The pragmantax of some Italian conditionals

Journal of Pragmatics 21 (1994) 123-140 123 North-Holland

The pragmantax of some Italian conditionals*

M a r c o Mazzo len i

Received November 1991 ; revised version May 1993

In Italian, thematic or resumptive conditionals, 'Dutchman Sentences', conditional inducements and deterrents, and conditional speech acts can only be found as indicative conditionals, and (almost) never as subjunctive conditionals. In the present paper, I argue that this morphosyntactic constraint on four types of 'pragmatic' conditional depends on the interrelation between their specific pragmatic features and the semantics of mood choice in the standard Italian conditional system of moods and tenses, which will be analyzed, together with the basic meaning of se ('if'), in a neo-Gricean fashion.

1. Introduction

In standard Italian, conditional sentences can appear as indicative conditionals (i.e., conditional sentences with indicativo in both protasis and apodosis), or as subjunctive conditionals (i.e., conditional sentences with congiuntivo imperfetto/trapassato in the protasis and condizionale semplice/composto in the apodosis 1 - for the terminology of Italian moods and tenses, see Bertinetto, 1986):

(la) Se vieni a cena da noi, incontrerai sicuramente Maria. ' If you come to dinner, you'll surely meet Mary. '

(lb) Saremmo molto contenti se Enrico venisse per Pasqua. 'We would be very happy if Henry came to stay for Easter.'

Correspondence to." M. Mazzoleni, Viale Giacomo Matteotti 73/E, 1-27100 Pavia, Italy. * This paper is based on a report presented at the Second International Congress of Societd Internazionale di Linguistica e Filologia Italiana (Cambridge, U.K., March 24-27, 1991), previous Italian versions of which can be found in Mazzoleni (1992, in press a). I wish to thank Carla Bazzanella, Adriano Colombo, Maria-Elisabeth Conte, Giorgio Graffi and the anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Pragmatics for their kind advice and suggestions: they should obviously not be held responsible for any errors in the final outcome. 1 The fact that standard Italian subjunctive conditionals contain congiuntivo in the protasis and condizionale in the apodosis is just a diachronic 'accident': in other Italian varieties, as in other languages of the world, protases and apodoses have the same mood.

0378-2166/94/$07.00 © 1994 - - Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved SSDI 0378-2166(93)E0050-A

124 M. Mazzoleni / Pragrnantax of some Italian conditionals

(lc) Se non aveste tardato, non avreste perso il treno. ' I f you hadn't been late, you wouldn't have missed the train.'

It seems, however, that some specific kinds of conditional sentence cannot appear as subjunctive conditionals: examples (2b), (3b), (4b,c) and (5b,c), in fact, lose the specific sense connected to their indicative versions (2a), (3a), (4a) and (5a), the result being that they are unacceptable or may be interpreted as 'normal' conditionals only: z

(2a) Sea l mare ti abbronzi, in montagna puoi passeggiare. 'While [literally: 'if'] you can sunbathe at the seaside, you can go for walks in the mountains. '

(2b) 77Se al mare ti abbronzassi/fossi abbronzato, in montagna potresti/ avresti potuto passeggiare. 'While/If you could sunbathe/could have sunbathed at the seaside, you could go/could have gone for walks in the mountains. '

(3a) Se tu canti bene, io sono Sting. ' I f you're a good singer, I 'm a Dutchman [Sting].'

(3b) 77Se tu cantassi/avessi cantato bene, io sarei/sarei stato Sting. ' If you were/had been a good singer, I would be/would have been a Dutchman [Sting].'

(4a) Se non alzi le mani sparo. ' If you don' t hold up your hands, I'll shoot. '

(4b) ~Se non alzassi le mani sparerei. ' I f you didn't hold up your hands, I would shoot. '

(4c) 77Se non avessi alzato le mani avrei sparato. ' If you hadn't held up your hands, I would have shot.'

(5a) Se hai sete, in frigo c'6 della birra. ' If you're thirsty, there's some beer in the fridge.'

(5b) 7Se avessi sete, in frigo ci sarebbe della birra. ' I f you were thirsty, there would be some beer in the fridge.'

(5c) ??Se avessi avuto sete, in frigo ci sarebbe stata della birra. ' I f you had been thirsty, there would have been some beer in the fridge.'

2 This kind of interpretation appears clearly in (4c), which thus loses the explicit threat value of (4a), while it appears more difficult for (2b), (3b) and (5c); (4b) and (5b), on the other hand, seem to be a very 'weak' threat and offer respectively (cf. section 5).

I will use a single/double superscript question mark ~/~ - to signal the weaker/stronger unacceptability of some examples.

M. Mazzoleni / Pragmantax of some Italian conditionals 125

I shall try to provide an explanation for such an ' intolerance': firstly, I shall give a semantic description of conditional sentences (i.e., of the meaning of se - 'if '), which will make it possible to identify the specific features of the conditionals reported in examples (a); then, I shall expound on how the sense of these four types of sentence clashes with the semantics of subjunctive conditionals, thus motivating the peculiarity of the utterances shown in examples (b) and (c) above. 3

2. The semantics of s e

Passing now to the semantics of conditional sentences, it may be stated that the use of se has two correlated effects. First of all, the truth value of the proposition expressed by the protasis (henceforth indicated as p) affects the status of the proposition expressed by the apodosis (henceforth indicated as q), so that p and q must be considered jointly (see Dik, 1990: 237; by status, I mean the truth value in the simpler case of assertions, and/or the communicative relevance in more general terms, and for other kinds of speech act). Secondly, "it is a well-known fact that the proposition in the antecedent of a conditional sentence is not asserted but 'left o p e n ' " (Lehmann, 1974: 236): in doing so the speaker is not taking complete responsibility for the truth of p and q (I shall use truth or truth value as an abbreviation for the truth value and/or communicative relevance of q, as in Johnson-Laird, 1986: 69), and thus the Gricean maxim of quality, with the two sub-maxims, 4 or, in other words, the Fregean and Russellian 'assertion sign' or 'sign of subscription' (Hare, 1970: 90f.), is suspended. Let us now see this machinery at work, at an intuitive level, through some examples.

