if-then

[Dan Parvaz]

> Does anyone know of any HPSG work on if-then sentences? On the face of
> it,
> they are a case where an expression can contain a certain constituent
> (then) only if it is modified by a certain kind of adjunct. This seems
> rather unusual.

I did a class paper on topics, and "rhetorical" questions in American
Sign Language. If-then sentences are a species of topic-comment in ASL,
and so this might apply. In a nutshell, the sentence is analyzed as a
combination of question, and question focus, which I think came into
ASL via parataxis. The question focus phrase looks something like this:

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(i tried to paste it in, anyway!).

My work on this is more than a little rough around the edges; however,
I'd love to really hammer this out.

Cheers,

Dan.