The irrealis if-clause construction has been studied in detail by Pullum

(1987), and more recently by Rocchi (2011), who provides additional

syntactic arguments. In brief (we do not have space to illustrate these
points here),

irrealis if does not prepose the way conditional adjuncts readily do;

irrealis if does not define a non-affirmative polarity context the way

conditional if does;

irrealis if cannot be paraphrased with unless;

irrealis if cannot be modified by only, but only, or even;

irrealis if introduces clauses that can be used as polite requests (I’d

prefer it if you left, please) where conditional if does not (*If you left,
I’d prefer it, please);

irrealis if cannot take subclausal constituents as its complement the

way conditional if does;

irrealis if does not define its complement as an island for extraction

(note I enclose a contract which I’d be grateful if you’d sign __ and
return __ to me);

irrealis if introduces a clause that can be the focus of a pseudocleft

(What would be great is if she came too) where conditionals cannot;

irrealis if clauses show a strong preference for being extraposed, and

they do not occur as subjects; but we believe it is clear enough that
the item that introduces them is not the conditional preposition if but
a new item belonging to the subordinator category.