The underlying conditionality of conditionals which do not use 'if'

In addressing a question at the semantics-pragmatics interface of how conditionals in English should be categorised, this paper addresses the underlying question: what is a conditional? Conditionals in English are very often associated with the canonical pattern ‘if p then q’. But while the word 'if' provides a simple function to aid us in expressing our conditional thought, it goes without saying that conditional thought does not go hand in hand with the single word 'if'. This paper explores some of the ways that conditionals may be expressed in English without using if by presenting observations obtained from the International Corpus of English (ICE-GB) combined with results from previous empirical studies (e.g. Declerck & Reed 2001). In doing so, this paper considers the question what exactly it is to be a conditional, proposing some criteria to guide the categorisation of conditional expressions. In turn, this paper aims to shed some light as to why conditionals using 'if' are so often focussed upon

Classifying types of gesture and inferring intent

In order to infer intent from gesture, a rudimentary classification of types of gestures into five main classes is introduced. The classification is intended as a basis for incorporating the understanding of gesture into human-robot interaction (HRI). Some requirements for the operational classification of gesture by a robot interacting with humans are also suggested

Epistemic modality, particles and the potential optative in Classical Greek

This paper challenges the commonly held view that the Classical Greek potential optative has a subjective epistemic semantics, the result of a conceptual confusion of subjectivity and epistemic modality inherited from our standard grammars. I propose that this view becomes less convincing when the optative’s unique interaction with the subjective particles ἦ and ἄρα is incorporated into the analysis. Rather, the potential optative has a non-subjective epistemic semantics presenting an epistemic judgment as interpersonally accessible to the conversational participants. Frequencies of combination with ἦ and ἄρα, linguistic tests for subjectivity on the potential optative, and contrastive contextual analyses corroborate this view

Exploring Male and Female Voices through Epistemic Modality and Evidentiality in Some Modern English Travel Texts on the Canaries

This article describes authorial voice through evidential and epistemic sentential devices in a corpus of 19th and early 20th century travel texts. The corpus contains four works written by female travellers and the other four by men. Therefore, apart from providing a catalogue of the strategies deployed by the authors in order to mark modality and evidentiality, we also report on expected differences in their frequencies of use in relation to the writer’s gender. In addition, the interest of this study lies in the fact that, to the best of our knowledge, no research on writer stance has previously been carried out in texts belonging to the genre of travel writing

'Should conditionals be emergent ...': asyndetic conditionals in English and German as a Challenge to Grammaticalization Research

The present article examines asyndetic or conjunctionless conditionals in German and English. According to Jespersen’s Model (1940), this construction arose diachronically from a paratactic discourse sequence with a polar interrogative, but more recently Harris and Campbell (1995) have claimed that this model lacks any theoretical and empirical foundation. To demonstrate how asyndetic conditionals may emerge from discourse, this study reframes Jespersen’s Model in grammaticalization terms and adduces several constructional features in order to show that a grammaticalization process has actually taken place. In particular, this is achieved by applying traditional grammaticalization parameters such as bondedness, paradigmatic variability and specialization to synchronic and diachronic variation patterns with regard to clause integration, the finite verb of the protasis and the possible-world categories realis, potentialis, irrealis. The article also explores the relevance of speech-situation evocation to the formation of interrogative-based conditionals

Aspect and Modality in Indonesian the Case of Sudah, Telah, Pernah, and Sempat

In this paper, I describe four Indonesian aspect markers, sudah, telah, pernah, and sempat, showing that the main opposition between them relies not only on their aspectual meanings, but also on the various modalities they express. The opposition between the very frequent markers sudah and telah is analysed in detail. The syntactic and semantic survey shows that these two markers are not synonyms in most contexts

Aspect and Modality in Indonesian the Case of Sudah, Telah, Pernah, and Sempat

In this paper, I describe four Indonesian aspect markers, sudah, telah, pernah, and sempat, showing that the main opposition between them relies not only on their aspectual meanings, but also on the various modalities they express. The opposition between the very frequent markers sudah and telah is analysed in detail. The syntactic and semantic survey shows that these two markers are not synonyms in most contexts

Institutionalising Ontology-Based Semantic Integration

We address what is still a scarcity of general mathematical foundations for ontology-based semantic integration underlying current knowledge engineering methodologies in decentralised and distributed environments. After recalling the first-order ontology-based approach to semantic integration and a formalisation of ontological commitment, we propose a general theory that uses a syntax-and interpretation-independent formulation of language, ontology, and ontological commitment in terms of institutions. We claim that our formalisation generalises the intuitive notion of ontology-based semantic integration while retaining its basic insight, and we apply it for eliciting and hence comparing various increasingly complex notions of semantic integration and ontological commitment based on differing understandings of semantics