Universite d’antananarivo ecole normale superieure

1.1.1- A brief syntactic description of conditional sentences

A conditional sentence is “a complex sentence that consists of a main clause and a subordinate clause; the latter typically begins with the adverbial subordinator if” (Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman, 1999). Quirk and Greenbaum (1973) state that conditional sentences express the dependence of one set of circumstance (the result clause or the main clause) on another (the if clause). In some grammatical terminologies, “if clauses” is also used for referring to “conditional sentences” but not only for the conditional clause itself.

Two clauses orderings are possible: either the if clause is before the main clause or the

main clause occurs before the if clause.
Eg: a) If you are wise, I will buy sweets for you.

If clause main clause

OR I will buy sweets for you if you are wise

Main clause if clause
b) If John goes, Sue will go.
If clause main clause

OR Sue will go if John goes.

Main clause if clause

In either order, the if clause sets up the condition, and the main clause expresses the result or outcome. Therefore, the if clause can be treated as an adverbial clause of condition. When the if clause is generated in initial position, we should use a comma (,) before we write the main clause.
Another option of clause ordering is possible. We can optionally add “then” before the main clause only when the if clause occurs in initial position.
Eg: If you are wise, then I will buy sweets for you. Therefore, it is not acceptable to write:

Then I will buy sweets for you if you are wise.