle of strengthening of 17, 164, 166 Antithesis 287,311 Apodosis (see also consequent) 5, 78, 219, 266, 267: open 250-1; suppression of 258-9 Artificial intelligence 18, 30, 31, 138 Aspect (see also temporals, tense) 7, 123, 249, 250, 268, 270,302: generics and habituals 137,322,324,325,328 Assertions (see speech acts) Atomic versus non-atomic sentences 169 Background assumptions (see also given) 17, 18,31,138,356-7,363-4,370 Background conditions (see also situations)

290°

Backgrounding (see also information/flo w) 224 Beliefs 17, 19,51,53,62,73, 173, 174-5, 282 Biconditionals 79,336 Binding 18, 105, 106 Bivalence 15 Boolean algebra 52 Bribes (see promises) Cardinality 116 Causality 19,287,289,311,317 Causals (see also contingency, /actuality) 4,5, 8, 9, 10, 14, 80, 137, 229, 230, 243, 244, 264,

277, 278, 279-80, 282, 283, 286, 292, 299, 312, 328: bicausal constructions 81; causal links between beliefs 174-5; causal relations (cross-clausal) 5, 25, 68, 80-2, 96, 164, 181, 220, 222, 223, 254, 288,317,328 C-command 108,112,120 Certainty (see modality/epistemic) Clause order (see ordering of clauses) Cognition: related to language acquisition 286-95, 298, 310, 324, 325-8 Cohesiveness, textual (see information /flow) Communicative acts (see speech acts) Comparatives 128 Complexity (see also syntax): cognitive 286-95; morphosyntactic 2 ^5, 286-7,3°4; semantic 287, 328; syntactic 285ff, 310, 317 Comprehension 13,58,63,315 Concessive conditionals (see also semifactuals) 205, 216, 220-1, 222-3, ch. 12 passim, 261, 350 Concessives 7, 12, 83, 216, 220-1, 224, ch. 12 passim, 277-9, 280: concessive reading of conditionals 194, 205-6, 211 Conditional generics (see generic conditionals) Conditional perfection (see inference/invited) Conditionals (see also counterfactuals, discourse, general conditionals, generic conditionals, indicative conditionals, interpretations of conditionals, mathematical conditionals, specific conditionals, subjunctive conditionals): characterized 3,4-8, 55, 57, 60, 73, 77, 78-83, 285; compositional account of 63, 74; contingency readings of 188, 197-8; in speech versus writing 5, ch. 18 passim; in text 7, 353ff: informational account of (see also discourse/functions) 24, 34; interacting with speech acts ch. 9 passim, ch. 10passim; logical properties of 15, 17, 55, 57, 58, 61, 63, 73; semantic properties of 4, 285, 286, 297, 298-304; types of ch. 1 passim, ch. 2 passim, ch. 3 passim, ch. 4passim, ch. 13passim, ch. 14 passim, 288ff, 311-15, 316, 326, ch. 18passim

379

Index of subjects Conjunctions (see also markers, operators, syntax) 8,87, 181, 185-8, J89, 216, 217, 219, 286, 287, 289, 295, 300,305,311,317,322 Connectives (see conjunctions, disjunctions, markers, operators) Consequent (see also apodosis) 5, 15, 18, 25, 70, 133, 134, 138, 140, 288, 318 Constants: environmental 37, 40-1 Constraints 350°, 63, 125-6, 127, 129-33, 134, 135, 137-8, 285: on conditional contexts/relations 8,11, 15-18; on meaning of conditionals (see also meaning) ch. 11 passim; on possible linguistic structures i o - n Context (see constraints, discourse/contexts, situations, world states): conditional 124, 133-9,144 Contingency (see also causals, temporals) 288-90,294,295,302-4 Convention T 169,170 Conversational implicatures 59,77-8, 153, 164, 165, 169, 183, 202, 208, 236, 244, 346 Conversational maxims 48, 153-4, 160-4, 165, 166,167,175-6, 183,188-90, 199,234,236, 239,242,335 Cooperative Principle 153, 162, 166, 190 Coordination (see conjunctions, syntax) Copulas 11 Coreference 18, 103, 107 Counterfactuality (see factuality) Counterfactuals (see also conditionals) 6, 7, 9, 22ff, 60, 63, 64, 68, 69, 80, 84, 87, 89-91, 96, 98, 135, 219, 225, 250, 257-9, 260, 262, 263, 264, 266, 267-8, 270, 272, 283, 288, 290, 299, 300, 303, 305, 312, 315,316,322,324,325, 326, 333: distinction between potential conditionals and 268, 271, 276; future 248; indicative 333"4, 335, 33&-9, 34^ 346, 349; subjunctive 324, 334, 336 Crosslinguistic generalizations (see universals) Data semantics 154,164,165 Demonstratives 11 Dependencies: conditional 19, 144; informational 18, 129, 144 Determiners 1040°, 124 Deterrents (see warnings) Discourse (see also conditionals, information/flow) 105, 296-7: contexts (situational) (see also situations, world states) 33, 179-94, 292, 295, 317,318, 322, 323-4, 325, 327, 334, 349, speaker attitude toward 310, 313, 327, 335, 342, 346; factors affecting conditionals (pragmatic interpretations) (see also interpretations of conditionals, speech acts)

