Mark Leiberman mentioned a topic that once upon a while was one of my favourites, but which I’d forgotten about for a while. What is the contribution of ‘then’ in conditionals? Sadly, I don’t have a theory, but I do have a couple of pieces of putative evidence, and an anecdote.
The first data point concerns concessive conditionals. Imagine we have a light switch that normally turns on the overhead light. So normally, if you flick the switch, (then) the light comes on. But the switch is broken now, so if you flick it (??then) the light doesn’t come on.
The second concerns Austin’s sideboard conditionals, such as
If you’re hungry, (?then) there are biscuits on the sideboard
The anecdote concerns Grice. It’s common to say that Grice argued that the truth conditions of indicative conditionals are those of material implications. This is sort of true, but misleading. It’s occasionally said that Grice held that If A then B is true just in case A is false or B is true. This is false. Grice thought this was the truth conditions of If A, B, but he clearly denied the latter. (If you don’t believe me, (*then) see page 63 of Studies.)
A couple of housekeeping notes while I’m here.
There used to be a quite different post here but it got deleted because the page it discussed has been taken down.
I think it’s very cool that Google has a special logo up for Gaston Julia’s birthday.
Finally a cheap shot for primary day. Which of these is most in need of an urgent Federal inquiry?
- A senior White House official leaks the name of an undercover CIA operative, putting the lives of field agents at risk.
- The country goes to war on the basis of false information, leading to over 500 American deaths and thousands of Iraqi deaths.
- Part of a breast is shown during the halftime show at the Superbowl.
If you picked option 3, you are correct!