1 |
Indicatives, subjunctives, and the falsity of the antecedent
|
|
|
|
Abstract:
It is widely held that there are important differences between indicative conditionals (e.g. “If the authors are linguists, they have written a linguistics paper”) and subjunctive conditionals (e.g. “If the authors had been linguists, they would have written a linguistics paper”). A central difference is that indicatives and subjunctives convey different stances towards the truth of their antecedents. Indicatives (often) convey neutrality: for example, about whether the authors in question are linguists. Subjunctives (often) convey the falsity of the antecedent: for example, that the authors in question are not linguists. This paper tests prominent accounts of how these different stances are conveyed: whether by presupposition or conversational implicature. Experiment 1 tests the presupposition account by investigating whether the stances project – remain constant – when embedded under operators like negations, possibility modals, and interrogatives, a key characteristic of presuppositions. Experiment 2 tests the conversational-implicature account by investigating whether the stances can be cancelled without producing a contradiction, a key characteristic of implicatures. The results provide evidence that both stances – neutrality about the antecedent in indicatives and the falsity of the antecedent in subjunctives – are conveyed by conversational implicatures.
|
|
Keyword:
BF Psychology; P Philology. Linguistics
|
|
URL: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/34006/ http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/34006/1/34006_COLLINS_Indicatives_subjunctives_and_the_falsity.pdf https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.13058 http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/34006/7/34006_COLLINS_Indicatives_subjunctives_and_the_falsity_%28OA%29.pdf
|
|
BASE
|
|
Hide details
|
|
3 |
Communicating and reasoning with verbal probability expressions
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
4 |
Linguistic change in a multilingual setting : a case study of quotatives in Indian English
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
5 |
Relative clauses in Australian English: a cross-varietal diachronic study
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
6 |
The Present Perfect in English: Meaning, Interpretation and Use
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
8 |
Cooperation, innovation and the competitiveness of Chinese enterprise clusters
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
10 |
Comparative studies in Australian and New Zealand English : grammar and beyond
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
11 |
The use of articles in inner and outer circle varieties of English: a comparative corpus-based study
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
12 |
Mobilising action through management email texts: the negotiation of evaluative stance through choices in discourse and grammar
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
14 |
From chairman to chairwoman to chairperson: exploring the move from sexist usages to gender neutrality
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
20 |
Functional and structural: The practicalities of clause knowledge in language education
|
|
|
|
BASE
|
|
Show details
|
|
|
|