Editing Counterfactual conditional (section)

==Overview==

=== Examples ===

An example of the difference between [[indicative conditional|indicative]] and counterfactual conditionals is the following [[English language|English]] [[minimal pair]]:

* '''Indicative conditional''': If Sally ''owns'' a donkey, then she ''rides'' it. 
* '''Simple past counterfactual''': If Sally ''owned'' a donkey, she ''would ride'' it.<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>

These conditionals differ in both form and meaning. The indicative conditional uses the present tense form "owns" 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. As a result, it conveys that Sally does not in fact own a donkey. English has several other grammatical forms whose meanings are sometimes included under the umbrella of counterfactuality. One is the [[pluperfect|past perfect]] counterfactual, which contrasts with indicatives and simple past counterfactuals in its use of pluperfect morphology:<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>

* '''Past perfect counterfactual''': If it ''had been raining'' yesterday, then Sally ''would have been'' inside.

Another kind of conditional uses the form "were", generally referred to as the ''[[irrealis]]'' or subjunctive form.<ref>There is no standard system of terminology for these grammatical forms in English. Pullum and Huddleston (2002, pp. 85-86) adopt the term "irrealis" for this morphological form, reserving the term "subjunctive" for the English clause type whose distribution more closely parallels that of morphological subjunctives in languages that have such a form.</ref>

* '''''Irrealis'' counterfactual''': If it ''were raining'' right now, then Sally ''would be'' inside.

Past perfect and irrealis counterfactuals can undergo ''conditional inversion'':<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Bhatt |first1=Rajesh|last2=Pancheva|first2=Roumyana |editor-last1=Everaert |editor-first1=Martin|editor2-link=Henk van Riemsdijk | editor-last2=van Riemsdijk |editor-first2=Henk |encyclopedia= |title=The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Syntax |url=https://people.umass.edu/bhatt/papers/bhatt-pancheva-cond.pdf |year=2006 |publisher=Wiley Blackwell |doi=10.1002/9780470996591.ch16}}</ref>

* Had it rained, Sally would have been inside.
* Were it raining, Sally would be inside.

=== Terminology ===
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The term ''counterfactual conditional'' is widely used as an umbrella term for the kinds of sentences shown above. However, not all conditionals of this sort express contrary-to-fact meanings. For instance, the classic example known as the "Anderson Case" has the characteristic grammatical form of a counterfactual conditional, but does not convey that its antecedent is false or unlikely.<ref name = "vonfintel98" >{{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 name="Conditionals">{{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>

Such conditionals are also widely referred to as ''subjunctive conditionals'', though this term is likewise acknowledged as a misnomer even by those who use it.<ref>See for instance [https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e68d/612d7a93c98956e7314e0d131d90244c31f2.pdf Ippolito (2002)]: "Because ''subjunctive'' and ''indicative'' are the terms used in the philosophical literature on conditionals and because we will refer to that literature in the course of this paper, I have decided to keep these terms in the present discussion... however, it would be wrong to believe that mood choice is a necessary component of the semantic contrast between indicative and subjunctive conditionals." Also, [http://web.mit.edu/fintel/fintel-2011-hsk-conditionals.pdf von Fintel (2011)] "The terminology is of course linguistically inept ([since] the morphological marking is one of tense and aspect, not of indicative vs. subjunctive mood), but it is so deeply entrenched that it would be foolish not to use it."</ref> Many languages do not have a morphological [[subjunctive]] (e.g. [[Danish grammar|Danish]] and [[Dutch grammar|Dutch]]) and many that do have it do not 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. Thus, subjunctive marking is neither necessary nor sufficient for membership in this class of conditionals.<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 |url=http://lingphil.mit.edu/papers/iatridou/counterfactuality.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1= Kaufmann |first1= Stefan |s2cid= 60598513 |date=2005 |title=Conditional predictions |journal= Linguistics and Philosophy |volume=28 |issue = 2|doi= 10.1007/s10988-005-3731-9 |at=183-184}}</ref><ref name="Conditionals"/>

The terms ''counterfactual'' and ''subjunctive'' have sometimes been repurposed for more specific uses. For instance, the term "counterfactual" is sometimes applied to conditionals that express a contrary-to-fact meaning, regardless of their grammatical structure.<ref name = "lewis73" >{{cite book |last=Lewis |first=David |date=1973 |title= Counterfactuals |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn= 9780631224952}}</ref><ref name = "vonfintel98" /> Along similar lines, the term "subjunctive" is sometimes used to refer to conditionals that bear fake past or irrealis marking, regardless of the meaning they convey.<ref name = "lewis73" /><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Khoo |first1=Justin |date=2015 |title=On Indicative and Subjunctive Conditionals |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dod-idx/on-indicative-and-subjunctive-conditionals.pdf?c=phimp;idno=3521354.0015.032;format=pdf |journal=Philosophers' Imprint |volume=15 |issue=32}}</ref>

Recently the term ''X-Marked'' has been proposed as a replacement, evoking the ''ex''tra marking that these conditionals bear. Those adopting this terminology refer to indicative conditionals as ''O-Marked'' conditionals, reflecting their {{not a typo|''o''rdinary}} marking.<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 name="Linguistic Society of America"/>

The ''antecedent'' of a conditional is sometimes referred to as its ''"if"-clause'' or ''protasis''. The ''consequent'' of a conditional is sometimes referred to as a ''"then"''-clause or as an apodosis.