Relevance conditional

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Relevance conditional designates a special case of a sentence structure . The preceding subordinate clause is similar to a conditional clause in a conditional structure and is introduced with prepositions such as if . However, the statement of this subordinate clause is not a condition for the statement in the core clause.

Examples

  • If someone is looking for me, I'll be in the garden.
  • When someone calls me, I'm in the garden.
  • If Peter loses at table tennis, it is only because his jersey was the wrong color.

In the case of a relevance conditional, the meaning of the stated circumstance does not result directly from a propositional reference, but its relevance mostly only in relation to the respective context of the utterance.

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