Speech act adverbial clauses: The case of conditionaljeśli-clauses in Polish

Abstract

Summary In this article, I examine the external and internal syntax of speech act adverbial clauses in Polish with the main focus on conditional clauses headed by the complementizer jeśli ‘if’. I argue that speech act adverbial clauses radically differ from hypothetical/content conditional clauses, and that they adjoin outside the structure of the matrix clause. As far as their internal syntax is concerned, I discuss evidence showing that speech act adverbial clauses project up to JP in Krifka’s terms (2023), and can also host epistemic and evidential expressions.