Abstract
This paper experimentally investigates the role of veridicality and the cause-effect relation in the derivation of (a) conditional perfection and (b) logical entailment in Russian esli-conditionals and raz-conditionals. It provides further evidence that conditional perfection is a structurally defined phenomenon. Moreover, it presents a crosslinguistic and intra-linguistic variation in conditional connectives used in indicative and subjunctive counterfactual conditionals. Finally, confirming the causal network theory proposed in Schulz (2007, Minimal models in semantics and pragmatics: Free choice, exhaustivity, and conditionals. Amsterdam: ILLC Dissertation), the paper points out that effect-to-cause subjunctive counterfactuals are less acceptable than cause-to-effect ones.
Funding source: The Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation
Award Identifier / Grant number: the Agreement No 075-15-2020-793
Acknowledgments
I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers of the paper, to the editors of this special issue, to the organizers of the workshop “The Semantics and Pragmatics of Conditional Connectives” (Mingya Liu and Mathias Barthel), and to Alex Dainiak and Magdalena Kaufmann for all the fruitful discussions and valuable comments upon earlier versions of the paper. This work has been supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation within Agreement No 075–15-2020-793.
Link to the materials (critical and control items) of the first and second experiments and their English translations: https://zevakhina.github.io/experiments/veridicality-and-cause-effect-stimuli-and-fillers.pdf.
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© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Causal relevance of conditionals: semantics or pragmatics?
- Online comprehension of conditionals in context: A self-paced reading study on wenn (‘if’) versus nur wenn (‘only if’) in German
- Signalling conditional relations
- Uncertainty as a disambiguating factor for conditional, temporal, and habitual constructions: evidence from Spanish
- Veridicality and the cause-effect relation in Russian esli- and raz-conditionals: experimenting with conditional perfection and logical entailment
- Conditional connection explored: the case of Sicilian cusà
- Iffy discourse: Japanese moshi in conditionals and nominal topics
- Jiu-conditionals in Mandarin Chinese: thoughts on a uniform pragmatic analysis of Mandarin conditional constructions
- Modals and conditionals in instrumental practical reasoning: the case of Polish
- Emojis and conditionals: exploring the super linguistic interplay of pictorial modifiers and conditional meaning
- What embedded counterfactuals tell us about the semantics of attitudes
- Conditional conjunctions informed by Japanese and Korean
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Causal relevance of conditionals: semantics or pragmatics?
- Online comprehension of conditionals in context: A self-paced reading study on wenn (‘if’) versus nur wenn (‘only if’) in German
- Signalling conditional relations
- Uncertainty as a disambiguating factor for conditional, temporal, and habitual constructions: evidence from Spanish
- Veridicality and the cause-effect relation in Russian esli- and raz-conditionals: experimenting with conditional perfection and logical entailment
- Conditional connection explored: the case of Sicilian cusà
- Iffy discourse: Japanese moshi in conditionals and nominal topics
- Jiu-conditionals in Mandarin Chinese: thoughts on a uniform pragmatic analysis of Mandarin conditional constructions
- Modals and conditionals in instrumental practical reasoning: the case of Polish
- Emojis and conditionals: exploring the super linguistic interplay of pictorial modifiers and conditional meaning
- What embedded counterfactuals tell us about the semantics of attitudes
- Conditional conjunctions informed by Japanese and Korean