19.7: Speech Act conditionals
- Last updated
- Save as PDF
- Page ID
- 138736
Relevance conditionals are often referred to as speech act conditionals, and in this section we try to understand why this label is appropriate. Let us begin by considering how a relevance conditional is used. As we noted in §19.2, relevance conditionals like those in (40) commit the speaker to believing that the consequent is true; and this raises the question of why a speaker who believes q would choose to say if p then q rather than just q?
(40) a. If you are hungry, there’s some pizza in the fridge.
b. If you need anything, my name is Arnold.
c. I am planning to watch Brazil vs. Argentina tonight, if you are interested.
d. You look like you need to sit down, if you don’t mind my saying so.
One important function of the if clause in such cases is to prevent unintended implicatures from arising and/or guide the hearer toward the intended implicature.34 If the speaker in (40a) simply announces There’s some pizza in the fridge, in a context where the topic of conversation is something other than left-over food, the comment will seem irrelevant. This could lead the hearer, who assumes that the speaker is observing the Maxim of Relevance (see Chapter 8), to seek an implicature which renders the statement relevant. But the context may not be adequate for the hearer to succeed in this attempt. (Was I supposed to clean the fridge? Is this fridge only supposed to be used for bio-medical supplies?) The conditional clause functions first as a relevance hedge, warning the hearer that the statement which follows may not be relevant if certain conditions do not hold. The conditional clause also serves to guide the hearer toward the intended implicature: in this example, the statement There’s some pizza in the fridge is intended as an indirect speech act, specifically an offer or invitation to have something to eat.
Similarly, the if clause in (40b) helps the hearer to correctly interpret the assertion in the consequent as an offer to be of service, rather than (for example) an initiation of mutual introductions. The if clause in (40c) helps the hearer to correctly interpret the consequent as an invitation to watch a soccer match.
The term relevance conditional reflects what is perhaps the most common function of the if clause in this construction, namely to specify the conditions under which the assertion in the consequent will be relevant. Now relevance is one of the felicity conditions for making an assertion; so the conditional clause is used by the speaker to avoid making an infelicitous assertion. The if clause in (49d) (if you don’t mind my saying so) functions as a politeness hedge, rather than a relevance hedge; but the basic function is again to avoid making an infelicitous assertion.
An important feature of relevance conditionals is that the consequent need not be an assertion at all; other speech acts are possible as well. The examples below show that the consequent of a relevance conditional may be a command (41a) or a question (41b–c).
(41) a. If you want my advice, ask her to marry you right away.
b. If you have heard from Michael recently, how is he doing?
c. What did you do with that left-over pizza, if you don’t mind my asking?
Once again, the if clause in such examples refers to the felicity conditions for performing the speech act expressed by the consequent. One of the felicity conditions for asking a question is that the speaker believes that the hearer has access to the information being requested. The if clause in (41b) specifies a condition under which it is reasonable to expect that the addressee will know something about Michael’s current situation. The if clauses in (41a, c) seem to address the preparatory conditions for commands and questions, respectively, which include the relationship between speaker and hearer, and the degree to which the speaker feels free to advise or ask the hearer on a particular topic.
In view of the fact that this construction can be used to hedge a variety of felicity conditions, and not just relevance, the more general term speech act conditionals seems quite appropriate. This label also suggests that these conditional clauses may function as speech act modifiers, similar to the speech act adverbials we discussed in Chapter 11. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the conditional relation between the two clauses can be questioned with standard conditionals, but not with speech act conditionals.
There is an important difference between relevance conditionals that contain questions, like that in (42b), vs. “questions about conditionals”, illustrated in (42a).35
(42) a. Q: If you inherit, will you invest?
A: Yes, if I inherit, I will invest.
b. Q: If you saw John, did you talk to him?
A: Yes, I talked to him.
A: #Yes, if I saw John, I talked to him.
In questions about conditionals (i.e., a standard conditional within an interrogative sentence), the conditional meaning is part of what is being questioned. Therefore it is natural and appropriate to include the conditional clause in the answer, as seen in (42a). In a speech act conditional that contains a question, however, the conditional meaning is not part of what is being questioned. Rather, the if clause specifies a condition under which it would be appropriate or felicitous to ask the question. Therefore it is not appropriate to include the conditional clause in the answer, as in (42b), except perhaps as a somewhat annoying joke. This contrast suggests that speech act conditionals function as illocutionary modifiers, rather than as part of the at-issue propositional content of the sentence.
Several syntactic differences have been noted between speech act conditionals and standard conditionals.36 First, speech act conditionals can only be embedded in the complements of indirect speech verbs, and not under propositional attitude verbs (43). Both kinds of embedding are possible for standard conditionals (44).
(43) a. John said that if you are thirsty there is beer in the fridge.
b. * John believes that if you are thirsty there is beer in the fridge.
(44) a. John said that if he drinks too much wine he gets dizzy.
b. John believes that if he drinks too much wine he gets dizzy.
Second, standard conditionals allow the consequent to be introduced with the pro-form then (45), but speech act conditionals do not (46).
(45) a. If it does not rain, then we will eat outside.
b. If I see him again, then I will invite him.
(46) a. #If I may be honest, then you are not looking good.
b. #If you want to know, then 4 isn’t a prime number.
c. #If you are thirsty, then there is beer in the fridge.
Third, the word order in Dutch and German seems to indicate that standard conditionals occupy a different structural position from speech act conditionals. As we mentioned in Chapter 18, Dutch and German are “verb-second” (V2) languages. This means that in main clauses (or, more generally, clauses not introduced by a complementizer), the inflected verb or auxiliary must immediately follow the first constituent of the clause. As the Dutch examples in (47–48) show,37 standard conditionals occupy the clause-initial position, causing the inflected verb to immediately follow the conditional clause. However, this is not the case with speech act conditionals. The fact that the main clause subject in (48) must precede the verb indicates that the conditional clause is not a constituent of the main clause at all; it attaches to some higher node in the sentence.
