relevance conditional
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.36 in modern English
28
Scrabble Score
20
Letters
7
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A subordinate clause, usually introduced by if, that asserts the relevance of the clause to the main clause of the sentence, but not that it entails the main clause; a construction involving such a clause.
Example Sentences
- "To be more precise, the speaker of a relevance conditional assumes a mutual understanding on the parts of the speaker and the addressee[s] that the actualization of P is a sufficient condition for the relevance of the Q-utterance."
- "For example, relevance conditionals are constructions in conditional shape that do not seem to express a clear conditional meaning at first glance. This has led semanticists to introduce analyses of relevance conditionals that capture many of their properties but are very specific to this construction."
- "A known grammatical marker of relevance conditionals is their resistance to linking their antecedent and consequent clauses with 'then': consider the mild oddity of 'If you want biscuits then there are some on the table.'[…]This peculiarity of relevance conditionals is straightforwardly explained by the ellipsis theory, according to which the consequent clause doesn't in general express a real (logical) consequent; 'There are some biscuits on the table' is just asserted as true."