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Crosslinguistic constructions and strategies: where do concessive conditionals fit in?

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Published/Copyright: November 10, 2025
Linguistics Vanguard
From the journal Linguistics Vanguard Volume 11 Issue 1

Abstract

The present squib is concerned with Croft’s classification of comparative concepts, that is, concepts developed by typologists for crosslinguistic comparison. Croft distinguishes two kinds of comparative concepts: “constructions”, which are defined entirely in functional terms; and “strategies”, which are further specified by formal characteristics. More specifically, this squib is concerned with how the notions of construction and strategy are used in Croft’s discussion of a generally under-studied type of adverbial clause, viz. concessive conditionals. Concessive conditionals are quantified conditionals that express a set of antecedents: ‘if {p 1 , p 2 , p 3 , …}, then q’. There are three subtypes: scalar concessive conditionals (SCCs, ‘even if’), alternative concessive conditionals (ACCs, ‘whether … or’), and universal concessive conditionals (UCCs, ‘wh-ever’). According to Croft, concessive conditionality in general is a construction, with SCCs, ACCs, and UCCs being strategies. This squib, however, proposes that it would be more consistent to treat the three subtypes as constructions rather than as strategies. More precisely, SCCs, ACCs, and UCCs are best seen as sub-constructions of an overarching concessive-conditional construction.

Keywords: concessive conditionals; comparative concepts; constructions; strategies
Corresponding author: Tom Bossuyt, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium, E-mail:

Funding source: Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek

Award Identifier / Grant number: 1134221N

Acknowledgments

The present study was conducted as part of the author’s doctoral research project on the typology of concessive conditionals. This project is funded by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO; grant number 1134221N) and the Ghent University Special Research Fund (BOF). I would like to thank Torsten Leuschner, Flor Vander Haegen, Katja Politt, and Martin Haspelmath for their constructive feedback on earlier draft versions of this paper. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers and the editorial team of Linguistics Vanguard for their helpful suggestions. The usual disclaimers apply.

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Received: 2025-03-24
Accepted: 2025-07-28
Published Online: 2025-11-10

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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https://doi.org/10.1515/lingvan-2025-0053
Keywords for this article
concessive conditionals; comparative concepts; constructions; strategies

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  16. How fast is fast and how slow is slow in mental simulation? Two rating studies on Estonian speed adverbs
  17. Discourse effects in processing Chinese reflexive pronouns
  18. Attitudinal negotiation: the analysis of online commentary videos about an international event on Chinese social media platform bilibili.com
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  24. The negative concord illusion: an acceptability study with Czech neg-words
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