We are happy to announce that the PhD thesis by XPrag.de member Alexander Wimmer from project “ObTrEx” at Tübingen University “On certain conditionals” is published now and open accessible at https://dx.doi.org/10.15496/publikation-51114.
Abstract:
This thesis deals with some issues in the semantics of conditionals. Two of its three main parts are about counterfactuals (CFs). Chapter 2 treats German CF-wishes as implicitly conditionalized, following an idea by von Fintel & Iatridou 2017, and CF-marking on German wünschen ‘wish’ as semantically vacuous. Chapter 3 reports an acceptability rating study on false antecedents in German present CFs, whose distinctive mood is the Konjunktiv 2 (K2). The empirical aim is to tease apart three different views one may entertain on the relation between the K2 and the indicative. Chapter 4, finally, is about two scalar particles, Mandarin jiu and German schon. Put into a conditional consequent, they each convey what Grosz 2012 calls minimal sufficiency. Building on jiu-accounts by Lai 1999 and Liu 2017, this interpretive effect is ascribed to a presupposition of scalar lowness that both particles come with.