6 , 7 , 8 , 1 6 , 1 8 , 60,

72,73,179-94, 263, 287,296-8,304,342;

functions (use) (see also conditionals/ informational account of) 3, 5, 64, 181, 185, 296, 316, 318, ch. 18passim; storage 117 Disjunctions (see also markers, operators, syntax) 10,181,185-8,189-92 Distributive convention 119 'Donkey'-sentences ch. 5passim Entailment 3, 73, 104, 231, 232, 240,304, 312: universal 105, 118 Epistemic (see modality/epistemic) Events (see also situations) 288,313-14,327: generic 288,294-5; habitual/timeless 294-5; recurrent 302; temporal relations between 289, 299 Evidence 17: direct versus indirect 151,154, 160, 167 Excluded Middle, Principle of 158-9, 172 Existence assumptions 254-5, 257, 258 Existential closure n o Existential conditionals 134, 135-6 Factuality (see also causals, general conditionals, specific conditionals) 11-12, 89,229, 290,313-15, 320,321,323,324-5, 328,342 Focus particles 231 ff Form-function mappings (see also markers, interpretations of conditionals) 285, 315, 320, 326 General conditionals (see also conditionals, factuality, contrast specific conditionals) 23-4, 42-3, 250, 254-7, 258, 261, 262, 263 Generative grammar 4, 9 Generic conditionals (see also conditionals) 7, 18,124,139-43, 288,294,302-3,312,313, 319,325 Generic expressions ch. 6passim Genre 8 Given (see also background assumptions, interpretations I of conditionals as nonconditionals) 203, 258, 282, 339, 342, 348,349,355 Godel results 16 Government and binding (GB) framework 109 Grammaticalization 85,86 Historical change 3,4, 10-12,216, 247, 263, ch. 14passim, 297,328: semantic 11, 12, 243 Homonymy 9 Hypotaxis (see syntax) Hypothetical conditionals 302-3,312,315, 316,321,324,326 Hypotheticality 11,173, 249, 257, 265, 273, 274, 277, 282, 288, 290-3,317, 324,344:

380

Index of subjects Kripke models

degrees of 6, 11, 65-9, 73, 77, 87, 88-93 , 96,

166

291,299-300 Ionicity 317

9, 216, 221, 224, 235, 237, 287, 311,

Imperatives (see also mood, promises, requests, speech acts, warnings) 5, ch. 10 passim, 234, 296,365,370 Implications, strict versus variably strict 147, 158 Indexicals 37, 139 Indicative (see mood) Indicative conditionals (see also conditionals, mood) 29,34,60, 147, 149, 157-8, 160, 161, 171,305 Inducements (see promises) Inference 3,14-15,57-9,61,73,181,182-5, 288, 293-4, 295, 297: invited 13, 183, 188, 236, 238, 335; rules of 55, 57-8, 61, 73, 293 Information 17, 159, 166, 175-6, 278: about kinds 18; communication of 40; conditions 3, 24, 39-40; content 28,33, 40, 43, 44, 238;flow(see also backgrounding, discourse) 7, 12,40,51, 297,304,318, 319, ch. 18passim; episodic 126, 127, 128, 133, 135, 136, 141, 144; generic 124-9, 134, *35, 137, 142, 143, 144; models 149-51, 166, 169, 170, 172,173; new 17,139,156, 339; persistence of I3off; states 1500°, 166, 169, 173 Interpretations of conditionals (see also conditionals, discourse/factors, form-function mappings) ch. 3 passim: multiple (see polysemy); of conditionals as nonconditionals (see also given, concessives, concessive conditionals) 4, 6, 7, 8, 328; of nonconditionals as conditionals (see also causals, conjunctions, disjunctions, operators, speech acts, temporals) 4, 6, 13, 297 Interrogatives (see also speech acts) 11, 52, 1970°, 2O4ff, 215, 256, 276-7, 280, 282, 291, 297, 324, 368: indirect questions 342; relationship to conditionals 342, 368-9; tag questions 343 Intonation 6, 204, 222-3, 2<&1- 29l , 37 1: disbelief 335; question 343 Irony 166, 175-335,345 Irrealis (see hypotheticality/degrees of, mood) Juxtaposition (see markers /absence of) Kinds 128-9 Kind-types 129-33, 134—5 Knowledge 12, 180-1, 185, 190,194,278,298, 319, 324: conditional 29-30,53; speaker 57,243,293; versus information 333,342; world 14-15,71, 223,233,237,314

