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1 results

  • 8 - Conditionals

  • from Part III
  • Alex Silk, University of Birmingham
  • Book:
    Semantics with Assignment Variables
    Published online:
    09 July 2021
    Print publication:
    24 June 2021, pp 171-202

  • Summary

    Chapters 9–10 explore how the assignment-variable-based treatments of relativization and pronominal anaphora with noun phrases may be extended to capture shifting phenomena in other clausal structures, such as conditionals, correlatives, and questions. This chapter develops a syntax/semantics for ‘if’-clauses as free relatives, interpreted as plural definite descriptions of assignments (possibilities). Clause-internal movement of a (possibly implicit) definite/maximality operator introduces quantification over assignments. The compositional semantics affords a uniform analysis of ‘if’-clauses in diverse types of conditionals—conditionals with ‘if’-clauses in post-nominal, sentence-final, and sentence-initial positions, and conditionals with/without an overt modal or ‘then’. The choice-function-based analyses of anaphoric pronouns as copies of a linguistic antecedent are extended to anaphoric proforms in correlatives. Comparisons between conditional correlatives and correlatives of individuals are briefly considered.