In uttering a protasis, the speaker hypothesizes a proposi t ion which serves as a condition for the proposi t ion expressed by the apodosis. For example, an utterance of (6) hypothesizes that when the condition of an early departure (i.e., p) is fulfilled, a safe journey without much traffic (i.e., q) will be the outcome; if an early departure is followed by a journey in heavy traffic (i.e., not q), the utterance of (6) will be considered bad advice, or a mistaken prediction: the semantics of a conditional sentence will not allow p to be true and q to be false. The two proposit ions are neither entailed nor independently asserted, but given p, q should follow: they should both be true.

3 My work owes very much to the papers collected in Traugott et al. (1986), and in particular to Comrie (1986), for the inspiration it gave me. For other various aspects of Italian conditional sentences, see Mazzoleni (1991b). 4 "Try to make your contribution one that is true. 1. Do not say what you believe to be false. 2. Do not say that for which you lack evidence" (Grice, 1975: 45f., quoted in Horn, 1984: 12).

126 M. Mazzoleni / Pragmantax of some Italian conditionals

(6) Se partiamo abbastanza presto, non troveremo molto traffico. ' If we leave early enough, there won't be much traffic.'

But the meaning of a conditional sentence is not exhausted by the features presented so far: in ordinary, daily conversation, an utterance of (6) suggests that a late departure (i.e., not p) will result in a journey in heavy traffic (i.e., not q). In the terms of Geis and Zwicky (1971), a sentence of the 'se p, q'-type invites the inference: 'se not p, not q'; example (7) can therefore be said to be the inference invited by (6). If a late departure is followed by a completely smooth journey, with no other cars about (i.e., q), the utterance of (6) will again be considered b a d advice, or a m i s t a k e n prediction: the semantics of a conditional sentence will not allow p to be false a n d q to be true. If the two propositions are not both true, they should both be false.

(7) Se non partiamo abbastanza presto, troveremo molto traffico. ' If we don' t leave early enough, the traffic will be heavy.'

Putting these two aspects of the meaning of a conditional sentence together, we can say that the two propositions p and q could both be true or both be false: they should have the s a m e truth value, be it truth or falsehood. However, this truth-conditional meaning, obtained by combining (6) and its invited inference (7), is directly and explicitly expressed by a conditional sentence with the protasis introduced by solo se ('only if'), as in (8), a kind of construction normally called bi-conditional: using again the words of Geis and Zwicky (1971), conditional sentences are normally perfected into bi- conditionals via the invited inference.

(8) Solo se partiamo abbastanza presto non troveremo molto traffico. 'Only if we leave early enough, will we avoid heavy traffic.'

This does not mean, however, that se and solo se are synonymous, nor that conditional and bi-conditional sentences have the same meaning. While a bi- conditional cannot be interpreted without the invited inference, a conditional construction m a y be interpreted as a bi-conditional, but needn't be interpreted as such: a s i m p l e conditional sentence can just have the 'non-perfected' meaning, which means that se is not interchangeable with solo se in any context. This is clearly visible in example (9a), a recent Italian national lottery advertisement, which obviously means that if you don' t take part in the game (p), you don' t stand a chance of winning a prize (q): it is by no means equally obvious, however, that, if you do play (not p), you will surely win a prize (not q). Hence, in (9a) se can in no way be substituted by solo se: (9b) is not acceptable.


(9a) Se non giochi non vinci. ' I f you don ' t play, you won' t win.'

(9b) 77Solo se non giochi non vinci. 'Only if you don ' t play, will you not win.'

It follows that, in the case of bi-conditionals, the invited inference can be considered a conventional implicature, 5 i.e. a piece of meaning not cancelable, and detachable (by substituting solo se for example with a bare se), while in the case of simple conditional sentences, the invited inference is 'normally ' present, cancelable in specified contexts, and not detachable - cf. examples (12a,b,c,d) in section 3 below, which do not take the form of conditional sentences, but license the same pragmatic inference. It should therefore be considered a generalized conversational implicature, not based on the maxim of quantity (see Horn, 1984:18 f.), because, in this case, the outcome would be wrong: the speaker actually says se; s/he could have said solo se but did not, which means that s/he is not in the position to entail the proper meaning of solo se. The invited inference is a generalized conversational implicature based on Horn ' s (1984) R-principle, a basic mechanism of speaker economy by which the addressee is authorized to infer from an utterance anything related to and not incompatible with the current linguistic exchange and with her/his knowledge of the world. In the particular case of conditionals interpreted as bi-conditionals, the mechanism works more or less in the following manner: the speaker says that q depends on p, so q is not taken for granted; probably, in the absence of p, there would also be absence of q, otherwise the speaker would not have bothered to say that q depends on p. Hence the invited inference is licensed, but could be canceled if it were known that q may occur despite the absence of p, as in example (9a).

3. Four types of 'pragmatic' conditional6

Let us now try to identify the other specific characteristics o f the four kinds of conditional sentence exemplified in (2a), (3a), (4a) and (5a): thematic or resumptive conditionals, 'Du tchman Sentences', the hypotactic conditional versions of pseudo-imperatives, and conditional speech acts, respectively.

5 For the common terms (and concepts) of conventional and conversational implicatures and their sub-types, and for the tests of cancelability, detachability and so on, see, for example, Levinson (1983: 155-175). 6 I use the adjective 'pragmatic' as a cover term, since the effects of pragmatic factors in the semantics and morphosyntax of conditional sentences are widespread and pervasive (see, for instance, the special issue of the Journal of Pragmatics 7(3), 1983, edited by Johan Van der Auwera; further the papers by Haegeman, 1984; K6nig and Van der Auwera, 1988; K6peke and Panther, 1989). For the four kinds of pragmatic conditional analyzed in my paper, see also Akatsuka (1986).

