Conditionals and Prediction: Time, Knowledge and Causation in Conditional Constructions

by Barbara Dancygier

• ISBN13: 9780521591515
• ISBN10: 0521591511
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-01-13
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book offers a new and in-depth analysis of English conditional sentences. In a wide-ranging discussion, Dancygier classifies conditional constructions according to time-reference and modality. She shows how the basic meaning parameters of conditionality correlate to formal parameters of the linguistic constructions which are used to express them. Dancygier suggests that the function of prediction is central to the definition of conditionality, and that conditional sentences display certain formal features which correlate to aspects of interpretation. Although the analysis is based primarily on English, it provides a theoretical framework that can be extended cross-linguistically to a broad range of grammatical phenomena. It will be essential reading for scholars and students concerned with the role of conditionals in English and many other languages.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
1 Conditionals as a category	1	(24)
1.1 Constructions, conventional meaning, and the grammar of conditionals	1	(9)
1.2 Basic parameters of conditionality	10	(15)
2 Prediction and distance: time and modality in conditional clauses	25	(47)
2.1 Verb forms in conditional constructions	25	(5)
2.2 What do verb forms indicate?	30	(7)
2.3 Backshift in conditional constructions	37	(6)
2.4 Prediction and distance: two types of conditional backshift	43	(18)
2.5 Non-predictive constructions	61	(2)
2.6 Generic constructions	63	(2)
2.7 Time in conditionals: a summary	65	(7)
3 Relations between the clauses in conditional constructions	72	(38)
3.1 Sequentiality	73	(7)
3.2 Causality	80	(6)
3.3 Epistemic/inferential relations	86	(3)
3.4 Speech act relations	89	(4)
3.5 Metatextual relations	93	(17)
4 Knowledge and conditional protases	110	(28)
4.1 "Contextual givenness" and degrees of distance	111	(5)
4.2 Future protases of non-predictive conditionals	116	(4)
4.3 Epistemic distance, hearer's perspective and the type of p/q relation	120	(4)
4.4 Contextually bound questions	124	(6)
4.5 Non-predictive protases in the context of a narrative	130	(4)
4.6 Givenness, manifestness, and topicality	134	(4)
5 Conditional clauses: form and order	138	(22)
5.1 Constituent clauses of the construction	138	(7)
5.2 Clause order, topic, and discourse	145	(15)
6 If and other conditional conjunctions	160	(24)
6.1 Concessive conditional constructions	160	(7)
6.2 If and unless	167	(11)
6.3 Then -- a resumptive pronoun or a marker of sequentiality?	178	(6)
7 Conclusion: prototypical conditionality and related constructions	184	(13)
7.1 Predictiveness and a prototypical conditional	184	(4)
7.2 Conditionality without if?	188	(4)
7.3 Conditionality and inversion	192	(2)
7.4 If without conditionality?	194	(1)
7.5 Conclusions	195	(2)
Bibliography	197	(9)
References	197	(8)
Literary works quoted	205	(1)
Index of names	206	(2)
Subject index	208