Three types of conditionals and their verb forms in English and Portuguese
Cognitive Linguistics 19 (2):219-240 (2008)
Abstract
An examination of conditionals in di¤erent languages leads to a distinction
of three types of conditionals instead of the usual two (indicative and subjunctive).
The three types can be explained by the degree of acceptance or
as-if acceptance of the truth of the antecedent. The labels subjunctive and
indicative are shown to be inadequate. So-called indicative conditionals
comprise two classes, the very frequent uncertain-fact conditionals and the
quite rare accepted-fact conditionals. Uncertain-fact conditionals may have
a time shift in contemporary English and the future subjunctive in Portuguese
(though not all of them do). Moreover, paraphrases of if with in
case or supposing are usually possible with approximately the same meaning.
Accepted-fact conditionals never have these features.
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Archival date: 2018-07-13
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2016-06-30
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192 ( #2,450 of 56,888 )
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