Towards a Pragmatic Category of Conditionals: A Radical Contextualist Account

Transcription

1 The 88 th Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association Fitzwilliam College, July 2014 Towards a Pragmatic Category of Conditionals: A Radical Contextualist Account Chi-Hé Elder & Kasia M. Jaszczolt University of Cambridge

2 Conditional sentences in English if p (then) q 2

3 Conditional utterances in English (i) Conditional sentences are not the only way to express conditional thoughts Take one more step and I ll kill you. Your money or your life. 3

4 (ii) Conditional constructions can be used for other purposes other than expressing conditional thoughts If you wouldn t mind, could you close the door? If that s a real diamond, I ll eat my hat! 4

5 Objective To provide (i) a uniform representation of utterances expressing conditional thoughts, irrespective of the logical form of the sentence and (ii) a representation of the primary nonconditional meaning of conditional constructions 5

6 Outline The classification Conditional sentences with conditional or non-conditional primary meanings Non-conditional sentences with conditional meanings Representing conditional meaning in Default Semantics 6

7 Classifying conditionals No bi-unique correlation between conditional constructions and conditional meanings An adequate semantic account of conditionals will not be founded on sentence types The history of the conditional is the story of a syntactic mistake. Kratzer (2012:106) 7

8 Criteria for classification Conditional meaning may or may not be speaker s primary intended meaning Conditional LF Primary meaning is conditional Primary meaning is not conditional No conditional LF Primary meaning is conditional 8

9 Two roles of the antecedent: indicates remoteness from the actual world speaker is not committed to its truth is a supposition restricts situations in which main clause holds 9

10 Database: ICE-GB 46% of conditional utterances use if (Elder 2012) 10

11 Direct/indirect distinction Direct conditionals: consequent is conditional on antecedent Indirect conditionals: consequent is not conditional on antecedent If you re thirsty, there s some beer in the fridge. 11

12 If you re thirsty, there s some beer in the fridge Tests for conditionality DeRose & Grandy 1999 And what if don t want any? If there is no beer in the fridge, you don t want any. 12

13 Should we include indirect conditionals in the object of study? Austin (1961): Indirect conditionals are not conditional Predelli (2009): Antecedent of an indirect conditional is truth-conditionally irrelevant 13

14 Some indirect conditionals can be enriched in their logical form to give a conditional relationship no clear-cut boundary between direct/indirect conditionals 14

15 From indirect to direct conditionals If you re thirsty, there s some beer in the fridge. >> If you re thirsty there s some beer which you may have in the fridge (=SM) >> Please help yourself to beer (=PM) If anyone asks, you re four years old. (=SM) >> If anyone asks, say you re four years old. (=PM) 15

16 Towards a classification 16

17 1. Direct conditional sentences/conditional thoughts as PM If it s a really nice day, we could walk. 17

18 2. Direct conditional sentences/conditional thoughts as SM If you hit me one more time I ll kill you. 18

19 3. Indirect conditional sentences/ conditional thoughts as PM If anyone asks, you re four years old. >> If anyone asks, say you re four years old. 19

20 4. Indirect conditional sentences/ conditional thoughts as SM If you re thirsty, there s some beer in the fridge. >> If you re thirsty there s some beer which you may have in the fridge. (=SM) >> Please help yourself to beer. (=PM) 20

21 4.1. Hedging illocutionary force Very short skirt on if you don t mind me saying. 21

22 4.2. Hedging propositional content If I remember rightly you had jaundice, didn t you? 22

23 5. Non-conditional sentences/conditional thoughts as PM Mix it with a little water and life flourishes. You call the cops, I break her legs. No pain, no gain. You like it? It s yours. 23

24 ? 6. Non-conditional sentences/conditional thoughts as SM Please put on your helmet. >> If you put on your helmet you will be safer. (=SM) 24

25 (1)-(4) with no consequent Now if you d like to put on your helmet that d be great? you ll be safe? the police won t catch you? >> Put on your helmet. (=PM) There need not be one single intended consequent recoverable from the context. At the level of thoughts, there may not be an intention of a consequent. 25

26 Representing conditional meaning Conditional thoughts can (i) pertain to primary or secondary meanings and (ii) be associated with conditional or non-conditional structures. An adequate theory of utterance meaning should be able to represent all of our pragmatic types. 26

27 A cross-linguistic perspective Guugu Yimithirr (Australian, QNL): no overt conditionals The dog might bark. The postman might run away. Evans & Levinson (2009: 443), after Haviland

28 Conditionals in radical contextualism while perhaps none of the logical connectives are universally lexically expressed, there is no evidence that languages differ in whether or not logical connectives are present in their logical forms. von Fintel & Matthewson (2008:170) 28

