Abstract
Many languages assign additional conditional interpretations to apparently regular sentential conjunctions (conditional conjunctions, CCs). Following previous ideas (Kaufmann, Magdalena. 2018. Topics in conditional conjunctions. Invited talk at NELS, vol. 49. Cornell University; Starr, Will. 2018. Conjoining imperatives and declaratives. Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 21. 1159–1176), we provide additional support for the hypothesis that CCs involve topicalized first conjuncts. We argue that Japanese and Korean, which appear to lack CCs, in fact mark them quite transparently. Both languages combine sentential conjunctions with topic markers: Japanese -te=wa (standardly considered one of the language’s conditional connectives) and Korean -ko=nun (occurring naturally, not discussed in the literature). We show that Japanese conditional =to fits into the pattern of CCs as well: it is derived by topicalization of conjunctive =to. Conjunctive =to is normally restricted to NPs, but it can coordinate finite clauses so long as the finite verb does not precede =to (Koizumi, Masatoshi. 2000. String vacuous overt verb raising. Journal of East Asian Linguistics 9(3). 227–285). We argue that this requirement can be met in a topicalized clause carrying default tense; the resultant configuration is the conditional connective =to. Semantically, CCs are known to be more restricted than if-conditionals in not readily realizing epistemic conditionals. The elements -te=wa, =to, and -ko=nun are all subject to exactly this restriction, which we refine to exclude only non-predictive epistemics. Following the transparent structure in Japanese and Korean, we interpret CCs by predicating the regular conjunction distributively of the set of (contextually salient and epistemically accessible) situations described by the topicalized first conjunct. We argue that apparent cases of focus on or within the first conjunct of CCs constitute contrastive topics or corrections.
Funding source: Academy of Korean Studies
Award Identifier / Grant number: AKS-2016-LAB-2250004
Acknowledgments
For discussion of theory and data, we would like to thank Sabine Iatridou, Yoshiki Fujiwara, Stefan Kaufmann, Shin-Sook Kim, Chloe Kwon, Mingya Liu, Teruyuki Mizuno, Yuya Noguchi, Atsuro Tsubomoto, Muyi Yang, and Malte Zimmermann, as well as the audiences of the workshops “Semantics and Pragmatics of Conditional Connectives” (DGfS 2021) and “Zyookenditionals” (UConn, June 2021), and an anonymous reviewer for this volume. Whitman’s research on this article was supported by the Laboratory Program for Korean Studies through the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the Korean Studies Promotion Service of the Academy of Korean Studies (AKS-2016-LAB-2250004). Kaufmann’s research on this article was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (#2116972, “Research on Conditional and Modal Language”).
| Korean: Examples of -ko=nun from a web search for the gerundive pes-ko ‘remove, take off and’ plus topic marker | ||||||||||||
| a. | Kuliko | pelke-pes-ko=nun | khal=ul | chal | s wu | eps-upni-ta. | ||||||
| then | strip-remove-ger=top | sword=acc | sheathe | ability | not.exist-def-decl | |||||||
| ‘Then, if you take off your clothes, you can’t wear the sword (on your waist).’ | ||||||||||||
| b. | Ankyeng=ul | pes-ko=nun | ilsang | saynghwal=i | pulkaha-ci-o. | |
| glasses=acc | remove-ger=top | Daily | life=nom | impossible-susp-pol | ||
| ‘(If) you take off your glasses, daily life is probably impossible.’ | ||||||
| Korean: Standard conditional with -myen | |||||
| Mary=ka | nolay=lul | pulu-myen | John-i | t tena | ka-keyss-ta. |
| Mary=nom | song=acc | sing-cond | John=nom | leave | go-fut-decl |
| ‘If Mary sings a song, John leaves’ (conditional) | |||||
| Japanese: Unacceptability of -te=wa and =to as epistemic conditionals | ||||||||
| a. | #Rokketto=o | mottei-te=wa | ore=no | ibosi | da. | |||
| locket=acc | have-ger=top | 1sg=gen | half.sister | Is | ||||
| ‘You have the other half of the locket and you are my half sister.’ | ||||||||
| b. | #Rokketto=o | mottei-ru=to | ore=no | ibosi | da. | |||
| locket=acc | have-npst= to | 1sg=gen | half.sister | is | ||||
| ‘You have the other half of the locket and you are my half sister.’ | ||||||||
| Korean: Unacceptability of -ko=nun as epistemic conditional | ||||||
| #Lokhes=lul | kaciko | iss-ko=nun | ney | i pok | camay-ta . | |
| locket=acc | having | be-ger=top | my | half sister | be-decl | |
| ‘You have the other half of the locket and you are my half sister.’ | ||||||
| English: Topicalized proposition restricting a quantifier with scope over the conjunction | |
| a. | Usually Mary sings and John leaves. |
| b. | [TopicP [Mary sings]1 [TOPIC [… [TP [usually C1 [&P [AspP1 Mary sings1,<s,t>] [and [AspP2 John leaves]]]] T]]]] |
| c. | [usually C1 [Mary sings1,<s,t> [and [John leaves]]]] |
| ⤳ λs 1 .usually(C 1 )(λs.sings(mary) & ∃ s2 [s ≤ s 2 & leave s2 (john)]) | |
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