This paper is concerned with a conditional construction in Spanish,
which we call echoic contrastive conditional, ECC for short. In ECCs, the consequent
is entailed, the antecedent echoes the content of a previous assertion, and both
antecedent and consequent are marked with a Contrastive Topic. Our goal is to
fit these properties in a formal explanation compatible with a simple analysis
of conditionals. We claim that ECCs are a subtype of biscuit conditional, in that
antecedent and consequent ...
This paper is concerned with a conditional construction in Spanish,
which we call echoic contrastive conditional, ECC for short. In ECCs, the consequent
is entailed, the antecedent echoes the content of a previous assertion, and both
antecedent and consequent are marked with a Contrastive Topic. Our goal is to
fit these properties in a formal explanation compatible with a simple analysis
of conditionals. We claim that ECCs are a subtype of biscuit conditional, in that
antecedent and consequent are independent (i.e. do not express a hypothetical
relation). Additionally, we assume that pragmatic reasoning has to explain why a
conditional is used to express an adversative relation between the two clauses.
First, a proposition that has already been proposed to increase the Common
Ground is placed in the antecedent of a conditional in which there is no hypothetical relation between p and q. Thus, the addressee needs to reason as to the
pragmatic function the speaker wants to achieve. Second, the Contrastive Topic
marking signals that both conjuncts are answers to a multiple wh-question, proposed by the speaker as the current Question Under Discussion (QUD). Third, the
answer provided by the second conjunct is a stronger argument for the speaker’s
communicative goal than the one provided by the first conjunct. The joint occurrence of echoicity, lack of dependence and Contrastive Topic marking leads to an
adversative rhetorical relation between the conjuncts.
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