The complements of so-called“factive”verbs such asknowandrealizeare distinguished by being presupposed as true
regardless of the status of the main clause itself. Thus,Fred realized that Joan bought a car, Fred didn't realize that Joan bought
a car, andDid Fred realize that Joan bought a car?all presume that Joan bought a car. We can incorporate this in the
referential tier by saying that these verbs, instead of putting a box around their complements, add a grounding arrow,
as in (47).
(47) S/P: [Fred 1 didn't realize that [Joan 4 bought a car 5 ] 2 ] 3
RT:As a side consequence, an indefinite within a factive clause, such asa carin (47), has an associated existential claim.
AnotherimportantRTconfigurationoccurs inconditionalsentences. A sentenceoftheformIf P, then Qassertsneither
Pnor Q, but rather thatPis referentially dependent onQ. To make this clearer, recall what referential dependence is.
Ina woman bought a car, the buying is referentially dependent on the woman and the car; hence there cannot be an
existentialclaimabout theact ofbuyingwithout a concurrentexistentialclaimabout thewomanand car. Similarly, inIf
P, then Q, the sentence asserts that there cannot be an existential clai mabout the situationPwithout a concurrent
existential clai mabout the situationQ—precisely the correct meaning. Conditionals can be expressed in a variety of
syntactic forms:if-thenconstructions (48a), subordinate clauses (48b), or successive sentences in discourse (48c); but
thereferentialdependency remains constant. Notethat definiteanaphora within theif-clause can havean antecedentin
theif-clause, indicating that the two are both in the same referential frame.^215
(48) a.[If [a verb 1 takes an object 2 ] 3 , (then) [it 4 governs accusative case 5 ] 6 ] 7
b. [That [a verb 1 takes an object 2 ] 3 entails that [it 4 governs accusative case 5 ] 6 ] 7404 SEMANTIC AND CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS
(^215) This parallelis mbetween indefiniteNPs and thethen-dausesof conditionals conies out most clearly if, as advocatedin section10.10, we take the reference of a sentenceto
be a situation rather than a truth value.