128 M. Mazzoleni / Pragmantax o f some ltalian conditionals

A thematic or resumptive conditional (see Haiman, 1978; Bazzanella, 1989) is properly characterized by a protasis expressing a proposition which is presupposed to be true by virtue of the relationship between the propositional content and the encyclopedia, as in (2a), or between the propositional content and the linguistic context, as in (10a), or between the propositional content and the situational context of the utterance, as in (10b); the unquestioned truthfulness of p blocks the invited inference, and hence modus ponens may be applied (see Veltman, 1986: 162), which automatically leads to the interpretation of q as true.

(10a) A: Non ho voglia di andare al cinema. B: Se non vuoi andare al cinema, allora restiamo a casa. 'A: I don ' t feel like going to the movies. B: I f you don ' t want to go to the movies, we'll stay at home. '

(10b) Se sono qui dopo tutto quello che 6 successo, vuol dire che ti ho perdonato. ' I f I 'm here, after what has happened, it means I have forgiven you. '

A 'Dutchman Sentence', instead, is characterized by an apodosis expressing an overtly false proposition, due to its relationship with the situational context of the utterance, as in (3a). The obvious falsehood of q licenses the invited inference, and hence modus tollens 7 may be applied, which automatically leads to the interpretation of p as false.

A very similar effect (though not identical to that of real 'Dutchman Sentences') can be obtained in at least three other ways: by a conditional sencence containing an imperative apodosis, as in (1 la), normally interpreted as a challenge which will not be taken up by the addressee, precisely because s/he is not in the conditions suggested in the protasis (the propositional content of which is hence false); by a conditional sentence containing an interrogative apodosis, as in ( l ib ) , with a propositional content heavily questioning that of the protasis; finally, by a conditional sentence the apodosis of which expresses a (false) idea suggested by the addressee, preceded by a protasis whose propositional content is its basic assumption - clearly false, as in ( l lc) . In this latter type of sentences, also called sarcastic conditionals (Comrie, 1986: 90f.; Dik, 1990: 248f.), it is, however, the falsehood of p which affects q.

7 For this idea, see Manzotti (1988: 82-84). It is worth noting that modus tollens is applicable only to bi-conditionals, or to sentences which may be interpreted as such: from 'If it rains the road gets wet' and 'It has not rained' one cannot usually conclude 'The road is dry' - this would be a case of the classical logical fallacy of 'denying the antecedent', also described by Geis and Zwicky (1971).


(1 la)

( l lb )

( l lc)

Se lei 6 un poliziotto, mi mostri subito la sua tessera. ' If you're a policeman, show me your badge right away.' Se sei cosi in gamba come dici, come mai non hai un soldo? 'If you're so smart as you say, how is it you're penniless?' (A and B have just landed in Amsterdam - Schiphol) A: Siamo ancora in Belgio, vero? B: Se Amsterdam 6 in Belgio, allora siamo in Belgio. 'A: We're still in Belgium, aren't we? B: If A. is in Belgium, then we're still in Belgium.'

A pseudo-imperative (see Haiman, 1983, 1996: 218; Bolinger, 1967: 340- 346), like its hypotactic conditional version (conditional inducement or deter- rent, in Fillenbaum's (1986) terms), is usually adopted to perform 'purposive' speech acts whose main issue is the perlocutionary effect: the speaker wishes to produce or avoid a situation, the control of which (partly at least) depends on the addressee. To this end the speaker may contribute desirable effects and hence commit her/himself to making promises or giving advice, as in (12a,b); otherwise, s/he may 'contribute' definitely undesirable effects, and hence utter threats as in (12c,d):

(12a)

(12b)

(12c)

(12d)

Lavami la macchina e ti do cinque dollari. 'Wash my car and I'll give you $5.' Dammi retta e non te ne pentirai. 'Listen to me and you won't regret it.' Ripetilo e ti rompo le ossa. 'Say that again and I'll break your bones.' Alza le mani o sparo. 'Hold up your hands, or I'll shoot. '

In the interpretation of pseudo-imperatives, the addressee acts as if s/he were faced with their hypotactic conditional versions - exemplified below, (13a) to (16b) - and must decide whether s/he wishes to make the propositional contents of the (a) sentences or those of the (b) sentences (i.e. the invited inferences; see Fillenbaum, 1986: 188) true according to personal interest - although the 'choice' is clearly determined by the speaker, as shown above. As a rule, (13a), (14a), (15b) and (16b) will be chosen.

(13a) Semi lavi la macchina ti do cinque dollari. ' If you wash my car, I'll give you $5.'

(13b) Se non mi lavi la macchina non ti do cinque dollari. ' If you don' t wash my car, ! won't give you $5.'


(14a)

(14b)

Se mi dai retta non te ne pentirai. ' I f you listen to me, you won't regret it.' Se non mi dai retta te ne pentirai. ' I f you don' t listen to me, you'll regret it.'

(15a) Se 1o ripeti ti rompo le ossa. ' If you say that again, I'll break your bones.'

(15b) Se non 1o ripeti non ti rompo le ossa. ' I f you don' t say that again, I won't break your bones.'

(16a) Se non alzi le mani sparo. (= (4a)) ' If you don' t hold up your hands, I'll shoot. '

(16b) Se alzi le mani non sparo. ' I f you hold up your hands, I won't shoot. '

At the beginning of section 2, I maintained that the status of the proposition expressed by the apodosis is affected by the truth value of the proposition expressed by the protasis: in standard cases, as in (la,b,c) above, for instance, the truth value of p affects the truth value of q, but in condi t ional speech acts s (see Van der Auwera, 1986) the truth value of p does not affect the truth value of q but the felicity of the speech act performed in its utterance (see also James, 1986). As Dik says, "Illocutionary conditionals [= conditional speech acts] specify a condition with respect to properties of the speech act currently performed by the speaker" (Dik, 1990: 253). It follows that, in (5a), the offer of beer is conditioned by whether the addressee is thirsty or not, which can in no way affect the independent 'presence' of beer in the refrigerator.

