Editing Conditional sentence (section)

==Types of conditional sentence==
There are various ways of classifying conditional sentences. Many of these categories are visible cross-linguistically.

===Implicative and predictive===
{{Unreferenced section|date=July 2020}}
A conditional sentence expressing an ''implication'' (also called a ''factual'' conditional sentence) essentially states that if one fact holds, then so does another. (If the sentence is not a [[declarative sentence]], then the consequence may be expressed as an order or a [[question]] rather than a statement.) The facts are usually stated in whatever [[grammatical tense]] is appropriate to them; there are not normally special tense or [[grammatical mood|mood]] patterns for this type of conditional sentence. Such sentences may be used to express a certainty, a universal statement, a law of science, etc. (in these cases ''if'' may often be replaced by ''when''):
::If you heat water to 100 degrees Celsius (°&nbsp;C), it boils.
::If the sea is stormy, the waves are high.

They can also be used for logical deductions about particular circumstances (which can be in various mixtures of past, present, and future):
::If it's raining here now, then it was raining on the West Coast this morning.
::If it's raining now, then your laundry is getting wet.
::If it's raining now, there will be mushrooms to be picked next week.
::If he locked the door, then Kitty is trapped inside.

A ''predictive'' conditional sentence concerns a situation dependent on a hypothetical (but entirely possible) future event. The consequence is normally also a statement about the future, although it may also be a consequent statement about present or past time (or a question or order).
::If I become President, I'll lower taxes.
::If it rains this afternoon, everybody will stay home.
::If it rains this afternoon, then yesterday's weather forecast was wrong.
::If it rains this afternoon, your garden party is doomed.
::What will you do if he invites you?
::If you see them, shoot!

===Indicative and counterfactual===
{{see also|English conditional sentences|Counterfactual conditional|Indicative conditional}}

One of the most discussed distinctions among conditionals is that between ''indicative'' and ''counterfactual'' conditionals, exemplified by the following [[English language|English]] examples:

* '''Indicative conditional''': If Sally ''owns'' a donkey, then she ''beats'' it. 
* '''Simple past counterfactual''': If Sally ''owned'' a donkey, she ''would beat'' it.

These conditionals differ in both form and meaning. The indicative conditional uses the present tense forms "owns" and "beats" and therefore conveys that the speaker is agnostic about whether Sally in fact owns a donkey. The counterfactual example uses the [[fake tense]] form "owned" in the "if" clause and the past-inflected [[modal verb|modal]] "would" in the "then" clause.<ref>This use of past tense is often called ''fake past'' since it does not contribute a normal past tense meaning. See Iatridou (2000), Karawani (2014), Mackay (2015), among others.</ref> As a result, it conveys that Sally does not in fact own a donkey.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Huddleston |first1=Rodney | last2=Pullum |first2=Geoff |date=2002 |title= The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language |publisher=Cambridge University Press |page=150 |isbn=978-0521431460}}</ref> Similar contrasts are common crosslinguistically, though the specific [[Morphology (linguistics)|morphological]] marking varies from language to language.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=von Prince |first1=Kilu |date=2019 |title=Counterfactuality and past |url=https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10988-019-09259-6.pdf |journal=Linguistics and Philosophy |volume=42 |issue=6|pages=577–615 |doi=10.1007/s10988-019-09259-6 |s2cid=181778834 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite thesis |last=Karawani |first=Hadil |date=2014 |title=The Real, the Fake, and the Fake Fake in Counterfactual Conditionals, Crosslinguistically |page=186 |publisher=Universiteit van Amsterdam |url=https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/1695453/142017_thesis.pdf}}</ref><ref name="Linguistic Society of America">{{cite conference |url=https://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/SALT/article/view/27.547 |title=Fake Perfect in X-Marked Conditionals |last1=Schulz |first1=Katrin |date=2017 |publisher=Linguistic Society of America |book-title=Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory. |pages=547–570 |conference= Semantics and Linguistic Theory.|doi=10.3765/salt.v27i0.4149|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Huddleston |first1=Rodney | last2=Pullum |first2=Geoff |date=2002 |title= The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521431460|pages=85–86}}</ref>

[[linguistics|Linguists]] and [[philosophy of language|philosophers of language]] sometimes avoid the term ''counterfactuals'' because not all examples express counterfactual meanings. For instance, the "Anderson Case" has the characteristic grammatical form of a counterfactual conditional, but is in fact used as part of an argument for the truth of its antecedent.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last1=von Fintel |first1=Kai |editor-last1=Sauerland |editor-first1=Uli |editor-last2=Percus |editor-first2=Oren |encyclopedia=The Interpretive Tract |title=The Presupposition of Subjunctive Conditionals |year=1998 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=29–44|url=http://web.mit.edu/fintel/fintel-1998-subjunctive.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Egré |first1=Paul | last2=Cozic |first2=Mikaël |editor-last1=Aloni |editor-first1=Maria |editor1-link=Maria Aloni|editor-last2=Dekker |editor-first2=Paul |encyclopedia=Cambridge Handbook of Formal Semantics |title=Conditionals |year=2016 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-02839-5 |pages=515}}</ref>

