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On the contribution of conditionalthen

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Abstract

This paper addresses the question of whether the appearance ofthen in a conditional construction has any effect on the meaning of the sentence as a whole. It will be suggested thatthen does make a contribution by way of a particular presupposition associated with it. This also results inthen sometimes conflicting with the intended meaning of the sentence; in such cases its appearance is precluded. Certain aspects of the syntax ofthen will be discussed in parallel.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Linguistics Department, University of Pennsylvania, 619 Williams Hall, 19104, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Sabine Iatridou

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  1. Sabine Iatridou
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Additional information

I have greatly benefited from discussions with Kai von Fintel, Michael Hegarty, and Irene Heim. I cannot imagine having written this paper without their help. For very helpful comments I would also like to thank Noam Chomsky, Angelika Kratzer, Howard Lasnik, Young-Suk Lee, Kostas Marinos, David Pesetsky and aNALS reviewer. Parts of this paper appeared in the proceedings ofNELS 22 (1991) with the title ‘If ‘then’ then what?’

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Iatridou, S. On the contribution of conditionalthen . Nat Lang Seman 2, 171–199 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01256742

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