Editing Counterfactual conditional (section)

=== 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.