Coordinating If s
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CoordinatingIfs-Revision-2.pdf
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Accepted version
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406.98 KB
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Adobe PDF
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51b0b4567744dba36a235060f9f8f905
Author(s)
Khoo, Justin
Date Issued
2021
Journal
Journal of Semantics
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Citation
Khoo, Justin. 2021. "Coordinating If s." Journal of Semantics, 38 (2).
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Abstract
Accounting for the behavior of conjoined and disjoined if-clauses is not easy for standard theories of conditionals that treat if as either an operator or restrictor. In this paper, I discuss four observations about coordinated if-clauses, and motivate a semantics for conditionals that reorients the compositional structure of the restrictor theory. On my proposal, if-clauses provide restrictions on modal domains, but they do so by way of a higher type intermediary—a set of propositions—that is collapsed by the modal. I argue that combining this view with an independently plausible type-shifting operation applied to or and and predicts the range of data we find for conditionals with coordinated if-clauses.
Accounting for the behavior of conjoined and disjoined if-clauses is not easy for standard theories of conditionals that treat if as either an operator or restrictor. In this paper, I discuss four observations about coordinated if-clauses, and motivate a semantics for conditionals that reorients the compositional structure of the restrictor theory. On my proposal, if-clauses provide restrictions on modal domains, but they do so by way of a higher type intermediary—a set of propositions—that is collapsed by the modal. I argue that combining this view with an independently plausible type-shifting operation applied to or and and predicts the range of data we find for conditionals with coordinated if-clauses.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1093/JOS/FFAB006