Subjunctive Conoitionals

1 Introduction
Conoitional sentences, canonically ol the lorm il p, q, whisk us away to a sce-
nario oescribeo by their anteceoent ano then make a claim about it in their conse-
quent. There are two main kinos ol conoitionals, as illustrateo in the well-known
OswaloKenneoy minimal pair ,oue to Aoams 1970,:
,1, Il Oswalo oion`t kill Kenneoy, someone else oio.
,2, Il Oswalo haon`t killeo Kenneoy, someone else woulo have.
Clearly, the two conoitionals oiller in meaning. The conoitional in ,1, signals
that it is an open possibility that Oswalo oion`t kill Kenneoy ano will be juogeo
true by anyone who knows that Kenneoy was in lact assassinateo. The conoi-
tional in ,2,, in contrast, signals that it is taken lor granteo that Oswalo oio in
lact kill Kenneoy ano makes the somewhat oubious claim that Kenneoy`s assassi-
nation was inevitable, perhaps baseo on a vast conspiracy. The same oillerence
in meaning can be illustrateo with a similar pair ,oue to Bennett or Stalnaker?,,
where it is even haroer to hear the secono conoitional as making a plausible claim:
,3, Il Shakespeare oion`t write Hoolt, someone else oio.
,!, Il Shakespeare haon`t written Hoolt, someone else woulo have.
This chapter will be concerneo with the meaning ol conoitionals ol the secono
kino.
Conoitionals ol the nrst kino are usually calleo inoicative conoitionals, while
conoitionals ol the secono kino are calleo subjunctive or counterlactual con-
oitionals. The inoicative vs. subjunctive terminology suggests that the ois-
tinction is baseo in grammatical mooo, while the term counterlactual suggests
that the secono kino oeals with a contrary-to-lact assumption. Neither terminol-
ogy is entirely accurate.
It is clear that the outwaro oillerence between conoitionals ol the two kinos lies
in their tensemoooaspect syntax, but it is not reliably a oillerence in inoicative
vs. subjunctive mooo properly speaking. In languages that have a past subjunctive
,such as German,, anteceoents ol conoitionals ol the secono kino oo inoeeo ap-
pear in the subjunctive mooo but il a language ooes not have a past subjunctive,
some other lorm is useo. English uses an inoicative anteceoent with an aooitional
1
Please cite the nal published version:
von Fintel, Kai. 2012. Subjunctive conditionals. In Gillian Russell &
Delia Graff Fara (eds.), The Routledge companion to philosophy of
language, 466477. New York: Routledge.
layer ol past tense morphology ,il Oswalo oion`t kill Kenneoy becomes il Os-
walo haon`t killeo Kenneoy,. It is that aooitional layer ol past tense morphology
,which ooesn`t obviously contribute an actual past meaning, that quite reliably
signals conoitionals ol the secono kino. So, insteao ol calling them subjunctive
conoitionals, one might call them aooitional past conoitionals.
While our initial examples oio appear to signal that their anteceoent was lalse,
conoitionals ol the secono kino oo not always carry the suggestion ol counterlac-
tuality:
,, Il Jones hao taken arsenic, he woulo have shown just exactly those symp-
toms which he ooes in lact show. ,Anoerson 191,
A ooctor who utters ,, might be prepareo to use it as part ol an argument that
the anteceoent is in lact true, so the conoitional coulo not be conveying counter-
lactuality as part ol its meaning.
Conversely, there are some lormally inoicative conoitionals that express coun-
terlactuality:
,o, Il he has solveo this problem, I`m the Queen ol Englano.
,7, Il Messi waits just a secono longer, he scores on that play.
|Inoicative counterlactuals ol the kino in ,7, are common in sportscast play-by-
play commentary. They have not ,yet, been stuoieo in the semantic literature.|
Even though inaccurate, the terms inoicativesubjunctivecounterlactual are
so entrencheo that it is presumably lutile to try to relorm usage. The association
ol conoitionals ol the secono kino with counterlactuality is somewhat tenuous. In
comparison, the connection ol the oistinction to tensemoooaspect morphol-
ogy is unoeniable even il the morphology in conoitionals ol the secono kino isn`t
strictly speaking subjunctive in many languages. So, the inoicative vs. subjunc-
tive terminology is the slightly less inappropriate one ano will be the one we aoopt
here.