Language development (see acquisition) Lexicalization 11, 287 Libidinal constructions (see also mood/optative, warnings, wishes) 209, 210, 252-3,263 Logic: conditional 16, 17; data 158, 165; first order 52; formal 3,15,247; intuitionistic 158, 166; mental 57-8,59; predicate 14, 15; propositional 17; relevance 148, 158, 171; syllogistic 15; three-valued 172; transitive 61 Logical form 18,108-15,181,194 Markedness (see also ordering of clauses) 9, 263: unmarked order of clauses 359 Markers (see also conjunctions, disjunctions, form-function mappings, modality, syntax) 6-7, 9, 11, 14, 84-5, 87-8, 96, 204, ch. 11 passim, ch. 12passim, 291,300, 312, 315, 323, 325, 342, 345, 349: absence of 6, 87,206-11,218-19,221, 223,224,235,266, 287, 316-17, 322; concessive 220, 221, 224, ch. 12 passim, 278; counterfactual 290; emergence in acquisition 286; historical sources of 10-12,231,232,240-1; indicative:subjunctive versus other modality markers 276; interrogative 215; modal 6; of apodosis and protasis 7; politeness 8; reference 133; temporal 278-9; topic 11, 29, 280, 282 Material: conditional 21, 28, 30, 50,51, 171; implication 5, 6, 7, 15, 57, 59, 78, 79, 80, 96, 97, 147, 156-7, 158, 159, 166, 204 Mathematical conditionals (see also conditionals) 21, 33, 51: versus natural language 5, 15,21,30,32,33,342,348 Meaning (see also constraints/on meaning of conditionals): literal versus contextual 78, 79, 97, 180, 190, 207-8, 209, 210-11; sentence versus utterance 36-7, 49, 53 Mental models 15, ch. 3passim Mental representations 4, 9, 298 Metaphor 125, 166 Methodology (see also philosophy) 4, 14: linguistic 4-12; philosophical/logical 15-19; psychological 12-15, l 8 t Minatory constructions (see warnings) Modality (see also markers, mood, operators) 17, 64, 83, 221, 269-70, 273: conditionals as markers of 274, 277; epistemic 8, 12, 13, 136, 155, 173, 204, 208, 252, 253, 260, 261, 262, 279, 291, 294, 299, 300-2,305,310,311,328 Modals (see operators/modal)

381

Index of subjects Model theoretic semantics 123, 129 Modus ponens 57,73, 162, 167, 176-7, 188-9, 203,211 Modus tollendo tollens 56,57,73 Modus tollens 157-8, 162, 209, 211 Montague Grammar 18, 63, 144 Mood (see also imperatives, indicative conditionals, modality, subjunctive conditionals) 11, 66, 244, ch. 13 passim: hortative 256; imperative 247, 248, 256; indicative 6, 247, 248, 259-60, 267, 2706°, 305, 312; irrealis 6, 8, 220, 257, 353; optative (see also libidinal constructions) 247, 248, 250, 253, 258, 260-1, 264; realis-irrealis continuum ch. 13 passim; subjunctive 6, 247, 248, 249, 251, 259, ch. 14 passim, 305 Necessity: pragmatic versus logical 111 Negation 6, 10, 26, 149, 156, 158-60, 166, 187, 201, 206, 251, 259, 260-3,338: of conditionals 156 Noun phrase: definite 124, 127, 145; indefinite 105, 124, 127, 133, 134, 136; plural 18, 107, 124, 127, 129, 139; universal 136 Object-types 131 Operators (see also conjunctions, disjunctions, modality): adverbial 108, i n , 112; conditional 16, m - 1 2 , 118; conjunctive (and, or) 112, 149, 158-60, 200, 204, 206-11; discourse 108, i n , 117; existential 108; modal (may, must) 4,11, 16, 149, 152-5, 158, 159, 160-1, 163; of invisible necessity 111, 113; speech act 200-1,207-8,209,210,212; universal 108, 113 Ordering of clauses (see also markedness, syntax) 7, 9, 83-6, 96, 167, 205, 221-2, 223-4, 312, 349, ch. 18passim: length as a factor in 360,361,367 Parallelism 7,9,219,224,225,269 Parameters 35ff Parataxis (see markers/absence of, syntax) Peano arithmetic 52 Performatives (see speech acts) Philosophy (see also methodology) 14 Polarity 129, 138, 145 Politeness 7, 8, 163, 167, 199, 212, 363, 365, 368,370 Polysemy 9, 219, 220, 225, 277-80, 287, 311, 328 Possibility (see modality/epistemic) Possible world semantics 15, 16, 18,21,25-6, 27,29,32,40,52,56,63,71,74, 124, 153, 169,171-2, 176, 204, 348

