Editing Counterfactual conditional (section)

== The grammar of counterfactuality ==
 
Languages use different strategies for expressing counterfactuality. Some have a dedicated counterfactual [[morphemes]], while others recruit morphemes which otherwise express [[grammatical tense|tense]], [[grammatical aspect|aspect]], [[grammatical mood|mood]], or a combination thereof. Since the early 2000s, linguists, philosophers of language, and philosophical logicians have intensely studied the nature of this grammatical marking, and it continues to be an active area of study.

=== Fake tense ===

==== Description ====
In many languages, counterfactuality is marked by [[past tense]] morphology.<ref name = "palmer">{{cite book |last=Palmer |first=Frank Robert |date=1986 |title=Mood and modality |publisher= Cambridge University Press}}</ref> Since these uses of the past tense do not convey their typical temporal meaning, they are called ''fake past'' or ''fake tense''.<ref name = "ingredients">{{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 name="portner">{{cite book |last=Portner |first=Paul |date=2009 |title=Modality |publisher= Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0199292424}}</ref><ref name = "prolegomena">von Fintel, Kai; Iatridou, Sabine (2020). [https://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/zdjYTJjY/fintel-iatridou-2020-x.pdf Prolegomena to a Theory of X-Marking] {{Webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200715025503/https://semanticsarchive.net/Archive/zdjYTJjY/fintel-iatridou-2020-x.pdf |date=2020-07-15 }}. ''Manuscript''.</ref>  English is one language which uses fake past to mark counterfactuality, as shown in the following [[minimal pair]].<ref>English fake past is sometimes erroneously referred to as "subjunctive", even though it is not the [[English subjunctive|subjunctive mood]].</ref> In the indicative example, the bolded words are present tense forms. In the counterfactual example, both words take their past tense form. This use of the past tense cannot have its ordinary temporal meaning, since it can be used with the adverb "tomorrow" without creating a contradiction.<ref name = palmer /><ref name = "ingredients"/><ref name="portner"/><ref name = "prolegomena"/>
# Indicative: If Natalia '''leaves''' tomorrow, she '''will''' arrive on time.
# Counterfactual: If Natalia '''left''' tomorrow, she '''would''' arrive on time.

[[Hebrew language|Modern Hebrew]] is another language where counterfactuality is marked with a fake past morpheme:<ref name="karawani">{{cite thesis |last=Karawani |first=Hadil |date=2014 |title=The Real, the Fake, and the Fake Fake in Counterfactual Conditionals, Crosslinguistically |publisher=Universiteit van Amsterdam |url=https://pure.uva.nl/ws/files/1695453/142017_thesis.pdf}}</ref>

{{interlinear |lang=he |indent=3
| im Dani '''haya''' ba-bayit {maχa ɾ} '''hayinu''' mevakRim oto
| if Dani be.'''PST'''.3S.M in-home tomorrow be.'''PST'''.1PL visit.PTC.PL he.ACC
| "If Dani had been home tomorrow, we would've visited him."
}}

[[Palestinian Arabic]] is another:<ref name="karawani" />

{{interlinear |lang=apc |indent=3
| iza '''kaan''' fi l-bet bukra kunna '''zurna'''-a
| if be.'''PST'''.3S.M in the-house tomorrow be.PST.1PL visit.'''PST'''.PFV.1PL-him
| "If he had been home tomorrow, we would've visited him."
}}

Fake past is extremely prevalent cross-linguistically, either on its own or in combination with other morphemes. Moreover, [[theoretical linguistics|theoretical linguists]] and [[philosophy of language|philosophers of language]] have argued that other languages' strategies for marking counterfactuality are actually [[Realization (linguistics)|realizations]] of fake tense along with other morphemes. For this reason, fake tense has often been treated as the locus of the counterfactual meaning itself.<ref name="ingredients" /><ref name ="bjorkmanhalpert" >{{cite conference |url=http://www.bronwynbjorkman.net/assets/papers/Halpert%20&%20Bjorkman%20(2012)%20In%20search%20of%20(im)perfection%20[NELS42].pdf |title= In search of (im)perfection: the illusion of counterfactual aspect |first1=Bronwyn |last1=Bjorkman |first2=Claire |last2=Halpert |year=2013 |conference=NELS | editor1-last=Keine | editor1-first=Stefan | editor2-last=Sloggett | editor2-first=Shayne |volume=42 |book-title=Proceedings of NELS 42 |publisher=UMass Amherst GLSA }}</ref>

==== Formal analyses ====

In [[formal semantics (linguistics)|formal semantics]] and [[philosophical logic]], fake past is regarded as a puzzle, since it is not obvious why so many unrelated languages would repurpose a tense [[morpheme]] to mark counterfactuality. Proposed solutions to this puzzle divide into two camps: ''past as modal'' and ''past as past''. These approaches differ in whether or not they take the past tense's core meaning to be about time.<ref name="schulz14">{{cite journal |last1=Schulz |first1=Katrin |date=2014 |title=Fake tense in conditional sentences: A modal approach. |journal= Natural Language Semantics  |volume=22 |issue=2|pages=117–144 |doi=10.1007/s11050-013-9102-0 |s2cid=32680902 }}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Starr |first1=Will |editor-last1=Zalta |editor-first1=Edward N.|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|title=Supplement to "Counterfactuals": Indicative and Subjunctive Conditionals|year=2019 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/counterfactuals/conditionals.html}}</ref>

