On exhaustive conditional clauses in Modern Standard Arabic

Abstract

Simple conditional clauses identify a single condition under which a modified clause is true. In contrast, exhaustive conditionals (ECs) identify a set of conditions under all of which the clause is true. Two binary distinctions give four possible types of EC. Three of these are found in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Unlike English ECs, MSA ECs have essentially the same distribution as simple conditionals. Three rather different analyses seem appropriate for the three types, but they share a number of properties allowing the similarities between the three types to be captured.