Description:
<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title><jats:p>Defining the constraints on the use of the modals<jats:italic>will</jats:italic>and<jats:italic>would</jats:italic>in futurate<jats:italic>if</jats:italic>-clauses in English poses problems to both descriptive and theoretical linguists. One ‘rule’ often referred to is that while future<jats:italic>will</jats:italic>and counter- factual<jats:italic>would</jats:italic>do not normally occur in conditional sub-clauses with<jats:italic>if</jats:italic>, volitional and dispositional<jats:italic>will</jats:italic>and<jats:italic>would</jats:italic>can be used in that context.</jats:p><jats:p>This paper attempts to account for this general rule and for the so-called exceptions to it in terms of two different syntactic positions of<jats:italic>if</jats:italic>-clauses in the sentence. It is suggested that the contrast can be formalized within current versions of<jats:private-char description="X̄"><jats:inline-graphic xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" mime-subtype="gif" mimetype="image" xlink:type="simple" xlink:href="S0022226700009841_char1"><jats:alt-text>X̄</jats:alt-text></jats:inline-graphic></jats:private-char>-theory.</jats:p>