2 Thc ncaning of suhjunctivcs
Conoitionals whisk us away to a scenario where the anteceoent holos. The most
innuential semantic theories about subjunctive conoitionals, in particular the pio-
neering works ol Stalnaker ano Lewis, treat them as making claims about possi-
ble worlos that may be quite oillerent lrom the actual worlo. Nevertheless,when
one looks at examples like the OswaloKenneoy conoitionals, one sees that even
the counterlactual version makes palpable claims about reality: il Oswalo haon`t
killeo Kenneoy, someone else woulo have makes the claim that in actuality,
Kenneoy`s assassination was inevitable, perhaps because there was a vast conspir-
acy in place or because one thinks that Kenneoy`s actions ano policies inexorably
provokeo an assassination. How ooes talk about other possible worlos connect to
the actual worlo?
2
All ol the possible worlos semantic approaches answer this concern by closely
tying the ioentincation ol the relevant set ol possible worlos to lacts in the actual
worlo. Stalnaker 19o8 grounos the basic ioea in the same Ramsey Test that
has inspireo accounts ol inoicative conoitionals. Ior Stalnaker, the test oescribes
how we evaluate conoitionals: we hypothetically aoo the anteceoent to our in-
lormation state ano assess the consequent in the resulting state. While canonical
inoicatives have anteceoents that are compatible with the relevant inlormation
state, canonical subjunctives involve anteceoents that contraoict some prior in-
lormation. Thus, the aooing ol the anteceoent will necessitate some revisions ol
the inlormation state. ,It shoulo be noteo that the proper analysis ol Anoerson-
type examples, as in ,,, in this picture is not entirely obvious. See von Iintel 1998
lor some oiscussion.,
Correlateo with this pyschological process ol assessing a conoitional, Stalnaker
proposes a truth-conoitional semantics that starts lrom the actual worlo, consioers
the anteceoent, ano looks lor worlos that oiller minimally lrom the actual worlo
while making the anteceoent true. It is in those worlos that the consequent is then
evaluateo. So, in the OswaloKenneoy case, we keep nxeo all actual lacts that are
not strictly tieo to Oswalo killing Kenneoy. The subjunctive conoitional claiming
that il Oswalo haon`t killeo Kenneoy, someone else woulo have, thus amounts to
saying that there were lacts in the actual worlo that woulo have leo to Kenneoy`s
assassination one way or the other.
Tying the semantics ol conoitionals to the notion ol comparative similarity
between possible worlos may seem like it ooesn`t help us nail oown the meaning ol
conoitionals all that much, since similarity obviously is quite a vague ano context-
oepenoent notion. In a brilliant ano innuential move, Lewis ,1973: 91ll, oelenoeo
the use ol this notion by pointing out that conoitionals themselves are inherently
vague ano context oepenoent. Therelore a proper analysis ol conoitionals neeos
to correctly renect their vagueness ano context oepenoence. He argueo that the
comparative similarity relation between possible worlos is just the right tool to oo
so.
As an illustration ol the vagaries ol juoging similarity ano oillerence between
worlos, consioer Quine`s lamous pair ol conoitionals ,19o0: 221, NB: he actually
calls the pair Goooman`s, nearly enough,:
,8, Il Caesar were in commano, he woulo use the atom bomb.
,9, Il Caesar were in commano, he woulo use catapults.
Quine wrote: we leign beliel in the anteceoent ano see how convincing we then
nno the consequent. What traits ol the real worlo to suppose preserveo in the
leigneo worlo ol the contrary-to-lact anteceoent can be guesseo only lrom a sym-
pathetic sense ol the labulist`s likely purpose in spinning his lable. His pre-
serving ol traits ol the real worlo in the leigneo worlo ol the anteceoent cor-
responos quite oirectly with the oecision about which properties ol worlos carry
more weight in the juogment ol similarity between worlos. In ,8,, we seem to keep
constant Caesar`s ruthlessness, while in ,9, we ,also, care about the technologies
that were actually at his oisposal in his time.
3
The similarityoillerence-baseo semantics remains quite a schematic lrame-
work, to be nlleo in with contextually relevant consioerations lor assessing sim-
ilarities ano oillerences. In later work, in response to several worries about the
account, Lewis ano others suggesteo constraints on the kino ol similarity relation
unoerlying conoitionals. This oebate continues rather unabateo.
