Non Standard Uses Of IF

The presen t s tudy examines the s eman t i c problems involved in comput ing the meaning of the non s tandard uses of if. The cen t r a l ques t ion is whe the r or not it is necessary to in t roduce d i f f e r en t meanings of if. Austin proposed two non s tandard meanings for if. We show that these can be accoun ted for by the s t andard meaning t oge the r with shi f ts in the posi t ion of the speech ac t within the s en tence . These uses of if a re among the 9 d i f f e r en t non s tandard uses which we found in a sample of if s en t ences taken from the Brown Univers i ty corpus: 1. C o u n t e r f a c t u a h If E had stuck to his plan he 'd stil l be famous. 2. Factual : If R was a liar, he was also a canny gen t leman. 3. Condit ional speech act: You may come back to Strasbourg, now, if you wish. 4. P e r f o r m a t i v e speech act: He vowed vengence on L, if ever the chance c a m e his way. 5. Noun clause: He wondered if the audience would let him finish. 6. Doubtful presupposi t ion P e r f e c t en t i t ies , if they move at all, don ' t move to 7. " 'Res t r ic t ive Social re la t ions impose cour tesy , if not sympathy, 8. " 'Concessive 9. Protasis only " I f you want to see -" "Never mind", she said s tern ly . Each use was examined to see whether i t could be accounted for by the standard meaning of if, toge ther wi th o ther features of the sentence. S imi la r d i f fe rences in usage should then be found w i th o ther SCs. This was the case for the f i rs t four uses. In three uses (6,7,8) i f may/must occur in a phrase ra ther than in a ful l clause. The hypothesis that these uses can be der ived from the standard meaning of i f in an equ iva lent clause was exp lo red and re jected. Two of these uses (6,7) requi re a mate r ia l imp l i ca t i on i n te rp re ta t i on of if, also necessary for a few of the standard cond i t iona l sentences. Two uses (5,9) require only that the t ru th value of the following c lause /phrase is unspecif ied. This is a p roper ty that all the uses have in common (with the excep t ion of the factual use where the t ru th of the protas is is used to emphas i se the truth of the apodosis) and is thus the f ea tu re that r e l a t e s the d i f f e r en t meanings of if. The s tandard use and the non s tandard uses using the s t andard meaning (1,2,3,4) require, in addit ion, tha t the re is an in fe rence re la t ion from the protas is (the if sub clause) to the apodosis ( the main c lause in which the if c lause is