19.3: Degrees of Hypotheticality
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One widely discussed property of standard conditionals is that they can be used to express varying degrees of hypotheticality,8 reflecting the speaker’s judgment as to how likely it is that the antecedent is actually true. In languages where verbs are inflected for tense and/or mood, verbal morphology is often used to signal these distinctions. However, other kinds of marking are also found, as illustrated below; and in some languages this distinction is not grammatically marked at all, but is determined entirely by contextual clues.
As a number of authors have noted, there is a cross-linguistic tendency for the antecedent to be interpreted as more hypothetical (less certain) when it is stated in the past tense than in present tense. However, tense marking also serves to indicate the actual time frame of the described event. (See Chapter 21 for a detailed discussion of tense marking.) For this reason, there is generally no oneto-one correlation between tense and degree of hypotheticality. Some English examples are presented in (10–12).
(10) a. If Bill is your uncle, then you must know his daughter Margaret.
b. If David was your thesis advisor, then he knows your work pretty well.
c. If Susan wins the election, she will become the mayor of Des Moines.
d. Results have not yet been announced, but if Susan won the election, the current mayor will have to find a new job.
e. “It would make it more important if that be the case,” he [Ralph Nader] said yesterday.9
In the indicative mood, either present or past tense can be used when the speaker has reason to believe that the antecedent is true, as illustrated in (10a– b). Such examples are sometimes referred to as reality conditionals.10 These same two verb forms can also be used in hypothetical conditionals, those in which the speaker simply doesn’t know whether the antecedent is true or not, as illustrated in (10c–d). In these examples, the tense marking of the verb in the antecedent functions in the normal way, to indicate the location in time of the situation described by that clause. The subjunctive mood can be used for hypothetical conditionals as well, as illustrated in (10e). However, it is not always easy to recognize the subjunctive in English. The past indicative and past subjunctive are distinguished in Modern English only for the verb to be, as illustrated in (11a).11
Counterfactual conditionals, which normally presuppose that the speaker believes the antecedent to be false, tend to be expressed in the subjunctive as seen in (11–12). Example (11a) demonstrates the preference for the subjunctive over the past indicative in counterfactual conditionals, although many speakers will use or at least accept the past indicative in casual speech.
(11) a. If I were/?was you, I would apply for a different job.
b. If I had been your thesis advisor, you would have been lucky to finish at all.
(12) “Sir, if you were my husband, I would poison your drink.”
“Madam, if you were my wife, I would drink it.”
(Exchange between Lady Astor and Winston Churchill)
Comrie (1986) argues that the degrees of hypotheticality associated with conditionals are not limited to three discrete categories, but rather form a continuum from most certain (reality conditionals) to most doubtful (counterfactuals). The examples in (13) lend some support to this claim, at least for English. All three of these examples can be interpreted as hypothetical conditionals referring to a present situation, i.e., the state of the world at the time of speaking; none of them requires that the speaker know whether the antecedent is true or not. However, the past indicative in (13b) seems more doubtful than the present indicative in (13a), and the subjunctive mood in (13c) seems more doubtful than the indicative mood in (13b).12 In the same way, both (14a) and (14b) can be interpreted as hypothetical conditionals, but (14b) expresses more doubt than (14a). Notice that in (14b), the tense marking of the antecedent does not reflect the time of the described situation, but is used to mark a high degree of hypotheticality.
(13) a. If Alice is a spy, she probably carries a gun.
b. If Alice was a spy, she would probably carry a gun.
c. If Alice were a spy, she would probably carry a gun.
(14) a. If Arthur still loves her, he will catch the first train home.
b. If Arthur still loved her, he would catch the first train home.
These examples show that, in English conditional clauses, tense and mood morphology have partly overlapping functions. Both past tense and subjunctive mood can serve to make the antecedent seem less likely. Similar patterns are found in other languages as well.
The use of tense and mood in Portuguese conditionals is illustrated in (15).13 Example (15a) is what we have called a reality conditional, (15b) is a hypothetical conditional, and (15c) is a counterfactual conditional. Notice that the difference between the hypothetical and counterfactual conditionals is formally a difference in tense inflection, rather than mood, on the antecedent verb. Notice too the “conditional mood” form of the verb in the consequent of (15c). A number of Romance languages have such forms, which occur in the consequent of counterfactual conditionals and typically have several other uses as well (e.g. “future in the past” tense; see Chapter 21).
(15) a. Se ela é italiana, ela é européia.
if she is Italian she is European
‘If/since she is Italian she is European.’ (I know that she is Italian.)
b. Se ela for italiana, ela é européia.
if she be.3sg.fut.sbjv Italian she is European
‘If she be Italian she is European.’ (I do not know whether she is Italian or not.)
c. Se ela fosse italiana, ela seria européia.
if she be.3sg.ipfv.sbjv Italian she would.be.cond European
‘If she were Italian she would be European.’ (I know that she is not Italian.)