The typical 'condition-consequence' relationship does not seem to be present, and the expression of the invited inference seems to produce an absurd outcome, as shown by the unacceptability of (17): does this mean that conditional speech acts cannot have the 'perfected' bi-conditional interpretation that is typical, albeit not mandatory, for natural language conditional sentences? The answer is negative: the absurdity of the invited inference is limited to cases where the speech act performed in the utterance of the apodosis is not directly externalized, as in (5a). If, however, the speech act is made manifest at the surface, as in (18a), the bi-conditional interpretation is again possible, as shown by the total acceptability of the invited inference expressed in (18b):

a Van der Auwera (1986: 197-203) distinguishes between this type of sentence, in which the protasis has scope over the speech act performed in an utterance of the apodosis, and 'speech acts about conditionals' like (i) below, in which the speech act (the question, in this case) has scope over the whole conditional sentence:

(i) If you inherit, will you invest?


(17) 7?Se non hai sete, in frigo non c'6 birra. ' If you're not thirsty, there's no beer in the fridge.'

(18a) Se hai sete, ti offro qualcosa da bere. ' If you're thirsty, I'll get you a drink.'

(18b) Se non hai sete, non ti offro qualcosa da bere. ' If you're not thirsty, I won't get you a drink.'

Different kinds of speech act can be conditioned in this manner, such as, for instance, offers (5a), praise (19a), questions (19b), requests (19c), and assertions (19d); moreover, the very speech act the speaker intends to perform in the utterance of the apodosis may appear among the conditions that can be quoted in the protasis (Conte, pers. comm.), as in (19e):

(I 9a)

(19b)

(19c)

(19d)

(19e)

Se posso permettermi, hai un gran bell'aspetto. 'If I may say so, you look great.' Se non sono indiscreto, cos'hai fatto ieri sera? 'If I 'm not indiscreet, what did you do last night?' Apri la finestra, se posso chiedertelo. 'Open the window, if you don't mind.' Se le mie informazioni sono giuste, Mario ha accettato quel lavoro. 'If my information is correct, M. has taken that job.' Se vuoi un consiglio, vai subito dal tuo medico. 'If you want my advice, you should see a doctor as soon as possible.'

4. The semantics of mood choice

I shall now advance a definition of the semantics of mood choice for standard Italian conditional sentences, and then expound on the problem of counterfactuality, which will no longer appear as a meaning directly expressed by morphology (as taken for granted in part of the traditional literature), but at least partly as a kind of pragmatic inference, i.e. a conversational implicature.

We'll start with the semantics of mood choice in standard Italian conditional sentences (on this, see also Mazzoleni, 1991a, in press c). The use of indicative vs . subjunctive conditionals marks the 'speaker's degree of commit- ment' (Palmer, 1986:189) about the truth value of the propositions expressed by protasis and apodosis: when a speaker utters an indicative conditional, s/he marks the (epistemic) possible truth of p and q, while, in uttering a subjunctive conditional, s/he marks their (epistemic) possible falsehood.

First of all, it may be said that this characterization is in agreement with the intuitive judgments on indicative vs . subjunctive conditionals: consider examples (20a,b). In (20a) the journey is shown as more probable than in (20b): the

132 M. Mazzoleni / Pragmantax o f some Italian conditionals

former case envisages a possibility that it will snow, the consequence being a skiing holiday, while the latter envisages a possibility that it will n o t snow, resulting in the 'cancelation' of the skiing holiday (Van der Auwera, 1983: 304f., speaks about upperbound possibility vs. lowerbound possibility).

(20a) Se nevica prima di domenica, andremo a sciare ad Aspen. ' If it snows before Sunday, we'll go skiing in Aspen.'

(20b) Se nevicasse prima di domenica, andremmo a sciare ad Aspen. ' I f it snowed before Sunday, we would go skiing in Aspen.'

But the above definition can also be formally verified by applying a test for semantic compatibility. If we adjoin a sentence from which the addressee can infer that p is surely false to an indicative conditional, we will obtain a semantically anomalous sequence, because the possible truth marked by the mood choice clashes with the certain falsehood inferrable from the linguistic context. Similarly, if we adjoin a sentence from which the addressee can infer that p is surely true to a subjunctive conditional, we will again obtain a semantically anomalous sequence, because the possible falsehood marked by the mood choice clashes with the certain truth inferrable from the linguistic context: hence examples (21a,b,c) are not acceptable.9

(21a) 7?Se Gianni 6 in macchina pu6 darci un passaggio, ma oggi 6 venuto in autobus. ' I f John is here in his car, he can give us a lift; today, however, he has taken the bus.'

9 Sequences (21a,b,c), on the contrary, would be perfectly acceptable if produced within a dialogical exchange, where the conditional is uttered by the speaker and the adversative coordinate sentence is uttered by the addressee, as in (i), (ii), and (iii) below (I wish to thank Flavia Ravazzoli for this suggestion). In such forms of exchange, however, the answer is obviously meant to remove the conventional implicature of (epistemic) possible truth/falsehood transmitted through the mood choice made by the speaker:

(i) m~ B: 'm: B:

(ii) A: B: 'A: B:

(iii) A: B: 'A: B:

Se Gianni 6 in macchina pu6 darci un passaggio. Ma oggi Gianni 6 venuto in autobus. If John is here in his car, he can give us a lift. Today, however, he has taken the bus. ' Se Gianni fosse in macchina potrebbe darci un passaggio. Ma lui ~ (sempre) in macchina. If J. were here in his car, he could give us a lift. But he (always) drives.' Se Gianni fosse stato in macchina avrebbe potuto darci un passaggio. Ma lui era in macchina. If J. had driven here, he could have given us a lift. But he actually did drive here.'


