This book contains updated and substantially revised versions of Angelika Kratzer's classic papers on modals and conditionals, including "What 'must' and 'can' must and can mean," "Partition and Revision," "The Notional Category of Modality," "Conditionals," "An Investigation of the Lumps of Thought," and "Facts: Particulars or Information Units?" The book's contents add up to some of the most important work on modals and conditionals in particular and on the semantics-syntax interface more generally. It will be of central interest to linguists and philosophers of language of all theoretical persuasions.
Whether or if - Tips and tricks of conditionals [infographic - 2014
What is a Conditional?
A grammar device that shows possible results from certain situations is called a “conditional.” The presence of the word “if” will usually call attention to them, and some have actually nicknamed them “if” sentences. There are several types, but three “basic conditionals” are used most frequently.
There exists quite a variety of statements which are in some sense 'subjunctive'. The best known of these are the so-called 'counterfactual conditionals' which state that if something which is not the case had been the case, then something else would have been true.
This book by distinguished philosopher Nicholas Rescher seeks to clarify the idea of what a conditional says by elucidating the information that is normally transmitted by its utterance. The result is a unified treatment of conditionals based on epistemological principles rather than the semantical principles in vogue over recent decades. This approach, argues Rescher, makes it easier to understand how conditionals actually function in our thought and discourse. In its concern with what language theorists call pragmatics--the study of the norms and principles governing our use of language in conveying information--Conditionals steps beyond the limits of logic as traditionally understood and moves into the realm claimed by theorists of artificial intelligence as they try to simulate our actual information-processing practices.
