What 'If'?

Philosophers' Imprint 14 (2014)
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Abstract

No existing conditional semantics captures the dual role of 'if' in embedded interrogatives — 'X wonders if p' — and conditionals. This paper presses the importance and extent of this challenge, linking it to cross-linguistic patterns and other phenomena involving conditionals. Among these other phenomena are conditionals with multiple 'if'-clauses in the antecedent — 'if p and if q, then r' — and relevance conditionals — 'if you are hungry, there is food in the cupboard'. Both phenomena are shown to be problematic for existing analyses. Surprisingly, the decomposition of conditionals needed to capture the link with interrogatives provides a new analysis that captures all three phenomena. The model-theoretic semantics offered here relies on a dynamic conception of meaning and compositionality, a feature discussed throughout

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Willow Starr
Cornell University

Citations of this work

Probabilities of conditionals in context.Justin Khoo - 2016 - Linguistics and Philosophy 39 (1):1-43.
The Dynamics of Argumentative Discourse.Carlotta Pavese & Alexander W. Kocurek - 2021 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 51 (2):413-456.
The Semantics and Pragmatics of Argumentation.Carlotta Pavese - 2022 - In Daniel Altshuler (ed.), Linguistics Meets Philosophy. New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.
On the Meaning of 'Therefore'.Carlotta Pavese - 2017 - Analysis 77 (1):88-97.

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References found in this work

A Theory of Conditionals.Robert Stalnaker - 1968 - In Nicholas Rescher (ed.), Studies in Logical Theory. Oxford,: Blackwell. pp. 98-112.
Scorekeeping in a language game.David Lewis - 1979 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 8 (1):339--359.
Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Tijdschrift Voor Filosofie 36 (3):602-605.
Using Language.Herbert H. Clark - 1996 - Cambridge University Press.

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