[Lingtyp] Call for Papers: ALT 2026 workshop proposal "Non-canonical conditionals in the languages of the world"

Wed Apr 9 14:00:34 UTC 2025

Dear colleagues,

Bastian Persohn and I are preparing a workshop proposal on non-canonical conditionals in the languages of the world for the next ALT Conference, to be held in Lyon (France) on 1-3 July, 2026.
Please find our workshop description below. Anyone who would like to contribute is invited to send their abstract (up to 500 words, excluding references and examples) to Tom.Bossuyt at UGent.be<mailto:Tom.Bossuyt at UGent.be> by 25 April, 2025.

Best wishes,
Bastian and Tom

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Workshop proposal: Non-canonical conditionals in the languages of the world

1. Workshop description

Conditional constructions combine two clauses, a protasis (also known as antecedent, often represented as p) and an apodosis (also known as consequent, represented as q): 'if p, then q'. An example of a conditional in Mapudungun is given in (1).

(1) Mapudungun (Araucanian ; Smeets 2008: 183)
mawün-l-e         tripa-la-ya-n
rain-COND-3    leave-NEG-IRR-IND.1SG
'If it rains, I will not go out.'

Following authors like Comrie (1986: 78-83), König (1995: 68), and Croft (2022: 528-531), conditionals have two core properties. First, the protasis is CONTINGENT on the apodosis: the proposition q in the apodosis is caused, or somehow brought about by, the proposition p in the protasis. In (1), for example, whether or not the speaker will go out depends on the whether or not it rains. Second, both the protasis and the apodosis are NON-FACTUAL. This includes hypothetical conditionals as in (1) above but also counterfactual conditionals as in (2) below.

(2) Hausa (Afro-Asiatic > Chadic; Smirnova & Dobronravin 2005: 427)
da           kun                        fada       mana                    da           mun                      taimake              ku
COND  2PL.PRF              say         us                           COND  1PL.PRF              help                       OBJ.2PL
'If you had told us, we would have helped you.'

Conditionals have been studied extensively by linguists and logicians, but the vast majority of the functional-typological literature is concerned with "canonical" conditionals like the ones described above. Other types of conditionals, i.e. conditionals that deviate from at least one of the two core properties contingency and non-factuality, have received far less attention in the functionalist tradition. We will call such conditionals "non-canonical conditionals". They have mostly been examined from a formalist angle, and the pertinent works typically deal with well-documented European languages. The aim of this workshop is to fill this gap in the literature by bringing together studies on non-canonical conditionals in underrepresented languages from a functional-typological perspective. Examples of non-canonical conditionals include, but are not limited to:

*              Conditionals with linking at the speech act level (in terms of Sweetser 1990), also known as "biscuit conditionals", after Austin's (1956) example There are biscuits on the sideboard if you want them. In such conditionals, the apodosis is factual and not contingent on the protasis.
*              Factual conditionals, also known as premise, "given", or quasi-causal conditionals. These overlap with 'since'-clauses, in that the proposition in the protasis is pragmatically presupposed (cf. Sweetser 1990: 128-132).
*              Concessive conditionals such as Even if it rains, I will go out. Concessive conditionals typically have a factual apodosis. They also differ from canonical conditionals in that they express a set of antecedents in their protasis (Haspelmath & König 1998: 564-566).
*              Exceptive conditionals like I will go out unless it rains express an exception to the general validity of the proposition in the apodosis, thereby entailing a hypothetical conditional with a negated protasis (if it doesn't rain, I will go out, cf. Declerck & Reed 2000).

2. Contributions to the workshop

We welcome contributions on non-canonical conditionals from a comparative perspective or in individual languages, provided that the findings are of general interest to linguistic typology. Possible topics include but are not limited to:

*              Structural differences between non-canonical and canonical conditionals. Are non-canonical conditionals coded differently from their canonical counterparts, do they occur with different TAM markers in the protasis and/or apodosis?
*              Clause order in non-canonical conditionals. It is well-known that the protasis tends to precede the apodosis in canonical conditionals (Universal 14 in Greenberg 1963). Does this also hold true for non-canonical conditionals?
*              Structural similarities between non-canonical conditionals and other adverbial clause types. Factual conditionals are similar to causal clauses; concessive conditionals share properties with concessives proper. Are these conceptual-semantic similarities reflected in the form of these non-canonical conditionals?

Please submit your abstracts (up to 500 words, excluding references and examples) to Tom.Bossuyt at UGent.be<mailto:Tom.Bossuyt at UGent.be> by 25 April, 2025.

References
Austin, J.L. 1956. Ifs and cans. Proceedings of the British Academy 42, 109-132.
Comrie, B. 1986. Conditionals: A typology. In E. Traugott, A. ter Meulen, J.S. Reilly, C.A. Ferguson (eds.), On conditionals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 77-100.
Croft, W. 2022. Morphosyntax: Constructions of the world's languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Declerck, R. & S. Reed. 2000. The semantics and pragmatics of unless. English Language and Linguistics 4.2, 205-241.
Greenberg, J.H. 1963. Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. In J.H. Greenberg (ed.), Universals of language. Cambridge: MIT Press, 73-113.
Haspelmath, M. & E. König. 1998. Concessive conditionals in the languages of Europe. In J. van der Auwera (ed.), Adverbial constructions in the languages of Europe. Berlin: de Gruyter, 563-640.
König, E. 1995. The meaning of converb constructions. In M. Haspelmath & E. König (eds.), Converbs in cross-linguistic perspective. Berlin: de Gruyter, 57-95.
Smeets, I. 2008. A grammar of Mapuche. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Smirnova, M.A. & N.A. Dobronravin (2005): Conditional constructions in Hausa. In V.S. Xrakovskij (ed.): Typology of conditional constructions. Munich: Lincom Europa, 425-450.
Sweetser, E. 1990. From etymology to pragmatics: Metaphorical and cultural aspects of semantic structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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