Rhetorical interpretation of counterfactuals

  • Kyoko Sano University of Washington
Keywords: counterfactuals, rhetorical, only-if

Abstract

This article examines what I call a “rhetorical” interpretation of counterfactual conditionals. The standard interpretation of counterfactual conditionals implies that “there is a possibility that such and such proposition would/might be true.  The rhetorical reading of counterfactual conditionals implies that “such and such proposition would NEVER be true.” The subjunctive conditional with a rhetorical interpretation will be called “rhetorical counterfactual.” The examples of rhetorical counterfactuals are found in the emphatic construction (“koso –e construction”) in Early Japanese. I argue that rhetorical counterfactuals are best represented by the semantics of the logical connective only-if, and that the rhetorical reading results from the rhetorical implication that the antecedent is not going to be true with respect to what the speaker considers “conceivable.” 

Author Biography

Kyoko Sano, University of Washington

Department of Linguistics,

PhD student

Published
2017-08-30
Section
Articles