In the ''past as modal approach'', the [[denotation]] of the past tense is not fundamentally about time. Rather, it is an [[underspecification|underspecified]] skeleton which can apply either to [[modality (natural language)|modal]] or temporal content.<ref name="ingredients" /><ref name="schulz14" /><ref name="mackay19">{{cite journal |last1=Mackay |first1=John |date=2019 |title= Modal interpretation of tense in subjunctive conditionals |url=https://semprag.org/index.php/sp/article/view/sp.12.2 |journal= Semantics and Pragmatics |volume=12 |issue=2|pages=1–29 |doi=10.3765/sp.12.2 |doi-access=free }}</ref> For instance, the particular past as modal proposal of Iatridou (2000), the past tense's core meaning is what is shown schematically below:

# The [[topic (linguistics)|topic]] ''x'' is not the contextually-provided ''x''

Depending on how this denotation [[compositionality|composes]], ''x'' can be a time interval or a [[possible world]]. When ''x'' is a time, the past tense will convey that the sentence is talking about non-current times, i.e. the past. When ''x'' is a world, it will convey that the sentence is talking about a potentially non-actual possibility. The latter is what allows for a counterfactual meaning.

The ''past as past approach'' treats the past tense as having an inherently temporal denotation. On this approach, so-called fake tense is not actually fake. It differs from "real" tense only in how it takes [[scope (formal semantics)|scope]], i.e. which component of the sentence's meaning is shifted to an earlier time. When a sentence has "real" past marking, it discusses something that happened at an earlier time; when a sentence has so-called fake past marking, it discusses possibilities that were [[accessibility relation|accessible]] at an earlier time but may no longer be.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Arregui |first1=Ana |date=2007 |title= When aspect matters: the case of would-conditionals |journal= Natural Language Semantics |volume=15 |issue=3 |pages=221–264 |doi=10.1007/s11050-007-9019-6 |s2cid=121835633 }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Ippolito |first1=Michela |date=2003 |title= Presuppositions and implicatures in counterfactuals |journal= Natural Language Semantics |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=145–186 |doi=10.1023/A:1024411924818 |s2cid=118149259 }}</ref><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}}</ref>

=== Fake aspect ===

''Fake [[grammatical aspect|aspect]]'' often accompanies fake tense in languages that mark aspect. In some languages (e.g. [[Modern Greek]], [[Zulu language|Zulu]], and the [[Romance languages]]) this fake aspect is [[imperfective aspect|imperfective]]. In other languages (e.g. [[Palestinian Arabic]]) it is [[perfective aspect|perfective]]. However, in other languages including [[Russian language|Russian]] and [[Polish language|Polish]], counterfactuals can have either perfective or imperfective aspect.<ref name="bjorkmanhalpert" />

Fake imperfective aspect is demonstrated by the two [[Modern Greek]] sentences below. These examples form a [[minimal pair]], since they are identical except that the first uses past imperfective marking where the second uses past perfective marking. As a result of this morphological difference, the first has a counterfactual meaning, while the second does not.<ref name="ingredients" />

{{interlinear
| lang = el
| indent = 3|An eperne afto to siropi θa γinotan kala|if take.'''PST.IPFV''' this {} syrup FUT become.'''PST.IPFV''' well|'If he took this syrup, he would get better'
}}
{{interlinear
| lang = el
| indent = 3|An ipχe afto to siropi θa eγine kala|if take.'''PST.PFV''' this {} syrup FUT become.'''PST.PFV''' well|"If he took this syrup, he must be better."
}}

This imperfective marking has been argued to be fake on the grounds that it is compatible with ''completive adverbials'' such as "in one month":<ref name="ingredients" />

{{interlinear |lang=el |indent=3
| An eχtizes to spiti (mesa) se ena mina θa prolavenes na to pulisis prin to kalokeri
| if build.'''IPFV''' the house {} in one month FUT have-time-enough.'''IPFV''' to it sell before the summer
| "If you built this house in a month, you would be able to sell it before the summer."
}}

In ordinary non-conditional sentences, such adverbials are compatible with perfective aspect but not with imperfective aspect:<ref name="ingredients" />

{{interlinear |lang=el |indent=3
| Eχtise afto to spiti (mesa) se ena mina
| build.'''PFV''' this {} house in {} one month
| "She built this house in one month."
}}
{{interlinear |lang=el |indent=3
| * Eχtize afto to spiti (mesa) se ena mina
| {} build.'''IPFV''' this {} house in {} one month
| "She was building this house in one month."
}}