Conditionals

This research studies the pragmatic reasoning of the subjects in conditional inference tasks. Three experiments are reported in which the content (Formal or Ternatic) and the quality of the premises were manipulated; as well as the time of presentation and the Blocks of presentation of the problems. The results are consistent with previous investigations with quasi-deductive tasks (Valiña, 1988; Valiña and de Vega, 1988) and support the current models on pragmatic reasoning, compared to syntactic or competition models. Keywords: reasoning, conditional inference, microgenesis. Abstract The purpose of this investigation is to explore pragmatic reasoning in the conditional inference tasks. This paper report of three experiments; the content (Formal vs. Thematic) and the quality of the premises was manipulated, as well as the time of the exposition and the bloks of the problem presentation. The results are consistent with another investigations with quasi-deductive tasks (Valiña, 1988; Valiña y de Vega, 1988) and support the current pragmatic models of reasoning, instead of the syntactic or competence models. Thanks toJA GARCÍA MADRUGA and MANUEL de Vega, as well as those of an anonymous reviewer of the magazine COGNITIVA. The request for reprints of this article should be addressed to María Dolores Valiña. Depto.  Social and Básic Psychology.Faculty of Psychology.University of Santiago de Compostela.

This paper aims to reassess how —and if— the epistemic conditional in French relates to evidentiality, focusing on its use in reportative and non-reportative declarative sentences as well as in conjectural polar questions. It is proposed that the epistemic conditional developed from the modal hypothetical use, which accounts for its ability to establish an epistemic frame. The epistemic conditional is defined as a construction that conveys an assumption whatever the source of information. It is claimed that the epistemic conditional does not primarily encode information source. Although the epistemic nature of the epistemic conditional makes it prone to draw on reportative evidence, it is not primarily an evidential marker. Nonetheless, the epistemic conditional is claimed to have indirect evidential and mirative extensions. Rather than the type of information source, the conditional encodes the speaker’s lack of control over information, which affects her level of commitment. Such an approach allows handling the different uses of the epistemic conditional in declarative sentences as well as in conjectural questions in a unified way.

Efter att begreppet ’romanist’ analyserats diskuteras här den komparativa romanistikens ställning som disciplin och forskningsgemenskap i Sverige och internationellt. Slutsatsen är att den jämförande romanska språkvetenskapen har en mycket svag ställning i Sverige i dessa avseenden (§1). Detta till trots bedrivs komparativ romanistik i Sverige, om än i ringa omfattning. Som exempel presenteras därför här ett komparativt forskningsprojekt som behandlar villkorskonstruktioner i franska, italienska och spanska. Den traditionella komparativa lingvistiken är främst historiskt inriktad. Det här framlagda projektet illustrerar däremot en nyare typ av jämförande romansk språkforskning, som studerar ett hittills starkt underbeforskat kunskapsfält: syntaktiska konstruktioner och deras semantik och pragmatik i de moderna språken. Redogörelsen för projektet, som är relativt omfattande för att tydliggöra vad ett dylikt projekt kan innebära idag, vänder sig snarast till den lingvistiskt inriktade forskaren (§2). Avslutningsvis diskuteras den jämförande romanska språkvetenskapens position mellan den allmänna lingvistiken (enkannerligen språktypologin) och särspråksromanistiken, och vilket den komparativa romanistikens unika bidrag till språkforskningen kan vara i detta perspektiv (§3).

The paper proposes a first approach to systems whose language includes two primitives (>+ and >−) as symbols for factual and counterfactual conditionals which are explicit, i.e. that are stated jointly with the truth or falsity of the antecedent clause. In systems based on this language, here called 2-conditional, the standard corner operator may be defined by (Def>) A > B := (A >+ B) (A >− B), while in classical conditional systems one could introduce the two symbols for explicit conditionals by the definitions (Def>+) A >+ B := A∧(A>B) and (Def>−) A> − B := ¬A∧(A>B). Two 2-conditional systems, V2 and VW2, are axiomatized and proved to be definitionally equivalent to the monoconditional systems V and VW. A third system VWTr2 is characterized by an axiom stating the transitivity of factual conditionals and is shown to be distinct from V2, from VW2 and from the 2-conditional version of Lewis' well-known system VC, here named VC2. The same may be said for a fourth system VW2<>±, based on an axiom inderivable in VC2: <>(A >+ B) ⊃ <>(¬A >− ¬B). VC2 contains what is here called a "semi-collapse" of the operator >+ and it is argued that it is inadequate as a logic for both factual and counterfactual conditionals. The last section shows that several different definitions of the corner operators in terms of >+ and >− may be introduced as an alternative to (Def>).

I explore the logic of the conditional, using credence judgments to argue against Duality and in favor of Conditional Excluded Middle. I then explore how to give a theory of the conditional which validates the latter and not the former, developing a variant on Kratzer (1981)'s restrictor theory, as well as a proposal which combines Stalnaker (1968)'s theory of the conditional with the theory of epistemic modals I develop in Mandelkern 2019a. I argue that the latter approach fits naturally with a conception of conditionals as referential devices which allow us to talk about particular worlds.

