Unconditional readings and the simple conditional tense in Spanish: inferentials, future-oriented intentionals, future-in-the-past

Abstract

Abstract This paper offers a compositional interpretation of Spanish simple conditional morphology (cantaría ‘would sing’) in independent sentences set within the semantic situations framework. It proposes that Spanish simple conditional morphology is composed of (a) a past component that encodes a topic situation, (b) a universal future operator with either an epistemic flavor or a temporal (i.e. historical) flavor /accessibility, and (c) a universal imperfective operator with a variety of flavors. Based on the interactions of these three components, the paper develops derivations for (1) past-oriented inferential readings that distinguish Spanish from French and Italian, (2) future-oriented conditionals involving past plans, which are apparently shared with French and Italian, and (3) future-in-the-past conditionals, where Spanish appears to resemble French and differs from Italian.