(21b) 77Se Gianni fosse in macchina potrebbe darci un passaggio, ma lui (sempre) in macchina. ' If J. were here in his car, he could give us a lift; but he (always) drives.'

(21c) 7?Se Gianni fosse stato in macchina avrebbe potuto darci un passaggio, ma lui era in macchina. ' If J. had driven here, he could have given us a lift; but he actually did drive here.'

We can therefore say that the (epistemic) 'possible truth' and 'possible falsehood' meanings carried by the mood choice are the conventional implicatures of indicative vs. subjunctive conditionals respectively (see Kart tunen and Peters, 1977: 367; 1979: 8), as they do not depart from these forms: they are not cancelable, as we saw in (21a,b,c), and detachable - exchanging an indicative with a subjunctive conditional in fact makes its meaning 'vanish', and vice versa.

Some subjunctive conditionals, nevertheless, do not seem to mark the possible falsehood of p and q, but rather their sure falsehood - the counterfactuals, as in examples (22a,b,c,d):

(22a)

(22b)

(22c)

(22d)

Se fossi un marziano avrei le orecchie verdi. ' If I were an alien from Mars, I would have green ears.' Se quell'edificio fosse stato venduto, nell'archivio del catasto ce ne sarebbe traccia. 'If that building had been sold, there would be a record in the Title Office files.' Se Enrico fosse a casa, avrebbe risposto al telefono. ' If Henry were at home, he would have answered the phone.' Se non aveste tardato, non avreste perso il treno. (= (lc)) ' If you hadn't been late, you wouldn't have missed the train.'

Let us first consider (22a), which appears blatantly counterfactual, and is a present subjunctive conditional (i.e., a conditional sentence with congiuntivo imperfetto in the protasis and condizionale semplice in the apodosis); (23), however, with the same morphosyntax, doesn't seem to be counterfactual, because it is just presenting a hypothesis, and not two false propositions. But (23), too, can be interpreted as a counterfactual, in a situational context in which it is uttered polemically by a speaker who is going out without an umbrella on a day when it is only foggy, meaning 'It is not raining very heavily, so I 'm going out without my umbrella'.

It seems that, in the case of present subjunctive conditionals, the situational context of the utterance contributes heavily to the interpretation which considers the propositions expressed as false: in other words, counterfactuality is triggered when the conventional implicature of possible falsehood


carried by the mood choice is reinforced by an indication of sure falsehood ensuing from the comparison of p and q with the situational context of the utterance - the speaker of (22a) is not an alien from Mars, and the counterfactual version of (23) is not uttered on a very rainy day.

(23) Se piovesse molto forte, uscirei con l 'ombrello. ' I f it rained very heavily, I would take my umbrella. '

Now, going on to the cases of (22b,c,d), it seems that past subjunctive conditionals (i.e., conditional sentences with congiuntivo trapassato in the protasis and/or condizionale composto in the apodosis) are always counterfactuals. A protasis with congiuntivo trapassato, in fact, does not necessarily imply the falsehood of the proposit ion expressed; (22b) seems to be counterfactual - the building wasn' t sold, and consequently no record of the sale is to be found in the Title Office files - but, if we complete the sequence with a context, as in (24), the sense changes: the speaker is now merely uttering a hypothesis about the past, because s/he doesn' t know whether the building was sold, and can find an answer (be it positive or negative) only by checking in the files. Neither does an apodosis with condizionale composto necessarily imply the falsehood of the proposition expressed: in the concessive conditional 1° versions of (22c), i.e. (25a,b), q is not presented as false, but as true (see Karttunen, 1971, criticising Lakoff, 1970: 571).

(24) Se quell'edificio fosse stato venduto, nell 'archivio del catasto ce ne sarebbe traccia: bisogna quindi passare a controllare in quell'ufficio. ' I f that building had been sold, there would be a record in the Title Office files: we must therefore check those files.'

(25a)

(25b)

Anche se Enrico fosse a casa, non avrebbe risposto al telefono. 'Even if H. were at home, he wouldn' t have answered the phone. ' Se Enrico fosse a casa, non avrebbe comunque risposto al telefono. ' I f H. were at home, he wouldn' t have answered the phone in any case.'

So far, we have seen that congiuntivo trapassato in the protasis or condizionale composto in the apodosis are not sufficient conditions for triggering the falsehood of p and q; perhaps the two together do produce this result. But neither does counterfactuality necessarily appear in conditional sentences with both congiuntivo trapassato in the protasis and condizionale composto in the apodosis. 11 If, for example, we take the past subjunctive conditional sentence

lo For the syntax and semantics of Italian concessive conditionals, see Mazzoleni (1990: 44-47; 1991c: 790-799). al Comrie (1986: 89) advances the suspicion that in no language there exist real counterfactual conditionals (i.e., "conditional construction[s] from which the falsity of either protasis or apodosis


in (26), we can see that p and q are absolutely not presented as false: on the contrary, they really appear to be true, since the patient shows the very symptoms we would expect to see if he drank this kind of poison. We can hence conclude that he actually drank it.

(26) Se Jones avesse preso dell'arsenico, avrebbe avuto proprio i sintomi che gli abbiamo riscontrato. ' I f J. had taken arsenic, he would have shown just exactly the symptoms which he does in fact show.' (quoted in Moro, 1989: 203)

We have seen that present subjunctive conditionals are interpreted as counterfactuals when the conventional implicature of possible falsehood carried by the mood choice is reinforced by indications derived from the comparison of p and q with the situational context of the utterance - cf. examples (22a) and (23). In the case of past subjunctive conditionals, a different mechanism seems to be at work: they are normally interpreted as counterfactuals - (22b,c,d); but when the linguistic context gives indications to the contrary, the counterfactual interpretation is ruled out - as in (24), (25a,b) and (26). In other words, we can say that, in this case, counterfactuality is triggered by the conventional implicature of possible falsehood carried by the mood choice and by the absence of contrary indications in the linguistic context. Hence, I suggest considering counterfactuality a particularized conversational implicature (licensed only when triggered by the context) in the case of present subjunctive conditionals (as proposed by Kart tunen and Peters, 1977: 365), and a generalized conversational implicature (licensed when not erased by the context) in the case of past subjunctive conditionals.