In Russian counterfactual conditionals, both the antecedent and consequent appear in the subjunctive-conditional mood (16b), in contrast to the indicative mood used in hypothetical conditionals (16a):14
(16) a. Esli ja pribudu na vokzal, menja posadjat v tjur’mu.
if I arrive.ind at station me put.ind in prison
‘If I arrive at the station, they will throw me in prison.’
b. Esli by ja pribyl na vokzal, menja by posadili v tjur’mu.
if cond I arrive.cond at station me cond put.cond in prison
‘If I had shown up at the station, they would have thrown me in prison.’
The contrast between hypothetical vs. counterfactual conditionals can also be marked in other ways. Irish has two distinct words for ‘if’: dá is used in counterfactual conditionals (17a), while má is used in hypothetical conditionals (17b).15 A similar situation is reported in Welsh and some varieties of Arabic.
(17) a. Dá leanfadh sé dá chúrsa, bheadh deireadh leis.
if follow.cond he of.his course be.cond end with.him
‘If he had persisted in his course, he’d have been finished.’
b. Má leanann tú de do chúrsa, beidh aithreachas ort.
if follow.pres you of your course be.fut regret on.you
‘If you persist in your (present) course, you’ll be sorry.’
In Tolkapaya (also known as Western Yavapai), a Yuman language of North America, counterfactuals are distinguished from other kinds of conditionals by the suffix –th attaching to the auxiliary of the consequent clause (Hardy & Gordon 1980). In other (non-conditional) contexts, this suffix is used to mark “nonfactual” propositions, including “failed attempts, unfulfilled desires, descriptions of a state that formerly obtained but which no longer does, and situations where the realization of one event precludes that of another” (Hardy & Gordon 1980: 191).
A very similar case is found in Kimaragang Dusun, spoken in northeastern Borneo (Kroeger 2017). The frustrative particle dara appears in main clauses which express failed attempts, unfulfilled desires or intentions, former states that no longer obtain, and things done in vain. This same particle appears in the consequent clause of counterfactual conditionals, as seen in (18), distinguishing counterfactuals from other types of conditionals like those in (19). Notice that non-past tense is used in the consequent of a counterfactual even if the situation which failed to materialize would have been prior to the time of speaking, as in (18b).
(18) a. Ong noguring no koniab ino, atanaman no do paray benoy dara.
if plowed.potent.pst already yesterday that planted.potent.npst already acc rice today frus
‘If that (field) had been plowed yesterday, it could have been planted with rice today.’
b. Amu dara agamit i kambing ong konoko ginipit sid susut.
neg frus caught.potent.npst nom goat if not trapped.pst loc below
‘The goat could not have been caught if we hadn’t trapped it under the house.’
(19) a. Ong amu nu ibaray ino siin dino, mangan tekaw posutay.
if neg you pay that money that aux I.you cane
‘If you don’t pay that money I’ll cane you.’
b. Kaanak=i’ dati yalo dilo’ ong sumambat do=duktur.
able.to.bear.child=emph prob 3sg that if meet acc=doctor
‘She could probably have children if she goes to the doctor.’
Some languages do not mark the degree of hypotheticality at all, at least not in their most common conditional sentence patterns. In these languages, a single sentence can be ambiguous between the reality, hypothetical, and counterfactual conditional readings; the intended meaning must be determined from context. For example, the Japanese sentence in (20) could be interpreted either as a hypothetical conditional (expressing the hope of a father whose son is missing in action), or as a counterfactual conditional (expressing the sorrow of a father whose son has been killed). Comrie (1986) mentions Mandarin and Indonesian as examples of other languages where a similar ambiguity is normal.
(20) Musuko=ga ikite i-tara, ii noni naa!
son=nom alive be-if good though exclam
‘If my son is alive, I’ll be so happy.’
or: ‘If my son were alive, I would be so happy.’16
To sum up, counterfactual conditionals get distinctive marking in many languages, but not in all languages. Now let us return to the fundamental question raised in §19.1: what does if mean?
8 See for example Comrie (1986); Thompson et al. (2007).
9 New York Daily News, 5 February 2007; cited in Gomes (2008).
10 Thompson et al. (2007).
11 The present subjunctive is identical to the bare infinitive form. It is archaic in conditionals, though still used occasionally in formal registers as in (10e), but preserved in other uses, including optatives (God bless you; long live the King).
12 Without any additional context, the subjunctive conditional in (13c) would most likely be interpreted as a counterfactual; but given the right context, the hypothetical reading is certainly possible as well.
13 Examples from Gomes (2008).
14 These examples are from Chung & Timberlake (1985: 251), who use the term irrealis mood for what I have called the subjunctive-conditional mood.
15 McCloskey (2001).
16 Akatsuka (1985: 627)