MoL-2002-04: Classifying Conditionals

MoL-2002-04: Vidal, Mathieu (2002) Classifying Conditionals. [Report]

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Abstract

In natural language there exists a type of sentence called
conditionals. They are characterized in English by the use of
connectors. These connectors can be different but fulfil, in most
cases, at least two conditions: they link two sentences and they
contain the word 'if'. The semantic developed to treat this type of
sentences is generally a non-classical one and its most famous
representative is intensional logic.
The purpose of this paper is to explore the different types of
conditional sentences by viewing syntactical and philosophical
considerations. The existence of several kinds of conditional
sentences is recognized in the current literature but the consequences
are not sufficiently shown. We will investigate here the criteria
which allow such a division and illustrate these differences by
numerous examples from natural language.
This work is not properly technical. It belongs rather to the field
of philosophical logic, like the first papers published about
conditional logic. To develop it in a real mathematical form would
need a lot of work. The logical and semantic framework is at best
outlined, because we based our analysis primarily on what corresponds
to the facts regarding the logic of natural language: the examples of
conditional sentences that we employ in everyday life. Nevertheless,
a theory is judged by its correspondence to the facts and our approach
tries to fulfil this request first. A more technical development will
be possible afterwards.

Item Type: Report
Report Nr: MoL-2002-04
Series Name: Master of Logic Thesis (MoL) Series
Year: 2002
Date Deposited: 12 Oct 2016 14:38
Last Modified: 12 Oct 2016 14:38
URI: https://eprints.illc.uva.nl/id/eprint/732

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