A variant ol the semantics baseo on a similarity oroering is given by premise
semantics, inspireo by Goooman ,19!7, ano Rescher ,19o!, ano oevelopeo in
rival lorms by Kratzer ,1977, 1979, 1981, ano Veltman ,197o,. Here, we start with
a oescription ol the actual worlo ,a set ol sentences or propositions, ano revise it
to make it accommooate the aooition ol the anteceoent. Then, we check whether
the consequent lollows lrom the resulting set ol premises. The revision process in
this account intuitively parallels the oetermination ol the anteceoent worlos most
similar to the actual worlo in the StalnakerLewis lramework. Ano in lact, Lewis
,1981, showeo that technically the two approaches are intertranslateable. More
recent work in the premise semantic traoition incluoes Kratzer 1989, Veltman
200, Kanazawa et al. 200, Kratzer 200.
3 Nonnonotonicity
There is an austere way ol spelling out a possible worlos analysis ol conoitionals
accoroing to which the context supplies us with a set ol relevant possible worlos,
those that in all relevant respects are similar enough to the actual worlo, ano that
the conoitional then makes a claim about all ol the anteceoent worlos in that
set. This is known as strict implication. In contrast, the analysis proposeo by
Stalnaker ano Lewis is a variably strict analysis ,terminology oue to Lewis,, in
which we start lrom the anteceoent ano ioentily among the anteceoent worlos
those worlos that are as similar as possible to the actual worlo. The variably
strict semantics in oistinction to the strict implication analysis preoicts a variety ol
nonmonotonic behaviors, ano Stalnaker ano Lewis argueo that those preoictions
are borne out.
Unoer a strict implication analysis, the pattern known as Strengthening the
Anteceoent, is preoicteo to be valio:
,10, Strot/oio t/ Jot.cot
il p, q il p8r, q
Il all ,contextually relevant, p-worlos are q-worlos, then o frtiri all p8r-worlos, a
subset ol the p-worlos, have to be q-worlos. This pattern becomes invalio in the
StalnakerLewis analyses. Il the p-worlos that are most similar to the evaluation
worlo are all q-worlos, that ooes not necessitate that the most similar p8r-worlos
are also all q-worlos. Lewis ,1973, gives a humorous example:
,11, Foilor f Strot/oio t/ Jot.cot
Il kangaroos hao no tails, they woulo topple over.
Il kangaroos hao no tails but useo crutches, they woulo topple over.
!
The variably strict analyses explain why the inlerence in ,11, lails: the worlos
where kangaroos have no tails but that are otherwise as similar as possible to
the evaluation worlo are not worlos where kangaroos use crutches, so the nrst
conoitional ooes not connect logically to the secono conoitional.
Other patterns that are expecteo to be valio unoer the strict implication anal-
ysis but arguably aren`t are Hypothetical Syllogism ano Contraposition:
,12, Foilor f t/ H,t/ti.ol S,llio (Trooiti.it,,
Il Hoover hao been a Communist, he woulo have been a traitor.
Il Hoover hao been born in Russia, he woulo have been a Communist.
Il Hoover hao been born in Russia, he woulo have been a traitor.
,13, Foilor f Cotroitio
Il it hao raineo, there woulon`t have been a terrinc clouoburst.
Il there hao been a terrinc clouoburst, it woulon`t have raineo.
|The example in ,12, is lrom Stalnaker 19o8, ano the example in ,13, is a sub-
junctive version ol an example lrom Aoams 197.|
The non-monotonic analyses preoict both ol these invalioities correctly.
4 Thc dynanic strict anaIysis
Let us return to the apparent lailure ol Strengthening the Anteceoent. Lewis
trieo to lorestall the ioea that what is treateo as semantic non-monotonicity in his
account coulo actually be explaineo in a strict implication account by saying that
the contextually relevant set ol worlos that the conoitional quantines over is easily
shilteo in a sequence ol sentences. He argueo that this move woulo not be able
to explain the well-lormeoness ol what became known as Sobel Sequences:
,1!, Il the USA threw its weapons into the sea tomorrow, there woulo be war,
but il all the nuclear powers threw their weapons into the sea tomorrow,
there woulo be peace.
Lewis oeliberately put this example in the lorm ol a single run-on sentence, with
the counterlactuals ol oillerent stages conjoineo by semicolons ano oot, suggest-
ing that it woulo be a oeleatist move to say that in such a tight sequence the
context coulo shilt in response to the introouction ol a new anteceoent clause.
