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8 - Conditionals

from Part III

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2021

Alex Silk
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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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.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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  • Conditionals
  • Alex Silk, University of Birmingham
  • Book: Semantics with Assignment Variables
  • Online publication: 09 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108870078.012
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  • Conditionals
  • Alex Silk, University of Birmingham
  • Book: Semantics with Assignment Variables
  • Online publication: 09 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108870078.012
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Conditionals
  • Alex Silk, University of Birmingham
  • Book: Semantics with Assignment Variables
  • Online publication: 09 July 2021
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108870078.012
Available formats
×