It is a well-known fact that hypothetical conditional constructions – of the form “If A, then B” – do not express factuality in the same way as do other linguistic utterances, such as assertions: neither the antecedent nor the consequent in a hypothetical statement can be thought of as being true in the real world. Rather, hypothetical conditional statements are concerned with the speaker’s “ability to reason about alternatives, uncertainties and unrealized contingencies” (Traugott et al. 1986). But, what grammatical tools do natural languages employ to express hypothetical uncertainties and unrealized contingencies? And, are there any cross-linguistic patterns that can account for the different ways of expressing hypotheticality in natural languages?

It is known that some languages make use of their sophisticated and grammaticalized tense-aspect systems to mark the distinction between two, three or even more categories of hypothetical constructions, whereas others have recourse to simple morphological devices or clause ordering in a conditional statement. This conference seeks to provide an international forum for a fruitful discussion among researchers working on specific topics in this field, such as the role of tense and aspect in conditional constructions, the perfective/imperfective dichotomy in conditionals, time-branching models in counterfactuals, fake tenses and aspects, truth-conditional accounts of tense and aspect in conditionals, as well as other recent proposals such as X-marking theory (von Fintel & Iatridou 2022).

We welcome abstracts for 20-minute oral presentations (plus 10 minutes for discussion). Submissions on any aspects of tense and aspect in conditionals from any linguistic framework (formal, functional, typological, cognitive, among others) or any logical approach are welcome. We are particularly interested in receiving papers that deal with cross-linguistic analysis of data from less studied languages.

Abstracts should be in Word format, anonymous, and no more than 500 words in length. They should clearly state the research questions and the method of analysis adopted, and be sent to: paris.conditionals@gmail.com as soon as possible, and preferably no later than August 31 September 15, 2022. All submissions will be reviewed anonymously and a decision on acceptance will be communicated within a week of receipt of the abstract.