29 Contextualism The diversity of ways of expressing conditional meaning, as well as the diversity of uses to which conditional structures can be put, are not a problem for a radical contextualist theory. 29

30 I haven t had breakfast. >> I haven t had breakfast today. = pragmatic modulation enrichment (saturation and strengthening) Recanati (1989, 2004, 2010) 30

31 Conditionals in Default Semantics K. M. Jaszczolt, Default Semantics: Foundations of a Compositional Theory of Acts of Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press K. M. Jaszczolt, Default Semantics. In: B. Heine and H. Narrog (eds). The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

32 Radical Contextualism of Default Semantics (Jaszczolt 2005, 2010) The output of syntactic processing often leaves the meaning underdetermined. The object of study of a theory of meaning is a pragmatically modified representation. There is no syntactic constraint on the object of study. 32

33 world knowledge (WK) word meaning and sentence structure (WS) merger representation Σ situation of discourse (SD) stereotypes and presumptions about society and culture (SC) properties of human inferential system (IS) Fig. 1: Sources of information contributing to a merger representation Σ

34 Primary meaning: combination of word meaning and sentence structure (WS) merger representation Σ conscious pragmatic inference pm (from situation of discourse, social and social, cultural and cognitive defaults (CD) cultural assumptions, and world world-knowledge defaults pm (SCWD pm ) knowledge) (CPI pm ) Secondary meanings: Social, cultural and world-knowledge defaults sm (SCWD sm ) conscious pragmatic inference sm (CPI sm ) Fig. 2: Utterance interpretation according to the processing model of the revised version of Default Semantics

35 sources of information types of processes 35

36 Mapping between sources and processes WK SCWD or CPI SC SCWD or CPI WS WS (logical form) SD CPI IS CD DS/IS makes use of the processing model and it indexes the components of with a subscript standing for the type of processing 36

37 Representing conditional thoughts Two dimensions: WS/ PM/SM

38 1. (p q) WS, PM If it s a really nice day, we could walk. 2. (p q) WS, SM If you hit me one more time I ll kill you. 3. (p q), PM If anyone asks, you re four years old. 4. (p q), SM If you re thirsty, there s some beer in the fridge. 38

39 5. (p q), PM You call the cops, I break her legs. 6.?( p q),sm Please put on your helmet. 39

40 Sentence fragments (no consequent): (p?),pm If you leave your tea on a wobbly table, (p?), SM If you d like to put on your helmet 40

41 Fig 3: Partial for (p q), PM You call the cops, I break her legs. x Y z v e1 e2 the addressee (x) cops (Y) speaker (z) contextually salient female (v) [ACC tf e1] CD, CPIpm [e1 e2]cd, CPIpm [ACC tf e2]cd, CPIpm e1: [x call Y]WS, CD, CPIpm e2: [z break v s legs]ws, CD, CPIpm 41

42 Fig 4: Partial for (p?),sm If you d like to put on your helmet the addressee (x) helmet (y) x y e 1 e 2 e 1 : e 2 : [the speaker requests e 2 ] CD, CPIpm [x put on y] WS 42

43 Conclusions Conditional thought may correspond to primary or secondary meaning and may be expressed by a conditional or other sentence form; When conditional thought is adopted as the object of study, the category of conditionals cannot be restricted to specific constructions; The diversity of (i) uses to which conditional if can be put and (ii) ways of expressing conditional meaning can be represented in a radical contextualist account of DS. 43

44 Select references Austin, J. L How To Do Things With Words. In: J. O. Urmson & M. Sbisa (eds). Harvard University Press. DeRose, K. & R.E. Grandy Conditional Assertions and Biscuit Conditionals. Noûs Elder, C-H The underlying conditionality of conditionals which do not use if. In: J. Naruadol Chancharu, X. F. Hu & M. Mitrovic (eds). Cambridge Occasional Papers in Linguistics 6. Evans, N. & S. C. Levinson The myth of language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science. Behavioral and Brain Sciences von Fintel, K. & L. Matthewson Universals in semantics. Linguistic Review Humberstone, L The Connectives. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Jaszczolt, K. M Default Semantics: Foundations of a Compositional Theory of Acts of Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jaszczolt, K. M Default Semantics. In The Oxford Handbook of Linguistic Analysis. In: B. Heine & H. Narrog (eds). Oxford: Oxford University Press Jaszczolt, K. M. forthcoming. Interactive Semantics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kratzer, A Conditionals. Reprinted in 2012, Modals and Conditionals. Oxford: Oxford University Press Predelli, S Towards a Semantics for Biscuit Conditionals. Philosophical Studies