Potential conditionals 250, 263, 266, 267, 268, 269, 273-4, 279-80: distinction between counterfactuals and 268, 269, 271, 276, 281 Pragmatic correctness 147, 149, 160-6 Pragmatic factors (see discourse/factors) Pragmatics (see also semantics/versus pragmatics) 6,215,335 Pragmatism 172 Predicate calculus 14 Predictive conditionals 288, 299-303, 304, 305,312 Present conditionals 302-3 Presuppositions n , 14, 15, 232-3, 245, 280, 297,314,318 Probability 148, 173, 174, 252, 253-4, 259, 261 Prohibitions (see also warnings) 78, 262, 263, 305 Promises (see also imperatives, speech acts) 8, 13, 179-94, 206, 254, 296: categorical 189; incentives 180, 188, 193 Pronouns 18: E-type pronoun interpretation 105-8, 118: indefinite 139, 255-6; plural 116, 129; referential 106; set-pronouns 106, 118 Propositional content 13,14 Protasis (see also antecedent) 5, 7, 8, 10, 78, 219, 266, 280: suppression of 258, 260-1 Protogenerics 123, 137ft, 318ff Prototype conditionals 4, 6, 11, 13 Quantification: pair 105, 114; universal 15, 18, 23,32, 126, 134 Quantifier raising (QR) 109, n o , 113 Quantifiers: existential 104, 108; free-choice 231,236; general 255; generalized 145; universal 15,16,23,104, 105, 126, 231,241 Quantitative expressions 261 Questions (see interrogatives, speech acts) Raising rules n o Reality (see factuality) Reasoning (see also syllogisms) 3,5,9, 12, 14-15, 16, 19^55-9^7^73^ 171, 172, I73< HI290: enthymematic 173; nonmonotonic 31, 133, 138,164 Registers 270, 274-5, 276 Relative clauses 18, 104-5, I Q 8, 112, 140-1 Relativity to context 33, 37 Relevance 69, 73: conditionals 225, 288 Requests (see also imperatives, speech acts) 8, 66, 189,288,305,363 Scale (see focus particles) Scope 103, 120, 129: nuclear versus focus 232,244

382

n o , 113;