Las construcciones desiderativas pueden establecer en la lengua de los Siglos de Oro relaciones comparativas y condicionales. En este caso se estudian las segundas, las condicionales o desiderativas condicionadas. El objetivo de esta comunicación es determinar cómo el tipo de acto de habla que codifica la desiderativa condicionada (comisivo, asertivo, o directivo) define la morfosintaxis y la semántica de la construcción.
Las desiderativas condicionadas preceden (a) o, con menor frecuencia, están precedidas (b) o interrumpidas (c) por una condición:

(a) mala muerte muera si cabello en la cabeça le dexo y los cascos a chapinazos no le quiebro. [Segunda Celestina, 346]
(b) Traigan aquí un peine, o lo que quisieren, y almohácenme estas barbas; y si sacaren de ellas cosa que ofenda a la limpieza, que me trasquilen a cruces. [Quijote II, 32, 804]
(c) Y créame vuesa merced y plegue a santa Bárbara, abogada de los truenos y relámpagos, que si miento en cuanto digo, esta albarda me falte a la hora de mi muerte. [Quijote de Avellaneda, VII, 310-311]

Esta construcción se deriva de otra construcción más corriente en la que la condicional funciona como modificador del estado de cosas de la desiderativa:

(d) Cabo. También se suena que el rey de España arma para venir contra Inglaterra.
Sargento. Venga en hora buena si trae muchos dineros que dexarnos. [Diálogos de Minsheu, VII, 123]

En cambio, en la construcción que se estudia aquí es la apódosis la que funciona como modificador, concretamente como modificador de la fuerza ilocutiva de la construcción, gracias a una implicatura de polaridad contraria a la de la condición y a una argumentación implícita que varía en función del tipo de acto de habla codificado.
La implicatura y la argumentación no se dan, sin embargo, en la construcción “madre”.
La desiderativa es siempre en nuestra construcción una maldición, normalmente una automaldición.
No son construcciones condicionales prototípicas, son poco frecuentes en las lenguas modernas, son más propias de la inmediatez comunicativa, y por ello no se recogen en las clasificaciones al uso. Sin embargo, no son exclusivas del español de los Siglos de Oro: Kitz (2004) las documenta en tres lenguas antiguas: hitita, acadio, y hebreo; Sommerstein (2014), en griego clásico; y Menuta y Fjeld (2016) ofrecen algún ejemplo del noruego y del gumer, un dialecto de la lengua guraga, hablada en el Sur de Etiopía.

Location: Lima, XI Congreso Internacional de Historia de la Lengua Española
Event Date: Aug. 10, 2018

The paper extends Breggren et al. (2008, EE) on 'trust and growth: a shaky relationship " by incorporating recent developments in the trust-growth literature and using a robust methodological underpinning that accounts for the presence of outliers. The empirical evidence is based on 63 countries. Two main findings are established. First, the substantially documented positive trust-growth nexus is broadly confirmed. Second, when initial levels of growth come into play in determining the relationship, only the 25 th quartile and 90 th decile confirm the positive nexus. The results suggest that the trust-growth nexus cannot be generalized for all countries as some previous studies have concluded. Accordingly, trust-growth policies should be contingent on existing levels of development and tailored differently across rich and poor countries.

I investigate the use of tense-aspect markers in counterfactual conditionals in the Kuban dialect of Kabardian, focusing on the expression of perfective vs. imperfective aspectual viewpoints in combination with different eventuality types. I show that while aspectual and actional information plays an important role in determining the morphological encoding in Kuban Kabardian conditionals, mostly having to do with the choice of the Imperfect vs. Pluperfect tenses, temporal reference remains largely underspecified.

El estudio de las oraciones condicionales en judeoespañol moderno ha demostrado la necesidad de combinar una perspectiva formal con otra de carácter semántico-pragmático a fin de correspon- der a la complejidad de este tipo de construcciones. Esta es, además, la única manera que permite identificar las llamadas oraciones pseudocondicionales, que solo a nivel formal, pero no a nivel de significado, reflejan los rasgos definitorios de las oraciones condicionales. El presente artículo analiza cinco categorías pseudocondicionales en judeoespañol, prestando especial atención a sus características semánticas.

We develop a new semantics for the English auxiliary will that exploits a Stalnaker-style, single-world selection function. Unlike existing theories, the resulting analysis succeeds in satisfying three desiderata: it accounts for the modal character of will, it predicts its peculiar lack of scope interactions, and it vindicates intuitive judgments about the probabilities of will-claims.

