Understanding Counterfactuality: A Review of Experimental Evidence for the Dual Meaning of Counterfactuals
Open accessAbstract
Cognitive and linguistic theories of counterfactual language comprehension assume that counterfactuals convey a dual meaning. Subjunctive‐counterfactual conditionals (e.g., ‘If Tom had studied hard, he would have passed the test’) express a supposition while implying the factual state of affairs ( Tom has not studied hard and failed ). The question of how counterfactual dual meaning plays out during language processing is currently gaining interest in psycholinguistics. Whereas numerous studies using offline measures of language processing consistently support counterfactual dual meaning, evidence coming from online studies is less conclusive. Here, we review the available studies that examine online counterfactual language comprehension through behavioural measurement (self‐paced reading times, eye‐tracking) and neuroimaging (electroencephalography, functional magnetic resonance imaging). While we argue that these studies do not offer direct evidence for the online computation of counterfactual dual meaning, they provide valuable information about the way counterfactual meaning unfolds in time and influences successive information processing. Further advances in research on counterfactual comprehension require more specific predictions about how counterfactual dual meaning impacts incremental sentence processing.
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Stepin, I., Alonso, J. M., Catala, A., & Pereira-Farina, M. (2021) · IEEE Access · doi:10.1109/access.2021.3051315 · Cited by 376 · see citing works
- Authors
- Kulakova, E., & Nieuwland, M. S.
- Affiliations
- University of Salzburg (AT)
- University of Edinburgh (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Kulakova, Eugenia
- Venue
- Language and Linguistics Compass
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2016-02
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 49-65
- ISSN
- 1749-818X (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4959139
- OpenAlex
- W2407810780
- Cited by
- 122
- References
- 92
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 48 · 2019: 39 · 2018: 3 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 93.19
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Language and Linguistics Compass (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Max Planck Digital Library (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Edinburgh Research Explorer (University of Edinburgh) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- MPG.PuRe (Max Planck Society) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- British Academy (SG131266)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Language and Linguistics › Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Keywords
- counterfactuals, subjunctive conditionals, language comprehension, online language processing, supposition, self-paced reading, eye tracking, neuroimaging of language, psycholinguistics
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