Index of subjects temporal relations (cross-clausal) 288, 305, 317; time reference 12, 66, 67, 83, 85, 90, 93-6, 126, 127, 129, 134-5, 248, 249, 250, 251, 257, 259, 260, 261, 262, ch. 14passim, 290, 295, 300, 304, ch. 16passim, division between past and nonpast 250, future 299,300, 302,346; when 6,11,13,74,133, 134, 136, 141, 143, 225, 277, 279, 286,300-2,304, 305, ch. 16passim\ whenever 133, 134, 136, 279 Tense (see also aspect, temporals) 7,8, 11, 16, 19, 23, 44, 69, 84, 91-3, 96, 123, 124, 127, 129, 134, 135-6, 224, 244, ch. 13passim, ch. I4passim, 305, 312, 316, 319: aorist 294-5; backshifting 92~3; 94< 96, 98; division between primary and secondary 250; neutralization of distinctions of 93-4,96; nonpresent 8; past 209,212, 319; present 23,46, 126, 137, 294, 319; sequence of tenses 250, ch. 14passim Theories: Bayesian theory of decision making 169, 174, 176; causal or necessary condition 171; DRS 133,144; Gricean 169, 174-5; inference warrant theory of conditionals 176; mathematical logic 24, 30, 333, 342, 348; mental model theory 15; model theory, first order 21, 40; nontruthfunctional theory of if 355; of action 173; of validity 173; probabilistic theory of conditionals 169, 173; psychological theory of conditionals 57, 60, 63; semantic 39; truth 148; truth conditional 51 Threats (see prohibitions, warnings) Time reference (see temporals) Topic 215,342,347: conditional as 10,86, 280, 282, 348, 353-9, 361,363-4,369,370; contrastive 342,347; thematic 342,347 Truth: based on available evidence ch. 7 passim; of antecedent, consequent 17, 124, 198; probabilistic 17; property of i69ff; relative definitions of i69ff; relative versus absolute notions of 17,159,160 Truth conditional semantics 154, 263 Truth conditions 3, 16, 18, 24, 39-40, 44, 61, 63, 65, 69, 72, 73, 104, i n , 115, 169, 171 Truth table 59 Truth values 22, 26, 29, 80, 145, 150, 159, 167, 172,258,320,334,335,338: indeterminate 50; of conditionals 342, 349; of questions 340

Semantics 18: static approach to 173; versus pragmatics (see also pragmatics) 17, 148-9, 154, 172, 176 Semifactuals (see also concessive conditionals) 238, 338-9, 349, 350 Semiotics 174, 176 Sentence: versus statement 22, 29, 31,36 Set theoretic models 141 Situation Semantics 18, 21, 24, 25, 34-5, 39, 123, 124, 126, 129, 130, 140, 144-5 Situations (see also background conditions, discourse/contexts, events, world states) 8, ch. 2 passim, ch. 6 passim: types of 290-3, 295,313 Situation-types 35, 36, 37, 40, 129, 131, 133, 134 Specific conditionals (see also conditionals, /actuality, contrast general conditionals) 23-4, 44, 46, 249, 250-4, 255, 256, 257, 262 Speech acts (see also discourse/factors, imperatives, interrogatives, promises, requests, warnings) 13, 45, 60, 61163, 66, 69, 175, 176, ch. ^passim, 202, 289, 296, 304, 305, 321, 324: about conditionals versus conditional speech acts ch. 10 passim; supposing as a speech act 197, 204,211 Stability, semantic I5off Subjunctive (see mood) Subjunctive conditionals (see also conditionals, mood) 22, 26, 27, 28, 29, 39, 46, 60, 233 Subordination (see syntax) Sufficiency hypothesis 200, 205, 208 Syllogisms (see also reasoning) 5, 14, 30, 32, 33,46,53,147-8,166,210 Symmetry (see parallelism) Syntax (see also complexity, conjunctions, disjunctions, markers, ordering of clauses, word order) 4: cleft conditionals 8; conditional embedded in a subordinate clause 359-60,361,366,371; coordination i o - n , 216, 220, 221, 225, 234-7, 287, 311; hypotaxis 11, 225; leftdislocation 362-3; parataxis 11, ch. 11 passim, 234-5, 237; subject-verb inversion 6, 9, 87, 356; subjects of conditionals 8; subordination 8,10-11, 217, 219, 312; syntactic frames 305; syntactic role of // 112 Temporals (see also aspect, contingency, tense) 4,5,7, 10, 11-12, 14,97, I 2 3 , I 2 4, 133-40, 229-30, 243, 272-3, 278-80, 282, 328: si-clausesas 277; temporal ambiguity 267, 268, 272; temporal ambivalence 270, 272; temporal conjunctions 256; temporal oppositions 266, 267, 269-71, 274, 276;

Uncertainty (see modality/epistemic) Universal force 115-20 Universals 3,4,8-10,221,304: crosslinguistic 6, 9, 10, 77, 79, 82, 83, 97, 299, 354; universal grammar 9, 298-9

383

Index of subjects Unsharable knowledge/belief Use (see discourse/functions) . , .a .. Verification

340, 349

159 Jy

Warnings (see also imperatives, libidinal constructions, prohibitions, speech acts) 8,

13, 179-94, 206, 212, 252-3, 263, 291, 292, 296 Wishes (see also libidinal constructions) 5, 248, 258-9, 260, 262, 263 ,,, , , , , . , o .Word order (see also syntax) 6, 286-7: Greenberg's 14th Universal 9-10, 221 World states (see also discourse/'contexts, situations) 65-9,72,73

384