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Markus Thumm
The Contextualization of Paratactic Conditionals
For constructions like
(1) You drive like hell, you'll get there on time,
Haiman (1983 et passim) has coined the term paratactic conditional (henceforth also PC). In (1) you drive like hell forms the protasis (or p) and you'll get there on time the apodosis (or q) of a conditional structure, which is synonymous with (1a)
(1a) If you drive like hell, you'll get there on time,
in a context in which the addressee is assumed to be not 'driving like hell' at the moment of the utterance and her/his only chance to arrive on time is 'to drive like hell', i.e. very fast, and no other behaviour will bring about the fulfilment of the states of affairs described in the consequent-clause.
To cite this publication:
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Thumm, Markus: The Contextualization of Paratactic Conditionals
, InLiSt - Interaction and Linguistic Structures, No. 20, September 2000, URL: <http://www.uni-potsdam.de/u/inlist/issues/20/index.htm>
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