A quantitative analysis of counterfactual conditionals in cross-linguistic perspective

• Jesús Olguín Martínez ^[1] ; Nicholas Lester ^[2]
  1. [1] University of California, Santa Barbara

     University of California, Santa Barbara

     Estados Unidos

     
  2. [2] University of Zurich

     University of Zurich

     Zürich, Suiza

     
• Localización: Italian journal of linguistics, ISSN 1120-2726, Vol. 33, Nº. 2, 2021, págs. 147-182
• Idioma: italiano
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• Resumen

  • People often reason about states of the world that could have been, but which are not, or those which could be, given that certain conditions are satisfied. When we make statements about such relationships, we usually divide them into two parts:

    the condition (protasis) and the result (the apodosis). While most languages signal the relationship between protasis and apodosis in counterfactual conditional constructions explicitly, they vary widely in the structures they use to do so. The present study addresses several questions related to cross-linguistic variation in this domain. How are the clauses marked for tense, aspect, and modality? What kind of clause-linking strategies are used to combine them? Are the clauses marked using the same or different morphosyntax? Through qualitative and quantitative analysis of a large sample of carefully selected languages, we demonstrate widespread differences between languages. We also uncover general patterns of features that correlate both with the symmetry and the morphosyntax of protases and apodoses in counterfactual conditionals across languages