Sweetser's three domains of conditional meaning #
@cite{sweetser-1990} @cite{bar-asher-siegal-2026}
Conditionals can express dependencies at three levels:
- content: real-world causal or temporal dependency. "If you drop the glass, it will shatter."
- epistemic: inference based on speaker's knowledge. "If the lights are on, someone is home."
- speechAct: illocutionary relevance — the antecedent licenses the speech act performed by the consequent. "If you're hungry, there's food in the fridge."
@cite{bar-asher-siegal-2026}: content-domain conditionals frequently
presuppose or invite causal interpretations, connecting conditional
semantics to the causal-model infrastructure in Causation/.
Extracted from Conditionals/ConditionalType.lean (was lines 309–368).
@cite{sweetser-1990}'s three domains of conditional meaning.
- content : SweetserDomain
Real-world causal/temporal dependency between events.
- epistemic : SweetserDomain
Epistemic inference from evidence to conclusion.
- speechAct : SweetserDomain
Illocutionary relevance: antecedent licenses the speech act.
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- Semantics.Conditionals.instDecidableEqSweetserDomain x✝ y✝ = if h : x✝.ctorIdx = y✝.ctorIdx then isTrue ⋯ else isFalse ⋯
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- One or more equations did not get rendered due to their size.
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Does this domain trigger causal inference?
Content-domain conditionals invite causal readings: "If P then Q" is often interpreted as "P causes Q" or "P is a precondition for Q." Epistemic and speech-act domains involve inference and relevance, not causation.
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Does this domain involve speaker knowledge?
Epistemic conditionals express reasoning from evidence; content and speech-act conditionals do not.
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Content domain triggers causal inference.
Epistemic domain does not trigger causal inference.
Speech-act domain does not trigger causal inference.