Were, Would, Might and a Compositional Account of Counterfactuals
Were, Would, Might and a Compositional Account of Counterfactuals
复制标题
是、将会、可能以及反事实的组合说明
作者：
Nicholas Asher;E. McCready
本文有两个目的。我们首先给出了认知模态算子的一个新的动态描述，它既考虑了它们在整个信息状态方面的测试行为，也考虑了它们在世界范围内诱导量化依赖的能力（模态从属）。然后，我们利用这一理论，结合对条件句和非现实语气的分析，给出了指示性条件句和反事实条件句的完整组合语义。在我们的分析中，反事实条件句和指示性条件句之间的区别直接来自于条件和非现实操作符的语义与条件结果中涉及的特定情态语义之间的相互作用。我们指出了我们的方法的一些理论和逻辑结果。
This paper has two purposes. We first give a new dynamic account of epistemic modal operators that account for both their test-like behaviour with respect to whole information states and their capacity to induce quantificational dependencies across worlds (modal subordination). We then use this theory, together with an analysis of conditionals and irrealis moods, to give a fully compositional semantics of indicative and counterfactual conditionals. In our analysis, the distinction between counterfactual and indicative conditionals follows directly from the interaction between the semantics of the conditional and irrealis operators and the semantics of the particular modals involved in the conditional consequent. We indicate some theoretical and logical consequences of our approach.