A Dictionary of Grammatical Terms in Linguistics
n. A sentence consisting of two clauses, one of which (the protasis or antecedent) expresses a condition whose fulfilment or non-fulfilment is relevant to the degree of reality assigned to the other (the apodosis or consequent). Conditional sentences are often divided into two types: ‘open’ conditionals, in which the fulfilment of the condition is seen as a realistic possibility, and ‘remote’ or ‘counterfactual’ conditionals, in which the fulfilment of the condition is seen as impossible, contrary to fact or at least unlikely.
Examples of open conditionals: If you buy the wine, I’ll make dinner; If she caught the 8.00 train, she must have been in London before noon. Examples of counterfactual conditionals: If I spoke better French, I could get a job in Paris; If Grant had been put in command earlier, the Civil War might have ended sooner. See Palmer (1986) for discussion.
This is the complete article, containing 146 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page).
View More Summaries on Conditional sentence