5. Conclusions

As stated in the Introduction, it is my belief that the peculiarity of sentences (2b), (3b), (4b,c) and (5b,c) comes from the clash between the semantics of subjunctive conditionals and the specific sense of the four types of pragmatic conditional presented in section 3.

A thematic or resumptive conditional, in which the truth of p is presupposed (and where the truth of q depends on the application of modus ponens), obviously cannot be expressed as a subjunctive conditional, the meaning of

can be deduced logically"). This appears to be true for standard Italian conditional sentences, and likewise for those of other languages, but is disavowed in sub-standard (or neo-standard) Italian, where indicativo imperfetto both in the protasis and apodosis (almost) always licenses a counterfactual interpretation of the conditional sentence (see Mazzoleni, in press b).


which is a conventional implicature of possible falsehood. Stronger still: thematic or resumptive conditionals are not even used with indicativofuturo in the protasis and apodosis, as the (albeit subtle) hue of modal uncertainty typically conveyed by this tense makes it difficult to stress the factuality of the propositions expressed; neither is the use of incidental phrases as in (27) sufficient to make that utterance an example of a real thematic or resumptive conditional:

(27) Se verr6 eletto presidente, come ormai 6 certo, sarai proprio tu il mio segretario personale. ' I f I 'm [literally: 'will be'] elected President, which seems certain by now, you alone will be my personal adviser.'

A 'Dutchman Sentence' is normally used to express an ironical opinion on the falsehood of p (a proposition which, incidentally, is usually attributed to the addressee), due to the obvious falsehood of q, which, via the invited inference and the application of modus tollens, is reflected on p; the opposite applies to sarcastic conditionals such as (1 lc). The ironical effect is produced by the introduction of a clearly false proposition in an indicative conditional - the meaning of which is a conventional implicature of possible truth: if we replace the indicative conditional with a subjunctive conditional (with its conventional implicature of possible falsehood), this kind of oxymoron played by form and meaning does not appear, and we no longer have a 'Dutchman Sentence'12 _ and no other sensible interpretation either.

(28a) Se Piero 6 forte a scacchi, io sono Gorbaciov. ' I f Peter is a chess ace, I 'm Gorbachev. '

(28b) 7?Se Piero fosse/fosse stato forte a scacchi, io sarei/sarei stato Gor- baciov. ' I f P. were/had been a chess ace, I would be/would have been G.'

Both the pseudo-imperative and its hypotactic conditional version are ways to perform an indirect speech act (see Fillenbaum, 1986: 179) aiming at a future action or non-action by the addressee. An implementation by means of a present subjunctive conditional, with the conventional implicature of possible falsehood of p and q, can only weaken the speech act performed and make it less credible (see Greenberg, 1986: 253), as can be seen by a comparison between utterances (13a) to (16a) and those reported below:

12 'Dutchman Sentences' can also appear as past indicative conditionals - for this suggestion and for example (i) I wish to thank one of the anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Pragmatics:

(i) Se tuo zio era un amico intimo di Winston Churchill, mia zia era la regina di Saba. 'If your uncle was a close friend of Winston Churchill's, my aunt was the Queen of Sheba.'

M. Mazzoleni / Pragmantax o f some Italian conditionals 137

rather than a promise, (29a) seems to be an insinuating proposal, (29b) sounds like a piece of advice which has no chance of being taken, and (29c,d) certainly do not appear as threats to be taken seriously. Moreover, an implementation of the hypotactic conditional version of a pseudo-imperative by means of a past subjunctive conditional, with the same conventional implicature of possible falsehood, and a generalized conversational implicature of counterfactuality, completely deletes all hints at attempted action, rendering the sequences interpretable only as normal conditionals, with their propositional contents linked by a 'condition-consequence' relationship, as shown in utterances (30a,b,c,d):

(29a)

(29b)

(29c)

(29d)

Semi lavassi la macchina ti darei cinque dollari. 'If you washed my car, I 'd give you $5.' ~Se mi dessi retta non te ne pentiresti. ' If you listened to me, you wouldn't regret it.' ?Se 1o ripetessi ti romperei le ossa. ' If you said that again, I would break your bones.' 7Se non alzassi le mani sparerei. (= (4b)) ' If you didn't hold up your hands, I would shoot. '

(30a)

(30b)

(3Oc)

(30d)

Semi avessi lavato la macchina ti avrei dato cinque dollari. ' If you had washed my car, I would have given you $5.' Semi avessi dato retta non te ne saresti pentito. 'If you had listened to me, you wouldn't have regretted it.' Se lo avessi ripetuto ti avrei rotto le ossa. ' If you had said that again, I would have broken your bones.' Se non avessi alzato le mani avrei sparato. (= (4c)) 'If you hadn't held up your hands, I would have shot.'

