Department of Cognitive and Decision Psychology, University of Göttingen.
School of Human Sciences, University of Greenwich.
Cogn Sci. 2021 Nov;45(11):e13058. doi: 10.1111/cogs.13058.
It is widely held that there are important differences between indicative conditionals (e.g., "If the authors are linguists, they have written a linguistics paper") and subjunctive conditionals (e.g., "If the authors had been linguists, they would have written a linguistics paper"). A central difference is that indicatives and subjunctives convey different stances toward the truth of their antecedents. Indicatives (often) convey neutrality: for example, about whether the authors in question are linguists. Subjunctives (often) convey the falsity of the antecedent: for example, that the authors in question are not linguists. This paper tests prominent accounts of how these different stances are conveyed: whether by presupposition or conversational implicature. Experiment 1 tests the presupposition account by investigating whether the stances project-remain constant-when embedded under operators like negations, possibility modals, and interrogatives, a key characteristic of presuppositions. Experiment 2 tests the conversational-implicature account by investigating whether the stances can be cancelled without producing a contradiction, a key characteristic of implicatures. The results provide evidence that both stances-neutrality about the antecedent in indicatives and the falsity of the antecedent in subjunctives-are conveyed by conversational implicatures.
人们普遍认为，陈述条件句（例如，“如果作者是语言学家，那么他们写了一篇语言学论文”）和虚拟条件句（例如，“如果作者是语言学家，他们本来会写一篇语言学论文”）之间存在重要差异。一个主要的区别是，指示条件句和虚拟条件句传达了对其先行词真实性的不同态度。指示词（通常）传达中立性：例如，关于所讨论的作者是否是语言学家。虚拟条件句（通常）传达先行词的虚假性：例如，所讨论的作者不是语言学家。本文测试了关于如何传达这些不同态度的几种突出解释：是通过预设还是会话含义。实验 1 通过调查否定、可能性模态和疑问句等算子下的立场是否保持不变——这是预设的一个关键特征，来测试预设理论。实验 2 通过调查是否可以取消立场而不产生矛盾——这是含义的一个关键特征，来测试会话含义理论。结果表明，这两种立场——指示句中对先行词的中立性和虚拟句中对先行词的虚假性——都是通过会话含义来传达的。