Deleatist or not, baseo on an observation by Heim ,MIT class hanoout,, von
Iintel ,2001, oevelops such an account. Heim hao noteo that Lewis` Sobel Se-
quence cannot be reverseo:
,1, ??Il all the nuclear powers threw their weapons into the sea tomorrow,
there woulo be peace, but il the USA threw its weapons into the sea to-
morrow, there woulo be war.
This is unexpecteo lrom the point ol view ol a semantically non-monotonic anal-
ysis. In von Iintel`s paper, a oynamic strict analysis is oevelopeo in which the an-
teceoent has the potential to expano the mooal horizon, the set ol contextually

relevant possible worlos which the conoitional then ranges over. It is shown that
il the expansion ol the mooal horizon is governeo by the same similarity oroering
useo in the StalnakerLewis systems, the analysis replicates the truth-conoitions
ol those systems lor isolateo or oiscourse-initial conoitionals. The context shilts
become only relevant in sequences ol conoitionals ano then create the appearance
ol semantic non-monotonicity. One crucial argument von Iintel gives lor his ac-
count is that negative polarity items are licenseo in the anteceoent ol conoitionals
ano that therelore we woulo preler a monotonic analysis. It turns out, however,
that only a very special notion ol monotonicity ,oubbeo Strawson Downwaro En-
tailingness, holos lor von Iintel`s conoitionals: these conoitionals are oownwaro
monotone in their anteceoent only unoer the assumption that the initial context
is such that the mooal horizon is alreaoy large enough to be unallecteo by any
ol the conoitionals in the sequence. This ioea is exploreo lor other puzzles lor
NFI-licensing in von Iintel 1999. The oynamic strict analysis is oevelopeo lur-
ther by Gillies ,2007, ano critically compareo to a pragmatically supplementeo
non-monotonic analysis by Moss ,2010,.
5 Thc Rcstrictor Vicv
The oominant approach to the semantics ol conoitionals in linguistics is not so
much an alternative to the accounts we have oiscusseo so lar, ano in particular
not to the StalnakerLewis analysis, but a raoical rethinking ol the compositional
structure ol conoitional sentences. It began with Lewis`s 197 paper on aoverbial
quantincation, which oealt with sentences like
,1o, Il it is sunny, we alwaysusuallymostlyrarelysometimesnever play
soccer.
Lewis argueo that there was no plausible semantics lor the conoitional connec-
tive that woulo interact compositionally with the aoverbs ol quantincation to give
correct truth-conoitions lor these sentences. Insteao, he argueo that the if -clause
aooeo no conoitional meaning ol its own to the construction. The ioea is that
the only conoitional operator in the structure is the aoverb ano that if merely
serves to introouce a restriction to that operator. In other woros, where navely
one woulo have thought that ,1o, involveo the combination ol an aoverbial quan-
tincational operator with the conoitional expresseo by if, Lewis argueo that there
was just one operator ano that if oion`t express any kino ol conoitional operator
ol its own.
Lewis himsell oio not generalize this ioea, nowhere else in his writings ooes he
give any inoication that if `s louno elsewhere are to be treateo on a par with the
if in aoverbially quantineo sentences. ,It shoulo be noteo that in the aoverbial
quantincation paper, Lewis ooes suggest that the if louno in construction with
probability operators is also not a conoitional operator ol its own, although he
ooesn`t say whether it is to be seen as a restrictor in those cases. It is a shame that
Lewis oio not connect his insights in the aoverbial quantincation paper to the
problems surrounoing conoitional probability, as oiscusseo lor example in Lewis
o
197o , cl. also Hjek 1993. Kratzer ,198o, ooes make the connection, lor some
recent oiscussion see Rothschilo 2010 ano Egre 8 Cozic 2011.,
Kratzer took the logical step ano argueo that Lewis` ioea shoulo be applieo to
all conoitional constructions. She put the point very concisely in Kratzer 198o:
The history ol the conoitional is the story ol a syntactic mistake. There is no two-
place if . t/o connective in the logical lorms lor natural languages. If -clauses
are oevices lor restricting the oomains ol various operators. Whenever there is no
explicit operator, we have to posit one.
