Project Details
Projekt
Conditionals and Discourse
Applicant
Professorin Maria Biezma, Ph.D.
Subject Area
General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
Term
from 2015 to 2018
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 185153653
This project uses conditional constructions to investigate the role of discourse structure in the construction of meaning. Adopting a formalized and articulated theory of discourse (understood as a hierarchical system of discourse moves), the project investigates how the structure of discourse is factored into the construction of meaning at the sentence level. The focus is on a set of conditional constructions whose meanings appear to go beyond conventionally conveyed truth-conditions (discourse sensitive conditionals, DSCs). 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 main empirical focus will be on two types of effects that will be argued to illustrate discourse-sensitivity in conditionals: exhaustivity effects and desirability effects. They have been discussed in the literature under the headings of "conditional perfection" and "optativity".A. Conditional perfection ("exhaustivity effects")Standardly, semantic accounts predict that in a conditional of the form if p, q, p is a condition for q. However, upon hearing a conditional if p, q, listeners often appear to learn the enriched meaning that p is an exhaustive condition for q. This means that p is not just a condition for q, but also a necessary condition for q (p - q):(1) If you mow the lawn, I will give you $5.Upon hearing (1), listeners standardly conclude that not only is mowing the lawn a condition to obtain $5, but also that only by mowing the lawn will the $5 be obtained. What is mysterious in cases like (1) is that the observed exhaustivity effect associated with the antecedent is not predicted by the conventional semantics of the conditional. The effect is a robust phenomenon that has come to be known as "conditional perfection".B. Optativity ("desirability effects")The presence of certain focus sensitive operators in the antecedents of conditionals can give rise to interpretations flavored with desirability that are not predicted by the conventional semantics of the structure. This type of structure is known as "optative":(2) If only the plane had been delayed for five minutes, (I would have made my connection).Given an utterance of (2), the listener doesn¿t only come to understand that a delay was a condition to make the connection, but also that the speaker desires to have made the connection. There is, however, no lexical item in (2) responsible for this meaning, which remains unexplained by the conventional semantics.
DFG Programme
Research Units