Although we often express our intentions in the categorical form 'I intend to φ' or 'I will φ', usually we do not mean to say that we intend to φ  no matter what. For most intentions there is at least a condition C such that the intention would be better described as the intention to φ if C. Despite the familiarity of conditional intentions (and the large literature on related issues―such as indicative conditionals and conditional obligations), conditional intentions have been surprisingly neglected in the philosophical literature. This neglect is difficult to justify given that that conditional intentions raise many puzzling questions. First, there are many different ways of interpreting the role of the condition in avowals of intentions. Does the condition qualify the acquisition, the justification, or the object of the intention? Second, are clauses such as 'if I can,' 'if I do not change my mind,' 'if I am alive,' genuine conditions on intentions? Third, under which circumstances is a conditional intention 'to φ if C' satisfied? Does the falsity of C satisfies the conditional intention? What is the agent supposed to do if she has the ability and opportunity to influence the occurrence of C, while she holds the conditional intention to φ if C? Fourth, what is the relation between conditional intentions and contingency planning? Does a conditional intention give rise to weaker commitment than an unconditional one? In this paper, I offer a systematic account of the different kinds of conditional intentions. This account avoids some of the confusions generated by the conflation between external conditions, internal conditions, and necessary preconditions of an intention. I then try to answer some of the questions raise above, with particular attention to what is distinctive of conditional intentions as planning attitudes, comparing them to other conditional attitudes and avowals.

Counterfactuals are a type of non-material conditionals that are counter-to-the-fact and are either true or false depending on the truth or falsity of their consequents. For instance – if this glass hadn't been struck, it would not have broken – is a case where the antecedent is the action of, 'striking' and the consequent is the result that 'the glass is not broken'. This, precisely, is a counterfactual conditional which will be an integral part of our argument throughout the paper. Consider the example of the fragile glass used above.

La caracterización de las oraciones comparativas condicionales (CC) ha sido objeto de un trabajo anterior, en el que un primer acercamiento a la realidad de los textos exigía, como parte de esa caracterización, el análisis más pormenorizado del funcionamiento de las categorías de tiempo y modo en este tipo de oraciones: de un lado, existen posturas contradictorias entre las investigaciones realizadas hasta el momento, de naturaleza básicamente descriptiva ; de otro, lo que las posturas teóricas han propuesto no se corresponde siempre con lo que revela la observación de los textos.
De esta manera, el presente trabajo tiene como propósito la realización de dicho análisis, de modo que sea posible (i) establecer la forma real en que se comportan las categorías de tiempo y modo en las CC, así como (ii) proporcionar una explicación adecuada para los distintos tipos de fenómenos que se puedan apreciar en este aspecto.

This paper is motivated by Nikiforidou and Katis’s (2000) (henceforth N&K) claim that the two conditional connectives an(if) and ama(if/when) of Modern Greek differ in respect of subjectivity as involvement signalled by the latter while the former (an) is neutral. They also claim that ama, despite its temporal origin, which they acknowledge, is currently used solely as a conditional connective in non-dialectal speech. I take issue with both their claims and, relying on real data, as indeed they also do, I demonstrate that, first, contrary to
their claims, ama can be used solely as a temporal connective in speech that cannot be judged dialectal. Second, that, if we are to categorize one of these two connectives as signalling speaker involvement with the proposition it introduces, it would be an rather than ama that would lay claim to that, as an is amply used in wishes and emotional speech. I agree, however, that the two connectives cannot often be free variants, but for a totally different reason. An lacks the ‘temporal meaning residue’ of ama, which in my view is the
meaning differential between the two. I substantiate this claim by considering real data and I proceed to enumerate types of conditional construction (symmetrical, rhetorical, cleft, concessive, etc.) in which ama does not have a place or use. I claim that, rather than invoking unnecessarily ad hoc notions, such as speaker involvement, as N&K do, the functions -or their absence- of ama are semantically motivated by its ‘temporal meaning retention’. Besides, ama’s overwhelming use in speech and its almost total absence from written language is attributed by N&K to its marking emotional involvement, while I suggest that an explanation be better sought in the view that spoken language involves the temporal dimension while written language invokes a local spatial metaphor.

If the arrow → stands for classical relevant implication, Aristotle&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#x27;s Thesis ¬(A→¬A) is inconsistent with the Law of Simplification (A logical and B)→B accepted by relevantists, but yields an inconsistent non-trivial extension of the system of entailment E. Such paraconsistent extensions of ...

Abstract The paper introduces a new kind of implication named &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;conse-quential implication&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;, which is a variant of traditional connexive implication lacking a certain monotonicity property and allowing the distinction between analytic and synthetic conditionals. A ...

Schulz has shown that the suppositional view of indicative conditionals leads to a corresponding view of epistemic modals. But his case backfires: the resulting theory of epistemic modals gets the facts wrong, and so we end up with a good argument against the suppositional view. I show how and why a dynamic view of indicative conditionals leads to a better theory of epistemic modals.

The overall strategy of Lycan’s paper is to distinguish three kinds of conditional assertion theories, and then to show, in order, how they are variously afflicted by a set of problems. The three kinds of theory were the Quine-Rhinelander theory (or the Simple Illocutionary theory), The Semanticized Quine-Rhinelander, and the No Truth Value theory (or NTV). This strategy offers considerable clarity, but it comes at a cost, for what I take to be the best version of a conditional assertion theory contains core parts of all three theories. In what follows, I will suggest that many of the objections offered by Lycan can be dealt when all the pieces are taken into consideration at the same time. But I will also suggest that a refined version of what Lycan called the Immediate Implausibility objection does show us that the conditional assertion theory is false.