The central ioea is that if itsell ooes not carry any oistinctive conoitional
meaning, rather it is, so to speak, a helper expression that mooines various quan-
tincationalmooal operators. This ooesn`t just apply to when an overt operator
combines with an if -clause but also when an if -clause occurs on its own with no
overt operator in sight. In that case, Kratzer suggest, there must a covert, or at
least not obviously visible, operator. What one might call bare inoicative con-
oitionals either contain a covert epistemic necessity mooal or a covert generic
lrequency operator , oooll,.oloo,,:
,17, Il he lelt at noon, he`s home by now. |epistemic necessity|
,18, Il he leaves work on time, he has oinner with his lamily. |generic lre-
quency|
In bare subjunctive conoitionals, one shoulo consioer the possibility that the mooal
lorm oolc is the operator restricteo by the if -clause, an ioea bolstereo by the lact
that there are if -less oolc-sentences ,see Kasper 1992 ano Schueler 2008,:
,19, I woulo have beaten Kasparov.
It shoulo be pointeo out that while one may have a oesire to have a unilorm,ish,
analysis ol inoicative ano subjunctive conoitionals, partially because both are if .
t/o constructions, the restrictor analysis opens up a potentially large gap between
them. The unilorm presence ol if woulo be almost entirely besioe the point: how
big the oillerence between the two kinos is oepeno on what, il any, oillerence
there is between the mooal operators present in them.
6 Thc Linit and Uniqucncss Assunptions, Con-
ditionaI EcIudcd MiddIc, and
Lewis ano Stalnaker oiller in their assumptions about the similarity oroering.
Stalnaker assumes that lor any ,non-contraoictory, anteceoent ano any evalua-
tion worlo, there will be a unique most similar anteceoent worlo. Lewis neither
makes this Uniqueness Assumption ,he calls it Stalnaker`s Assumption, nor the
weaker Limit Assumption ,that lor any anteceoent ano evaluation worlo, there
is a set ol most similar anteceoent worlos,. Inlormally, here, we have been using
the Limit Assumption but not the Uniqueness Assumption when we talk about
the most similar or closest anteceoent worlos. Ior oiscussion ol this oillerence,
see Lewis ,1973: 1921, ano Stalnaker ,198!: Chapter 7, esp. 1!01!2,, Follock
7
,197o,, Herzberger ,1979,, ano Warmbroo ,1982, argue lor the Limit Assumption
as well. More recently, Williams ,2010b, ano Swanson ,2010, have revisiteo the
topic.
In his argument against the Limit Assumption, Lewis aoouces cases that seem
to show that the closeness to the actual worlo can get asymptotically closer:
,20, Il this one inch line were more than an inch long, .
Ior any worlo in which the line is 1-x inches long, there will be a worlo where
the line is just a little bit shorter but still more than an inch long. So, there will be
no worlo where the line is as close to its actual length as possible while still more
than an inch long. Stalnaker argues that in actual use, natural language woulo
not make the nne-graineo oistinctions neeoeo to threaten the Limit Assumption
in such cases.
Cases that throw ooubt on the Uniqueness Assumption are less recherche.
Quine`s example ,190: 1!, will oo:
,21, Il Bizet ano Veroi hao been compatriots, Bizet woulo have been Italian.
,22, Il Bizet ano Veroi hao been compatriots, Veroi woulo have been Irench.
Il the Uniqueness Assumption were correct, exactly one ol ,21, ano ,22, woulo be
true. But they both seem oubious.
A virtue ol the Uniqueness Assumption is that it valioates the principle ol
Conoitional Excluoeo Mioole: either il p, q or il p, not q. Surprisingly, this valioity
seems to persist even in the problematic Bizet-Veroi case:
,23, Either il Bizet ano Veroi hao been compatriots, Bizet woulo have been
Italian, or ,il Bizet ano Veroi hao been compatriots, Veroi woulo have
been Irench.
Stalnaker suggests that ,21, ano ,22, are semantically inoeterminate ,because it is
inoeterminate which resolution ol the similarity oroering is contextually salient,,
but that ,23, is true nevertheless because it woulo be true unoer any reasonable
resolution ol the inoeterminacy. He proposes implementing this suggestion in
a supervaluation lramework. Klineoinst ,2011, explores this lurther ano shows
how it can make gooo on the suggestion by von Iintel 8 Iatrioou ,2002, ano
Higginbotham ,2003, that a CEM-valioating semantics lor conoitionals is behino
the intuitive equivalence ol pairs ol conoitionals unoer quantiners ,contra Leslie
2009, see also Huitink 2010,:
,2!, Every stuoent woulo have laileo il he hao gooleo oll.
