[Lingtyp] Encoding necessary condition ('iff'/'unless'-like markers)

[Ellison Luk]

Dear all,

I’m currently looking at conditional structures in a sample of Australian languages, and I’m considering the category of encoded necessary condition, i.e. ‘if and only if X’, and its negative guise ‘unless X’/‘only if ~X’. A quick Wiktionary search suggests to me that distinct ‘iff’-type markers are far less commonly innovated than distinct ‘unless’-type markers in the world’s/Europe’s languages (distinct meaning it’s not just ‘if’ + something else).

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/iff#Translations
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/if_and_only_if#Translations
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unless#Translations

As I understand it, not all languages *need* to be able to encode necessary condition, since necessary interpretation is pretty much the default interpretation of a conditional utterance (as per the maxim of relevance, Horn 2000, Sperber & Wilson 1986); in English you are unlikely to hear (a) ‘If you mow the lawn, I will give you five dollars’ and then expect (b) ‘even if I don’t mow the lawn, I will get five dollars’, even though logic permits (b) to follow from (a) if you just link them with ‘but’ – i.e. the necessary interpretation of (a) is defeasible. But many languages are able to encode (a) with an ‘iff’-type condition to preclude the possibility of (b) obtaining with an intensifier like ‘only’. Furthermore, going by the possibly naïve impression that many languages have innovated ‘unless’-type words independent of ‘if’, it seems that it is more natural to say something like (c) ‘Unless you mow the lawn, you won’t get five dollars’ in order to encode necessary condition.

In sum my impressions boil down to:

  *   ‘if’-type markers: relatively common, often entails ‘iff’-interpretation
  *   ‘iff’-type markers: very uncommon as a distinct marker, ‘iff’ cxns often encoded with ‘if’ + intensifier (like ‘only’)
  *   ‘if not’-type markers: probably mostly ‘if’ + NEG, also entails ‘unless’
  *   ‘unless’-type markers: more common than ‘iff’??

So my question is: what do ‘iff/only if’ and ‘unless’ look like in the world’s languages? Has anyone done a survey? What are some languages/areas/genera that follow/buck these trends? The literature on conditionality still seems to consist of logic-oriented accounts with relatively scant reference to the world’s languages, but the lack of literature on necessary condition specifically might be due to the rarity of its attestation/description; in my sample of 75 Australian languages, I could only find maybe two examples of encoded necessary condition: one with the use of an emphatic /-jahng/ ‘very’ in Yugambeh–Bundjalung (Sharpe 2005), and another with a scope-restricting ‘only’-type marker /-muwa/ in Jaru (Tsunoda 1981). Both markers attach to non-‘iff’ conditional constructions.

Yugambeh–Bundjalung (Pama–Nyungan: Southeastern > Bandjalangic)
wana-h munu-nu yana-h ngaju waje-hny-i-jahng.
leave-IMP there-ABL go-IMP 1SG.ERG tell-IM-PRECON-very
‘Don’t go there unless I tell you.’ (Sharpe 2005: 81)
EL: literally ‘Leave and go from there, if and only if I tell (you).’

Jaru (Pama–Nyungan: Western > Ngumpin–Yapa
ngadyu-nggu ngara-nya bali wu-nggu guju nyangga langga-muwa bid[+]nyin-ang-gu
1Sg-Erg can-1SgNom find-PURP game [‘if’] head-ONLY stick-CONT-PURP
‘I can find game (e.g. a kangaroo) if only[=only if?] a head is sticking out (of grass).’ (Tsunoda 1981: 165) [square brackets are my additions]
EL: equivalent to ‘I can’t find game unless (I see) a head sticking out’, alternatively the interpretation might be ‘I can find game, *even* if only a head is sticking out’ (i.e. a scalar concessive condition, and not a necessary condition at all!)

Any comments/questions/corrections are welcome!

Best wishes,
Ellison Luk
Doctoral candidate
KU Leuven

Laurence R. Horn, ‘From If to Iff: Conditional Perfection as Pragmatic Strengthening’, Journal of Pragmatics 32, no. 3 (2000): 289–326, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0378-2166(99)00053-3.
Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, Relevance: Communication and Cognition, 2nd ed (Oxford ; Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2001).
Margareth Sharpe, Grammar and Texts of the Yugambeh-Bundjalung Dialect Chain in Eastern Australia, Languages of the World/Materials 370 (München: Lincom Europa, 2005).
Tasaku Tsunoda, The Djaru Language of Kimberley, Western Australia, Pacific Linguistics, B-98 (Canberra: Pacific Linguistics, 1981).

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