What is a counterfactual conditional relation?

Definition
	A counterfactual conditional relation is a conditional relation in which the form of expression of the antecedent and consequent marks them as imagined, nonfactual states or events.

Discussion

Comrie 1986:89–90 establishes that the putative English counterfactuals do not contain the nonfactuality of either the antecedent or the consequent as part of their inherent meaning. Thus, If you gave me a kiss, I’d buy you a beer does not express the impossibility of either the kiss or the beer. Additionally, in If the butler had done it, we would have found just the clues that we did in fact find, it is clear that the consequent is factual, and factuality of the antecedent is possible.

Example (English)
	If we were angels, we wouldn’t need police.

Generic
	A counterfactual conditional relation is a kind of
	What is a conditional relation?

Sources
	Beekman, Callow, and Kopesec 1981 104
	Longacre 1983 110
	Longacre 1985 245–246
	Comrie 1986 89–90
	Crystal 1985 79–80

Context for this page:

Concept module: counterfactual conditional relation
In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): C
In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 5 January 2004