Towards a unified theory of ‘if”s—The theory of conditional elements: Further evidence from conditionally self-falsifying utterances

In this paper, we put forth an attempt towards a unified theory of ‘if”s as they occur in natural language. In §1, we introduce the project. In §2, we reprise and expand the theory in the context within which we originally introduced it, Austinian ifs. In §3, we discuss bridge conditionals—conditionals which may have an Austinian reading or a standard reading, depending on the context. In §4, we return to the two alternative readings the theory offers us for Austinian ifs and provide some guidance as to how to select what we call the expanded reading, and how to choose between the limited account and the extended account in particular cases. In §5, we consider conditionally self-falsifying utterances, a speech act which demands similar treatment to Austinian ifs, yet is radically different in discourse function, thereby providing powerful evidence for the theory. Along the way, we introduce structural falsity, the structural complement of vacuous truth. In §6, we provide a unified semantics for ‘if’—worries expressed through the medium of warnings.