In a conditional speech act, p pertains to the metacommunicative level (Conte, pers. comm.), affecting not the truth value of q, but the felicity of the speech act performed in its utterance. Cf. also: "In principle, any feature pertaining to the pragmatic rights and duties of speaker and addressee, and to the appropriateness of (features of) the speech act performed, could be com- mented upon through an illocutionary conditional [= conditional speech act]" (Dik, 1990: 253). This kind of sentence cannot usually appear as a present subjunctive conditional, 13 with the conventional implicature of possible false-

13 Sometimes, conditional speech acts can appear as present subjunctive conditionals - cf. example (5b), which is a ~weak' offer - , and, indeed, as mixed-type conditionals (see Mazzoleni, in press b: section 1.2), i.e., conditional sentences with indicativo in the protasis and condizionale in the apodosis or congiuntivo in the protasis and &dicativo in the apodosis (cf. examples (i) and (ii) below); in such cases " the speaker's perspective [about the truth or falsehood of p and q] changes between protasis and apodosis" (Harris, 1986: 411, note 9). Conditional speech acts can also


h o o d ; nor , m o r e o v e r , can it a p p e a r as a pas t sub junc t i ve c o n d i t i o n a l , wi th the

gene ra l i z ed c o n v e r s a t i o n a l i m p l i c a t u r e o f c o u n t e r f a c t u a l i t y : i f y o u a s s u m e

tha t the re is a poss ib le (or sure) f a l s e h o o d o f a p r e l i m i n a r y c o n d i t i o n o f the

speech act y o u are g o i n g to p e r f o r m , y o u will u n d e r m i n e the poss ib i l i ty to fe l ic i tous ly u t t e r it, a n d r isk to c o m m i t a k ind o f ' i l l o c u t i o n a r y suic ide ' . 14

(31a) Se pos so p e r m e t t e r m i , ha i un g ran be l l ' a spe t to . ( = (19a))

' I f I m a y say so, y o u l o o k grea t . '

(31b) ??Se mi po tess i / foss i p o t u t o p e r m e t t e r e , av re s t i / av re s t i a v u t o un g r a n

be l l ' a spe t to .

' I f I m i g h t s a y / m a y h a v e said so, y o u w o u l d l o o k / w o u l d h a v e l o o k e d

grea t . '

N e v e r t h e l e s s , a normal i n t e r p r e t a t i o n is poss ib le for the sub junc t i ve c o n d i -

t i ona l ve r s ions o f all k inds o f sen tence ana lyzed here, p r o v i d e d tha t the l ink

b e t w e e n p a n d q is r e i n t e r p r e t a b l e as a ' c o n d i t i o n - c o n s e q u e n c e ' r e l a t ionsh ip ,

by s t r e t ch ing o u t the con tex t s , as one w o u l d in a magical r e ad ing o f (5c),

w h e r e th i rs t ac tua l ly does ' p r o d u c e ' the beer.

References

Akatsuka, Noriko, 1986. Conditionals are discourse-bound. In: E.C. Traugott et al., eds., 1986, 333-351.

Bazzanella, Carla, 1989. II se 'correlativo' nell'italiano scritto contemporaneo. Lingua e Stile 24(1): 33 55.

Bertinetto, Pier Marco, 1986. Tempo, aspetto e azione nel verbo italiano: II sistema dell'indicativo. Firenze: Accademia della Crusca.

Bolinger, Dwight, 1967. The imperative in English. In: To honor Roman Jakobson: Essays on the occasion of his seventieth birthday, Vol. I, 335-362. The Hague/Paris: Mouton.

appear as past indicative conditionals, as in (iii) below, which does not express politeness, however, because an offer makes more sense when referred to the present-future, giving the addressee a chance, rather than when referred to the past, removing all possibilities to choose, and leaving the addressee with nothing but regret. (I wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for these two suggestions.)

(i) Se hai sete, in frigo ci sarebbe della birra. 'If you're thirsty, there is [literally: ~would be'] some beer in the fridge."

(ii) Se avessi sete, in frigo c'6 della birra. 'If you were thirsty, there would be [literally: 'is'] some beer in the fridge."

(iii) Se volevi della birra, in frigorifero ce n'era. 'If you wanted a beer, there was some in the fridge.'

14 This term, used for the first time by Vendler (1976) as a metaphor for the phenomenon of counterperformativity (see Conte, 1983a: 29f.; 1983b: 104-107, among other things for a critique of Vendler), seems much more suitable to define the object of my description: the.failure of a speech act due to the assumed non-subsistence of one of the preliminary felicity conditions.

M. Mazzoleni / Pragmantax o f some Italian conditionals 139

Comrie, Bernard, 1986. Conditionals: A typology. In: E.C. Traugott et al., eds., 1986, 77-99. Conte, Maria-Elisabeth, 1983a. Momenti di teoria dell'enunciazione linguistica. In: Semiotica

dell'enunciazione, Atti del IX Convegno dell'Associazione Italiana di Studi Semiotici (Pavia, 1981), 21-35. Pavia: Editoriale M.C.M.

Conte, Maria-Elisabeth, 1983b. La pragmatica linguistica. In: C. Segre, ed., Intorno alia linguistica, 94-128. Milano: Feltrinelli.

Dik, Simon C., 1990. On the semantics of conditionals. In: J. Nuyts, A.M. Bolkestein and C. Vet, eds., Layers and levels of representation in language theory: A functional view, 233-261. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.

Fillenbaum, Samuel, 1986. The use of conditionals in inducements and deterrents. In: E.C. Traugott et al., eds., 1986, 179-195.

Geis, Michael L. and Arnold Zwicky, 1971. On invited inferences. Linguistic Inquiry 2(4): 561- 566.

Greenberg, Joseph H., 1986. The realis-irrealis continuum in the classical Greek conditional. In: E.C. Traugott et al., eds., 1986, 247-264.

Grice, Henry P., 1975. Logic and conversation. In: P. Cole and J.L. Morgan, eds., Syntax and semantics. Vol. 3: Speech acts, 41 58. London/New York: Academic Press.

Haegeman, Liliane, 1984. Pragmatic conditionals in English. Folia Linguistica 18(3/4): 485-502. Haiman, John, 1978. Conditionals are topics. Language 54(3): 564-589. Haiman, John, 1983. Paratactic/f-clauses. Journal of Pragmatics 7(3): 263-281. Haiman, John, 1986. Constraints on the form and the meaning of the protasis. In: E.C. Traugott

et al., eds., 1986, 215-227. Hare, Richard M., 1970. Meaning and speech acts. Philosophical Review 79: 3-24. Reprinted in:

Practical inferences. London: Macmillan, 1972, 74-93. Harris, Martin B., 1986. The historical development of conditional sentences in Romance.

