Semantics and Pragmatics of Conditionals: form Sentence to Discourse

P2研究了条件句中语义和语用的分工。我们在三个领域探讨这个问题：在句子层面，在话语层面，并在与认识论的接口。在句子层面，继续第一个资助期的研究，我们将研究条件结构的完整范式的形态组成，并研究表面差异如何导致真理和/或幸福条件的差异。我们将解释为什么某些类型的条件条件系统地但可取消地产生其前件不可能的信息，为什么其他类型的条件条件系统地（并且只是有时可取消地）产生其前件是假的信息，以及为什么其余类型的条件条件不系统地由这两种信息组成。在话语层面上，我们对条件的严格和可变严格分析进行辩论。有两种观点支持严格的分析：(i) Sobel序列和（ii）负极性项目（NPI）许可。索贝尔序列的严格条件解释最近受到新数据的挑战。我们将从含义、修辞关系和信息结构方面对条件序列进行解释，这有可能解释所有可用的数据。冯·芬特尔关于严格分析条件的NPI论点依赖于一个广泛成功的概括，该概括解释了其他领域的NPI许可。然而，将该账户扩展到条件句的关键因素可能会破坏其在某些领域的成功：非修饰性和焦点敏感的后悔和惊讶。我们研究了如何对这些结构的焦点敏感性进行建模，同时像von Fintel的分析那样许可npi。在与认识论的接口，我们研究条件，认知模态和证据之间的相互作用，以开发工具，这将有助于弥合语义和认识论之间的差距。认识论学家关注的是个体如何根据新的信息改变他们的信念。条件句在这些理论中起着特殊的作用。然而，现有的认识论的信念动力学理论认为条件句缺乏真值。这就提出了嵌入问题：如果条件缺乏真值条件，我们如何解释具有条件成分的复杂句子的可解释性？我们期望将条件句与证据和认知情态一起研究得到结果，因为这三类词汇项目的成员(i)提供了关于其命题可能性的信息，（ii）在语法上是可嵌入的，尽管以一种有趣的受限方式。

P2 investigates the division of labor between semantics and pragmatics in conditionals. We explore this question in three domains: at the sentence level, at the discourse level, and at the interface with epistemology.At the sentence level, continuing the research initiated in the first funding period, we will examine the morphological composition of the full paradigm of conditional constructions and investigate how surface differences lead to differences in truth and/or felicity conditions. We will explain why some kinds of conditional systematically but cancellably generate the infor-mation that their antecedents are unlikely, why other kinds systematically (and only sometimes cancellably) generate the information that their antecedents are false, and why the remaining kinds are not systematically attended by either kind of information.At the discourse level we engage the debate over strict and variably strict analyses of conditionals. There are two arguments in favor of a strict analysis: (i) Sobel sequences and (ii) Negative Polarity Item (NPI) licensing. The strict conditional explanation of Sobel sequences has recently been challenged by novel data. We will pursue an explanation for conditional sequences in terms of implicatures, rhetorical relations and information structure which has the potential to explain all of the available data. von Fintel¿s NPI argument for a strict analysis of conditionals relies on a widely successful generalization that explains NPI-licensing in other domains. However, the key ingredient that is added in extending the account to conditionals threatens to undermine its success in some domains: non-adnominal only and focus-sensitive regret and surprise. We investigate how the focus-sensitivity of these constructions can be modelled while at the same time licensing NPIs as in von Fintel`s analysis.At the interface with epistemology, we study the interaction between conditionals, epistemic modals, and evidentials to develop tools that will help bridge a gap between semantics and epistemology. Epistemologists are concerned with modelling how individuals change their beliefs in the light of new information. Conditionals play a special role in such theories. However, existing theories of the dynamics of belief by epistemologists have taken conditionals to lack truth values. This raises the embedding problem: if conditionals lack truth conditions, how do we explain the interpretability of complex sentences with conditional components? We expect fruit from studying conditionals together with evidentials and epistemic modals because the members of all three classes of lexical items (i) contribute information about the likelihood of their proposition and (ii) are syntactically embeddable, though in an interestingly restricted way.