(47) a. [Als Jan weg-gaat] ga ik ook weg.
if John away-goes go I also away
‘If John goes away, I will go away too.’ [standard conditional]
b. *[Als Jan weggaat] ik ga ook weg.
(48) a. [Als je het wil weten] 4 is geen priem getal.
if you it want know 4 is no prime number
‘If you want to know, 4 is not a prime number.’ [speech act conditional]
b. *[Als je het wil weten] is 4 geen priem getal.
The minimal pair in (49) shows how word order can disambiguate standard conditionals vs. speech act conditionals in German.38 The main clause verb in (49a) immediately follows the conditional clause, forcing it to be interpreted as a standard conditional: I will stay home only if you need me. In contrast, the main clause verb in (49b) follows its subject NP, forcing it to be interpreted as a speech act conditional: I’ll be at home all day and you can reach me there if you need me. Again, the word order facts indicate that the standard conditional is embedded within the main clause, whereas the speech act conditional is not.
(49) a. [Wenn Du mich brauchst], bleibe ich den ganzen Tag zu Hause.
if you me need stay I the whole day at house
‘[If you need me], (only then) I will stay at home all day.’ [standard conditional]
b. [Wenn Du mich brauchst], ich bleibe den ganzen Tag zu Hause.
if you me need I stay the whole day at house.
‘[If you need me], I’ll be at home all day (anyway).’ [speech act conditional]
A final difference that we will mention here concerns the potential for pronouns to function as bound variables. A pronoun which occurs in the antecedent clause of a standard conditional can be interpreted as being bound by a quantifier phrase that occurs in the consequent clause. This was seen in example (29) above, repeated here as (50). However, this interpretation is not available in speech act conditionals, as illustrated in (51). This contrast provides additional evidence that the antecedent clause of a standard conditional is more tightly integrated into the syntax of the main clause than the antecedent clause of a speech act conditional.39
(50) a. [Every student]i will succeed if hei works hard.
b. [No student]i will succeed if hei goofs off.
(51) a. #[Every student]i should study trigonometry, if hei wants my opinion.
b. #[No student]i gave a very impressive speech, if hei doesn’t mind my saying so.
Concessive conditionals share some of these properties with relevance conditionals. For example, the concessive meaning is lost when the consequent contains then (52a), or when the conditional is embedded in the complement of a propositional attitude verb (52b). But the semantic function of concessive conditionals seems quite different from that of relevance conditionals.
(52) a. #If you were the last man on earth, then I would not marry you.
b. #Mary believes that if John were the last man on earth, she would not marry him.
Some of the similarities between concessive conditionals and relevance conditionals seem to be related to the fact that in both types, the speaker asserts that the consequent is true, without condition. This limits the kinds of inferences that can be triggered. For example, standard conditionals of the form if p then q typically create a generalized conversational implicature: p if and only if q. This implicature can be explained in terms of the maxim of Quantity. If the speaker was in a position to assert that q was true, whether or not p was true, then the most informative way to communicate this fact would be to simply say q. Saying if p then q is less informative, and so gives the hearer reason to infer that the speaker is not in a position to assert that q is true (53a). However, this implicature is not triggered by relevance or concessive conditionals (53b–c).
(53) a. If you take another step, I’ll knock you down.
(implicature: If you do not take another step, I will not knock you down.)
b. If you are hungry, there is some pizza in the fridge.
(does not implicate: If you are not hungry, there is no pizza in the fridge.)
c. I wouldn’t marry you if you were the last man on earth.
(does not implicate: I would marry you if you were not the last man on earth.)
We mentioned a related fact in Chapter 9, namely that the rule of modus tollens (denying the consequent) does not hold for all uses of the English word if. We can now see that the rule works for standard conditionals (54a), but not for relevance or concessive conditionals (54b–c).
(54) a. Mother said that if her meeting was cancelled, she would come home; but she’s not home, so I guess her meeting was not cancelled.
b. Mother says that if we are hungry, there’s some pizza in the fridge; but there’s no pizza in the fridge, #so I guess we are not hungry.
c. I wouldn’t marry that man (even) if he became a millionaire; #so if I end up marrying him, you will know that he did not become a millionaire.
It seems natural to ask whether the analysis we outlined in §19.5 for standard conditionals can be extended to account for speech act conditionals as well. In Chapter 18 we analyzed the contrast between truth-conditional vs. speech act uses of because as a case of pragmatic ambiguity: a single sense used in two different ways. In the truth-conditional use (55a), because indicates a causal relation between two propositions. In the speech act use, because indicates a causal relation between the truth of a proposition and the performance of a speech act. We might paraphrase (55b) as meaning something like: ‘Because I would like to come and visit you, I hereby ask you whether you are going out tonight.’
(55) a. Mary scolded her husband because he forgot their anniversary again.
b. Are you going out tonight, because I would like to come and visit you.
A somewhat parallel approach to speech act conditionals is possible. Our discussion at the beginning of this section suggests that the antecedent of a speech act conditional specifies a condition under which the speech act performed in the consequent will be felicitous, whereas the antecedent in standard conditionals specifies a condition under which the proposition expressed in the consequent will be true.
34 DeRose & Grandy (1999); Franke (2007)
35 This point is made by van der Auwera (1986), which is also the source of the examples in (42).
36 Bhatt & Pancheva (2006).
37 Examples (47–48) are originally from Iatridou (1991: ch. 2).
38 The examples in (49) are from Scheffler (2013: 102).
39 See Ebert et al. (2008) for similar examples in German.