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Subjunctive conditionals’ local contexts

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An Addendum to this article was published on 22 April 2019

A Correction to this article was published on 18 March 2019

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Abstract

Philippe Schlenker gives a method of deriving local contexts from an expression’s classical semantics. In this paper I show that this method, when applied to the traditional variably strict semantics for subjunctive conditionals of Robert Stalnaker, David Lewis, and Angelika Kratzer, delivers an empirically incorrect prediction. The prediction is that the antecedent of a conditional should have the whole domain of possible worlds as its local context and therefore should be allowed to have only necessary presuppositions. In the later part of the paper, I suggest the outlines of a solution to the problem. The solution involves adding a shifting contextual restriction on the domain of possible worlds.

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  • 18 March 2019

    In the original publication of an article, the citation of section 3 was missing in the published version. Now the same has been published in this correction.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Simon Goldstein, Kai von Fintel and the anonymous referees for helpful discussion. Support for this research was provided by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Education with funding from the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation.

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Correspondence to John Mackay.

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Mackay, J. Subjunctive conditionals’ local contexts. Linguist and Philos 42, 207–221 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10988-018-9240-4

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