::'''Anderson Case''': If Jones had taken arsenic, he would have shown just exactly those symptoms which he does in fact show.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Anderson |first1=Alan |date=1951 |title=A Note on Subjunctive and Counterfactual Conditionals |journal=Analysis |volume=12 |issue = 2|pages=35–38|doi=10.1093/analys/12.2.35 }}</ref>

The term ''subjunctive conditional'' has been used as a replacement, though it is also acknowledged as a misnomer. Many languages do not have a [[subjunctive]] (e.g., [[Danish grammar|Danish]] and [[Dutch_grammar|Dutch]]), and many that do have it don’t use it for this sort of conditional (e.g., [[French grammar|French]], [[Swahili_grammar|Swahili]], all [[Indo-Aryan languages]] that have a subjunctive). Moreover, languages that do use the subjunctive for such conditionals only do so if they have a specific past subjunctive form. <ref>{{cite journal |last1=Iatridou |first1=Sabine |date=2000 |title=The grammatical ingredients of counterfactuality |journal= Linguistic Inquiry  |volume=31 |issue = 2|pages=231–270|doi=10.1162/002438900554352 |s2cid=57570935 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1= Kaufmann |first1= Stefan |date=2005 |title=Conditional predictions |journal= Linguistics and Philosophy |volume=28 |issue = 2|doi= 10.1007/s10988-005-3731-9 |s2cid= 60598513 |at=183-184}}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Egré |first1=Paul | last2=Cozic |first2=Mikaël |editor-last1=Aloni |editor-first1=Maria|editor1-link=Maria Aloni |editor-last2=Dekker |editor-first2=Paul |encyclopedia=Cambridge Handbook of Formal Semantics |title=Conditionals |year=2016 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-02839-5 |pages=515}}</ref> The term ''X-Marked'' has been used as a replacement, with indicative conditionals renamed as ''O-Marked'' conditionals.<ref>von Fintel, Kai; Iatridou, Sabine. [http://web.mit.edu/fintel/fintel-iatridou-2019-x-slides.pdf Prolegomena to a theory of X-marking ] Unpublished lecture slides. </ref><ref>von Fintel, Kai; Iatridou, Sabine. [https://web.mit.edu/fintel/ks-x-phlip-slides.pdf X-marked desires or: What wanting and wishing crosslinguistically can tell us about the ingredients of counterfactuality ] Unpublished lecture slides. </ref><ref>{{cite conference |last1=Schulz |first1=Katrin |date=2017 |volume=27 |publisher=Linguistic Society of America |book-title=Proceedings from Semantics and Linguistic Theory. |pages=547–570 |conference= Semantics and Linguistic Theory.|doi=10.3765/salt.v27i0.4149|doi-access=free }}</ref>

=== Speech act conditionals ===

''Biscuit conditionals'' (also known as ''relevance'' or ''speech act'' conditionals) are conditionals where the truth of the consequent does not depend on the truth of the antecedent.

* There are biscuits on the table if you want some.
* If you need anything, my name is Joshua.
* If I may be honest, you're not looking good<ref name="Language Log">{{Cite web|url=https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1469|title=Language Log » If you think about it}}</ref>

In ''metalinguistic conditionals'', the antecedent qualifies the usage of some term. For instance, in the following example, the speaker has unconditionally asserted that they saw the relevant person, whether or not that person should really be called their ex-husband.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last1= Dancygier |first1=Barbara | last2=Sweetser | first2=Eve |editor-last1=Goldberg |editor-first1=Adele|encyclopedia=Conceptual structure, discourse and language |title=Conditionals, distancing, and alternative spaces |year=1996 |publisher=CSLI Publications |pages=83–98|url=http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~sweetser/Dancygier_and_Sweetser.1996.CSDL.pdf}}</ref>

* I saw my ex-husband, if that's the right word for him.

=== Non-declarative conditionals ===

In ''conditional questions'', the antecedent qualifies a question asked in the consequent.<ref>{{cite thesis |type=M.Sc. |last=Velissaratou |first=Sophia |date=1901 |title=Conditional questions and which-interrogatives |publisher=Universiteit van Amsterdam, ILLC}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Isaacs |first1=James|last2=Rawlins |first2=Kyle |date=2008 |title= Conditional questions |journal= Journal of Semantics  |volume=25 |issue = 3|pages=269–319|doi=10.1093/jos/ffn003}} </ref>

* If Mary comes to the party, will Katherine come too?
* If Angel forgets her guitar, what will we do?

In ''conditional imperatives'', the antecedent qualifies a command given in the consequent.<ref>{{cite conference |url=http://journals.linguisticsociety.org/proceedings/index.php/SALT/article/viewFile/2545/2293 |title=A unified analysis of conditional imperatives |last1=Kaufmann |first1=Stefan|last2=Schwager |first2=Magdalena |date=2009 |publisher=Linguistic Society of America |pages=Proceedings of SALT |conference=Semantics and Linguistic Theory }} </ref>

*If you are at an intersection, turn right!