Konditionale und Diskurs
Zusammenfassung der Projektergebnisse
This project has made use of conditional constructions to investigate the role of discourse structure and of information update mechanisms in the construction of meaning. Adopting a formalized and articulated theory of discourse, the project investigated how the structure of discourse and information update mechanisms is factored into the construction of meaning at the sentence level. The focus has been on a set of conditional constructions whose meanings appear to go beyond conventionally conveyed truth-conditions. We refer to these informally as “discourse sensitive conditionals” (DSCs from now on). DSCs provide an exceptional vantage point from which to study the interaction between discourse-structure and sentence-level meaning. Appealing to the interaction with discourse structure provides a natural account of DSCs without requiring ad-hoc moves in the syntax or semantics. The study of DSCs supports the hypothesis that the relation between sentence meaning and discourse structure is richer and far more articulated than has previously been thought, providing support for new ways of thinking about the role of discourse in the construction of meaning. The project has focused on (i) optatives in English and German, sentences in DSCs in which the speaker expresses a desire without there being any lexical item conveying it conventionally (e.g., if only I were taller, I would play in the NBA); (ii) biscuit conditionals in English and German, DSCs in which the truth of the consequent is independent of the antecedent and that are often used to express permission, make suggestions etc. (e.g., if you are hungry, there are biscuits on the sideboard); (iii) counterfactuality in backtracking conditionals in English (If Jones were showing lividity symptoms now, he would (have to) have taken arsenic yesterday; and (iv) bare if-clauses in Spanish (e.g., Kids: I’m going out to play; Mother: Si tienes un examen! Ni hablar! (lit.: if you have an exam! Not to speak!; `We both know you have an exam! Now way you are going out to play’). The work done in the project leads to the conclusion that once we consider all the components involved in the construction of meaning, we can explain apparent complex meanings without ad-hoc stipulations in the semantics. Sentence level meaning interact with discourse level and dictates the dynamic update to update the context. Discourse participants’ reasoning about what has been said in the discourse situation is crucial in the construction of meaning. Additionally, the identification of the speaker’s goals by means of the linguistic cues in the utterance is also crucial in the construction of meaning of if-constructions. Understanding the different contribution of each component (the relation between antecedent and consequent in conditionals, their relation to discourse and participants’ goals and how all interact and are revealed via linguistic cues) allows us to our provide simple and elegant accounts of the construction of meaning in conditionals.
Projektbezogene Publikationen (Auswahl)
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2016. Discourse rationality and the counterfactuality implicature in backtracking conditionals. In Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 20, ed. Nadine Bade, Polina Berezovskaya, and Anthea Schöller, 91–108
Arregui, Ana, & María Biezma
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2017. Laws for biscuits: Independence and dependence in conditionals. In Proceedings of Semantics and Linguistic Theory 27, ed. Dan Burgdorf, Jacob Collard, Sireemas Maspong, and Brynhildur Stefánsdóttir, 377–396
Goebel, Arno
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(2018) "A Unified Account for German “doch”," University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics: Vol. 24: Iss. 1, Article 8
Enders, Felicitas
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2018. The pragmatic ingredients to get perfect biscuits. In Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 21, ed. Chris Cummins, Robert Truswell, Caroline Heycock, Brian Rabern, & Hannah Rohde, 179–198
Biezma, María, & Arno Goebel