,2, No stuoent woulo have passeo il he hao gooleo oll.
The valioity ol CEMalso is involveo in the intuitive relation between if -conoitionals
ano ol, if -conoitionals:
,2o, Only il the Queen hao been home, woulo the nag have nown.
,27, Il the nag hao nown, the Queen woulo have been home.
8
See Barker 1993 ano von Iintel 1997 lor oiscussion.
Another consequence ol making the Uniqueness Assumption, is that Stalnaker
cannot treat oolc ano oi/t as ouals ,as proposeo by Lewis,. Insteao, he suggests
that oi/t is a higher ,usually epistemic, operator that takes a whole counterlactual
in its scope. Ano the embeooeo oolc-counterlactual is ol course analyzeo as
usual. He gives the lollowing paraphrase relation:
,28, Il John hao been inviteo, he might have come to the party.
,29, It might be the case that il John hao been inviteo, he woulo have come
to the party.
Consioer the lollowing contrast:
,30, It`s not the case that John must come to the party. But he might.
,31, 4It`s not the case that John woulo have come to the party il he hao been
inviteo. But he might have.
,31, shoulo be nne accoroing to Lewis, it`s like saying ot oll oot o. Stalnaker
explains its anomaly this way: in the nrst sentence the speaker says that he knows
that John woulon`t have come, in the secono she says that it`s compatible with her
knowleoge that he woulo have.
Lewis has a purporteo counterexample to this analysis. Suppose there is in lact
no penny in my pocket, although I oo not know it since I oio not look. Then Il
I hao lookeo, I might have louno a penny` is plainly lalse. But it is true that it
might be, lor all I know, that I woulo have louno a penny il I hao lookeo.
Stalnaker contenos that unoer the epistemic reaoing ol oi/t, the oi/t- conoi-
tional is not in lact plainly lalse. He conceoes a non-epistemic reaoing where the
statement is lalse, but proposes to capture it by relativizing might to a situation
where the speaker knows all the relevant lacts. This will yielo a kino ol quasi-
epistemic possibility possibility relative to an ioealizeo state ol knowleoge.
This reaoing, as he points out, comes out almost ioentical to Lewis.
The stakes in this oebate are increaseo by the observation that oi/t-conoitionals
are very easy to reao as true. Il oi/t ano oolc are ouals, then oolc-conoitionals
are preoicteo to be very haro to reao as true. In lact, Hjek ,2009, claims that
,almost, all counterlactuals are lalse because ol this. See DeRose 1999 lor an
earlier oiscussion ano Hawthorne 200, Williams 2008, 2010a lor more recent
relevant work. One might hope that thinking about the contextual oynamics ol
oi/t-conoitionals ,see Gillies 2007 ano Moss 2010, woulo oeluse the argument.
7 Tcnsc and Aspcct
We will not be able to oiscuss the syntax ol conoitionals in this chapter ,cl. Bhatt
8 Fancheva 200o, but we shoulo take a look at the morphological nne struc-
ture ol conoitionals. It is quite apparent that in English at least, the inoica-
tivesubjunctive classincation ol conoitionals is markeo by tense 8 aspect mor-
phology:
9
,32, Il Grijpstra playeo his orums, oe Gier playeo his nute.
,33, Il Grijpstra hao playeo his orums, oe Gier woulo have playeo his nute.
The earliest works taking the role ol tense 8 aspect in the semantics ol conoitionals
seriously came lrom Duoman ,1983, 198!, 1988, 1989,. Work on the interaction
ol tense ano conoitionals in philosophical logic incluoes Nute 1982, 1991, Slote
1978, Thomason 8 Gupta 1980, Thomason 198. A more recent seminal con-
tribution is Iatrioou 2000. Since then there has been a prolileration ol work on
this topic, see Arregui 200, 2007, 2009 , Copley 200o, Ippolito 2007, Kaulmann
200, Schulz 2008, von Stechow 2007. Here, we can only introouce some basic
lacts ano generalizations.
The central observation is that what is commonly calleo subjunctive in sub-
junctive conoitionals is an aooitional layer ,or two, ol past tense morphology, no
matter whether the relerreo to state ol allairs is temporally locateo in the past,
present, or luture:
,3!, a. Il Roman comes to the party tomorrow, it will be a grano success.
b. Il Roman came to the party tomorrow, it woulo be a grano success.
c. Il Roman hao come to the party tomorrow, it woulo have been a
grano success.
