Quasi-causal ʻalreadyʼ conditionals

Several European languages, along with Modern Hebrew, exhibit a peculiar type of conditional construction marked by i) the presence of an ‘already’ adverbial in the antecedent clause and ii) a pragmatic presupposition that the antecedent proposition is holds true. Examples (1) and (2) are illustrations from Polish and German. The use of już in (1) and schon in (2) makes explicit that the respective statements, though conditional in nature, function as comments on premises the speaker takes for granted.

These constructions have been described fairly well for some languages (e.g., Karlík 1988 on Czech, Gornik-Gerhardt 1981 on German, Shefer 2020 on Hebrew, Pekelis 2017 on Russian). In many other cases, they receive only passing mention in descriptive grammars or in works on conditionals and discourse particles. Similarly, existing analyses tend to focus on individual languages, with cross-linguistic comparisons limited to brief observations and isolated pairings (Dahl 1988, Hentschel 2013 on German and Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian; Rüütmaa 2012 on Estonian and Hungarian).

In our talk, we demonstrate that these ‘already’ conditionals are attested across a geographically coherent region of western Eurasia, encompassing languages from different genera of the Indo-European and Uralic families, as well as Modern Hebrew (Afro-Asiatic), as a synchronic, yet historically motivated, outlier. We begin by showing that the meaning of these constructions is non-compositional. We then present diagnostic evidence that they pragmatically presuppose the truth of the antecedent proposition in much the same way as causal ‘since’ clauses, while nonetheless retaining their status as genuine conditionals (i.e., the material implication remains part of the at-issue content). As such, they represent a type of what has variously been termed “quasi-causal” (Pasch 1994), “factual” (Iatridou 1991), or “premise” conditionals.

Drawing on both naturalistic and elicited data, we then examine fine-grained differences across individual languages. For instance, in several varieties, these constructions can convey the meaning ‘if (assuming that), against all odds, p’, as illustrated by the Modern Hebrew example in (3). This reading, however, is not available in German, presumably due to blocking effects from dedicated counter-expectation markers such as doch and überhaupt.

Lastly we address the origins of these ‘already’ conditionals. We propose that, on the level of system-internal development, recurrent discourse patterns such as ‘while we're [already] at it’, as in (4), served as bridging contexts. At the same time, the areal and genealogical distribution of the construction,s along with the etymologies of the relevant adverbials, strongly suggest that language contact played a key role in both its emergence and diffusion.

Lastly we discuss the origins of the ‘already’ conditionals. We suggest that, on the system-internal level, recurrent configurations of the type ‘while we’re [already] at it’, as in (4), played the role of a bridging context. At the same time, the areal and genealogical distribution, as well as the etymologies of the elements involved, strongly point to language-contact as an important factor in the contructions’ rise and spread.

By describing these quasi-causal ‘already’ conditionals and tracing their origins, we aim not only to enrich the description of language-specific discourse strategies, but also to contribute to broader discussions about the interaction between internal grammatical pathways and contact-induced change in the evolution of constructions across languages.
 

Examples

(1)        Polish (found online)

            Jeżeli       już            chcesz                 biegać            koło        moj-ego                                        

            if/when   already    want.ipfv.2sg     run.ipfv.inf    around   poss.1sg-gen.sg.m    
            domu                        to           przynajmniej       się                 ubierz.
            house(m).gen.sg   then       at_least               refl.acc        dress.pfv.imp

            ‘If you insist on jogging around my house, at least dress [decently].’

(2)        German (Gornik-Gerhardt 1981: 113)

            Wenn       wir  schon           Polster                kauf-en,  dann       auch   ordentlich-e.
            if/when   1pl  already       cushion.acc.pl   buy-1pl   then        also    decent-acc.pl

            ‘If [as is given] we’re going to be cushions, then [let it be] decent ones.’

(3)        Modern Hebrew (Shefer 2020: 287)

            Vilot lehaskara kaše limtzo hayom be-ʔEylat
            ʻHouses for rent are very difficult to find today in Eilat,|

ve-ʔim     kvar               motsʔim       bayit       hu              meʔod     yakar.
and-if      already         find.pl.m       house(m) 3sg.m     very         expensive.sg.m
ʻAnd if you do (against all odds) manage to find a house, then it is very expensive.ʼ

(4)        Serbian-Croatian-Bosnian (Croatian National Corpus)

          Hrvatske vlasti trebaju ustrajati na njegovoj zaštiti, bez nepotrebnih pritisaka na  domaće ribare  te velike popustljivosti spram talijanskih interesa…
         ‘The Croatian authorities should be persisting in protecting it [fishing] without unnecessary   pressure on local fishermen or great leniency towards Italian                    interests…’

            Kad         smo        već             kod  naš-ih                   prekomorsk-ih                           

            if/when  cop.1pl  already       at    poss.1pl-gen.pl  overseas-gen.pl           

            susjeda…
            neighbour.gen.pl

            ‘And speaking of (lit. and while we’re already at) our overseas neighbours…’