Romance Philology 34(4): 405-436. Horn, Laurence R., 1984. Toward a new taxonomy for pragmatic inference: Q-based and R-based

implicature. In: D. Schiffrin, ed., Meaning, form and use in context: Linguistic application (GURT 1984), 11-42. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

James, Francis, 1986. Semantics and pragmatics of the word /f. Journal of Pragmatics 10: 453- 480.

Johnson-Laird, Philip N., 1986. Conditionals and mental models. In: E.C. Traugott et al., eds., 1986, 55-75.

Karttunen, Lauri, 1971. Counterfactual conditionals. Linguistic Inquiry 2(4): 566-569. Karttunen, Lauri and Stanley Peters, 1977. Requiem for presupposition. In: K. Whistler et al.,

eds., Proceedings of the third annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society (February 19- 21, 1977), 360-371. Berkeley, CA: Berkeley Linguistics Society.

Karttunen, Lauri and Stanley Peters, 1979. Conventional implicature. In: Ch.-K. Oh and D.A. Dinneen, eds., Syntax and semantics, Vol. 11: Presupposition, 1-56. New York: Academic Press.

K6nig, Ekkehard and Johan Van der Auwera, 1988. Clause integration in German and Dutch conditionals, concessive conditionals, and concessives. In: J. Haiman and S.A. Thompson, eds., Clause combining in grammar and discourse, 101-133. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.

K6pcke, Klaus-M. and Klaus-U. Panther, 1989. On correlations between word order and pragmatic function of conditional sentences in German. Journal of Pragmatics 13: 685-711.

Lakoff, George, 1970. Linguistics and natural logic. Synthese 22: 151-271. Reprinted in: D. Davidson and G. Harman, eds., Semantics of natural languages. Dordrecht: Reidel, 1972, 545-665.

Lehmann, Christian, 1974. A universal about conditional sentences. In: M. Romportl et al., eds., Linguistica generalia 1: Studies in linguistic typology, 231 241. Prague: Charles University.

Levinson, Stephen C., 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

140 M. Mazzoleni / Pragmantax o f some Italian conditionals

Manzotti, Emilio, 1988. I costrutti cosiddetti eccettuativi in italiano, inglese, e tedesco: semantica e pragmatica. In: V. Bonini and M. Mazzoleni, eds., Linguistica e traduzione, Atti del II Seminario di studi della Scuola Superiore per Interpreti e Traduttori del Comune di Milano (Premeno, NO, 25-27 settembre 1987), 67-110. Milano: Comune di Milano.

Mazzoleni, Marco, 1990. Costrutti concessivi e costrutti avversativi in alcune lingue d'Europa. Firenze: La Nuova Italia (Pubblicazioni della Facolt~ di lettere e filosofia dell'Universitfi di Pavia 59, Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Antichit~.).

Mazzoleni, Marco, 1991a. Costrutti condizionali in casus realis, possibilis, ed irrealis: un para- digma da ridefinire. In: L. Giannelli et al., eds., Tra Rinascimento e strutture attuali: saggi di linguistica italiana, Atti del Primo Convegno della Societfi Internazionale di Linguistica e Filologia Italiana (Siena, 28-31 marzo 1989), Vol. 1 °, 357-364. Torino: Rosenberg & Sellier.

Mazzoleni, Marco, 1991b. Le frasi ipotetiche. In: L. Renzi and G. Salvi, eds., 1991, 751-784. Mazzoleni, Marco, 1991c. Le frasi concessive. In: L. Renzi and G. Salvi, eds., 1991, 784-817. Mazzoleni, Marco, 1992. Restrizioni pragmatiche sulla morfosintassi dei costrutti condizionali

nell'italiano contemporaneo. In: G. Gobber, ed., La linguistica pragmatica, Atti del XXIV Congresso della Societfi di Linguistica ltaliana (Milano, 4-6 settembre 1990), 73-93. Roma: Bulzoni (SLI 32).

Mazzoleni, Marco, in press a. Concordanza ed 'effetti di senso' in quattro tipi di periodo ipotetico: fra semantica e pragmatica. Aula de Filologia ltaliana.

Mazzoleni, Marco, in press b. "Se lo sapevo non ci venivo": Fimperfetto indicativo ipotetico nell'italiano contemporaneo. In: B. Moretti and D. Petrini, eds., Linee di tendenza dell'italiano contemporaneo, Atti del XXV Congresso Internazionale di Studi della Societ~i di Linguistica Italiana (Lugano, 19-21 settembre 1991). Roma: Bulzoni.

Mazzoleni, Marco, in press c. La semantica della scelta modale nei condizionali italiani. Revue Romane 29, 1994.

Moro, Giorgio, 1989. Counterfactual presuppositions of corner conditionals: A re-examination. Rivista di Linguistica 1(1): 197-208.

Palmer, Frank R., 1986. Mood and modality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Renzi, Lorenzo and Giampaolo Salvi, eds., 1991. Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione,

Vol. II: I sintagmi verbale, aggettivale, avverbiale. La subordinazione. Bologna: I1 Mulino. Traugott, Elisabeth C. et al., eds., 1986. On conditionals. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press. Van der Auwera, Johan, 1983. Conditionals and antecedent possibilities. Journal of Pragmatics

7(3): 297-309. Van der Auwera, Johan, 1986. Conditionals and speech acts. In: E.C. Traugott et al., eds., 1986,

197 214. Veltman, Frank, 1986. Data semantics and the pragmatics of indicative conditionals. In: E.C.

Traugott et al., eds., 1986, 147 168. Vendler, Zeno, 1976. Illocutionary suicide. In: A.F. McKay and D.D. Merrill, eds., Issues in the

philosophy of language: Proceedings of the 1972 Oberlin Colloquium in Philosophy, 135-145. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Documents

The pragmantax of some Italian conditionals