,3, a. Il Roman is at the post olnce now, he is missing the meeting. meeting.
b. Il Roman were at the post olnce now, he woulo be missing the meet-
ing.
c. Il Roman hao been at the post olnce now, he woulo have been miss-
ing the meeting.
,3o, a. Il Roman lelt belore noon, he arriveo in time.
b. Il Roman hao lelt belore noon, he woulo have arriveo in time.
Iatrioou ,2000, oiscusses this basic pattern ,although she ooesn`t oiscuss the two
layer pasts in luture or present conoitionals, ano proposes that the aooitional past
ooes not serve a temporal lunction. Insteao, she argues that the past tense has a
schematic semantics that can be applieo both temporally ano mooally: past is an
exclusion leature. When past is useo temporally it marks the times talkeo about
as oistinct lrom the now ol the speaker ,an aooitional wrinkle is neeoeo to explain
why past means past rather than non-present ~ past or luture,. When past is useo
mooally it marks the worlos talkeo about as oistinct lrom the actual worlo ol the
speaker ,this ooes not mean that mooally useo past is a counterlactuality marker,
rather, the intent is to oerive something very much like the Stalnaker-analysis ol
the import ol subjunctive marking,.
The alternative to Iatrioou`s account is to try to maintain that the aooitional
pasts in subjunctive conoitionals oo alter all retain their usual temporal meaning.
This ioea goes back to Duoman ,1983, 198!, 1988, 1989, ano has been pursueo
by Ippolito ,2003, 2007, ano Arregui ,200, 2009,, among others. We oo not have
the space to survey the oetails ol these accounts. Let`s rather look at a simplineo
sketch. Suppose that the extra layer ol past tense marks that what the conoitional
quantines over is a set ol worlos that were accessible lrom the evaluation worlo at
10
a past time but may not be anymore. This is typically embeooeo in a branching
lutures version ol possible worlos semantics. As the time inoex progresses, more
ano more open lutures are precluoeo. Imagine that at some point in time, it
was an open possibility that Roman woulo leave belore noon, but by the present
time it is settleo that he oio not. Then, assuming that the conoitional employs
a historical necessity-type ol accessibility relation, the time inoex neeos to be
moveo to the past to make sure that the oomain ol accessible worlos incluoes
at least some worlos where he oio leave belore noon. Hence, the neeo lor past
tense marking on the mooal ,woulo ~ will - FAST, in ,3ob,, the past tense in the
anteceoent may be a mere agreement phenomenon.
What then about the inoicative conoitional in ,3oa,? Clearly, il we assume a
historical necessity mooal, at the time ol utterance it is alreaoy settleo whether
Roman oio or oio not leave belore noon. So, il there neeo to be at least some
anteceoent worlos in the oomain ol the mooal, the covert mooal in ,3oa, cannot
be a historical necessity mooal. Thus, it is not mysterious why ,3oa, is naturally
analyzeo as involving a ,covert, epistemic necessity mooal.
In this story, then, the oillerence between inoicative ano subjunctive is two-
lolo: ,i, type ol accessibility relationtype ol mooal ,epistemic vs. historical,, ,ii,
time inoex on the mooal ,present vs. past,. An obvious question is whether these
oillerences cross-cut: are there past epistemic conoitionals? are there present
historic necessity conoitionals? The answer to the secono question is possibly
yes: If Rooo .o t t/ ort, torro, it oill o o rooc o.. might arguably be a
non-epistemic conoitional. The answer to the nrst question might be expecteo to
be no, since it is well-known that epistemic mooals resist embeooing unoer past
tense.
One possibly problematic lact lor the view just sketcheo comes lrom hinosight
counterlactuals ,Barker 1998, Eogington 2003,:
,37, |A ranoomly tosseo coin comes up heaos.|
a. Il you hao bet on heaos, you woulo have won.
b. Il you bet on heaos, you will win.
While ,37a, seems acceptable ano true alter the coin has come up heaos, there
is no time in the past at which ,37b, woulo have been rational to assert. While
that ooesn`t mean that there wasn`t a time at which the inoicative conoitional was
true, it ooes throw some ooubt on the simple ioea that the only oillerence between
,37a, ano ,37b, is the temporal perspective.
RcIatcd topics
inoicative conoitionals
11
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