1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910456201203321

Autore

Dancygier Barbara

Titolo

Conditionals and prediction : time, knowledge, and causation in conditional constructions / / Barbara Dancygier [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 1998

ISBN

1-107-11427-6

0-511-15094-6

0-521-59151-1

1-280-42925-9

0-511-17240-0

0-511-05427-0

0-511-48646-4

0-511-32477-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (x, 214 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Collana

Cambridge studies in linguistics ; ; 87

Disciplina

425

Soggetti

English language - Conditionals

English language - Sentences

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 197-205) and indexes.

Nota di contenuto

1. Conditionals as a category -- 2. Prediction and distance: time and modality in conditional clauses -- 3. Relations between the clauses in conditional constructions -- 4. Knowledge and conditional protases -- 5. Conditional clauses: form and order -- 6. If and other conditional conjunctions -- 7. Conclusion: prototypical conditionality and related constructions.

Sommario/riassunto

This book offers a new and in-depth analysis of English conditional sentences. In a wide-ranging discussion, Dancygier classifies conditional constructions according to time-reference and modality. She shows how the basic meaning parameters of conditionality correlate to formal parameters of the linguistic constructions which are used to express them. Dancygier suggests that the function of prediction is central to the definition of conditionality, and that conditional sentences display certain formal features which correlate to



aspects of interpretation. Although the analysis is based primarily on English, it provides a theoretical framework that can be extended cross-linguistically to a broad range of grammatical phenomena. It will be essential reading for scholars and students concerned with the role of conditionals in English and many other languages.