The Time of Possibilities: Truth and Felicity of Subjunctive Conditionals
, M. Ippolito 2002
This dissertation is a study of modality and, in particular, of conditional statements within the framework of possible world semantics. I argue that in order to understand what the meaning of a modal sentence is we need to look closely at the internal composition of accessibility relations. Accessibility relations are shown to be complex relations involving both a world and a time evaluation, and it is shown that temporal and aspectual operators can be interpreted in the modal domain, and may not occur inside the scope of the modal operator. When interpreted in this position, temporal and aspectual operators contribute to the selection of the possible worlds by defining the relevant notion of accessibility. Capitalizing on work by Irene Heim, David Lewis and Robert Stalnaker, I show that this proposal allows us to develop a semantic analysis of those conditionals that are traditionally called subjunctive conditionals, and to provide an answer to how to select the worlds that the modal operator quantifies over. Finally, I argue that the semantic analysis of the asymmetry of counterfactual dependence discussed by Lewis (1979) cannot be maintained in that it does not account for the contrast between the felicity conditions of different types of subjunctive conditionals. Instead, I contend that our theory based on a time-dependent notion of accessibility can.
Thesis Supervisor: Irene Heim
Title: Professor of Linguistics
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Introduction 10
I. Modality and the selection of possible worlds 10
II. Subjunctive conditionals 14
III. Overview of the dissertation 18
Chapter 2 Temporal Mismatches in Subjunctive Conditionals: The Puzzle 20
I. Future counterfactuals 20
II. Temporal mismatches 23
III. A theory of mismatched past subjunctive conditionals: Ogihara
(2000) 29
Chapter 3 A Semantic Analysis of Subjunctive Conditionals 36
Part I: Subjunctive conditionals 36
I. Introduction 36
II. The puzzle of subjunctive conditionals 45
II.1 How to revise the context set 48
II.2 The puzzle of subjunctive conditionals revisited 51
Part II: What looks like past is perfect 55
I. The semantic analysis of subjunctive conditionals 55
I.1 What looks like past is perfect 56
II. The puzzle of subjunctive conditionals solved 65
II.1 Indicative conditionals 74
II.2 Implicature 77
III. Conclusion 82
Chapter 4 Temporal Mismatches in Subjunctive Conditionals: The Solution 84
I. Mismatched past subjunctive counterfactuals 84
II. Proposal 87
II.1 The felicity puzzle: one versus two layers of past 90
II.2 Cancelability 93
III. Entailment and anaphora 94
IV. Presuppositions without presupposition triggers 103
IV.1 Definite descriptions of events 105
V. A classification of conditionals 114
VI. The content of accessibility relations 117
VI.1 Worlds and direction of time: Lewis 1979 118
VI.2 Overall similarity is not enough 121
VI.3 The time of divergence 123
VII. Conclusion 126
Chapter 5 The Perfect in Disguise 128
I. High and low perfects 128
II. The perfect of evidentiality 142
III. Conclusion 151
Chapter 6 Remarks on Inverted Conditionals and Conclusion 154
I. Inverted conditionals 154
II. Conclusion of the dissertation 164