Inferential conditionals and evidentiality. (English) Zbl 1305.03010
Summary: Many conditionals seem to convey the existence of a link between their antecedent and consequent. We draw on a recently proposed typology of conditionals to argue for an old philosophical idea according to which the link is inferential in nature. We show that the proposal has explanatory force by presenting empirical results on the evidential meaning of certain English and Dutch modal expressions.
MSC:
| 03A05 | Philosophical and critical aspects of logic and foundations |
| 03B65 | Logic of natural languages |
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