INTRODUCTION

I shall be concerned with the use of conditionals in inducements, conditional promises and bribes, and their use in deterrents, conditional threats and warnings. This paper will examine the logic and possible phrasing of such conditionals the principal function of which is purposive, i.e., constitutes an attempt on the part of the speaker to get the addressee to do something (If you fix the car I'll give you $100) or to refrain from doing something (If you come any closer I'll shoot). It is hoped that the account to be developed here will provide an analysis for this special class of speech act conditionals, and serve in some measure as a model for approaching the study of other sorts of conditionals; also that some of the kinds of considerations that emerge as critical here, e.g. the importance of knowledge of the contents of the p and q propositions involved in the conditional, will be of more general relevance.

Conditional promises and threats clearly involve something more than the statement of a contingency between the p and q propositions involved, more even than the statement of some causal connection between these propositions.