Conditional Clauses: External and Internal Syntax

Abstract:  The paper focuses on the difference between event-conditionals and premise-conditionals. An event-conditional contributes to event structure: it modifies the main clause event; a premise-conditional structures the discourse: it makes manifest a proposition that is the privileged context for the processing of the associated clause. The two types of conditional clauses will be shown to differ both in terms of their ‘external syntax’ and in terms of their ‘internal syntax’. The peripheral structure of event conditionals will be shown to lack the functional head Force, which encodes illocutionary force. Event conditionals are merged inside the IP of the matrix clause. Premise-conditionals contain the head Force and they are merged outside the associated CP.