Editing Conditional sentence (section)

===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>