ABSTRACT
We don’t just talk about situations actually happening. We also anticipate situations, will them, plan them, speculate and hypothesize about them, and language reflects this. As well as talking about actually occurring situations in the present or past, we can talk about non-actual situations – situations that are possible or hypothetical rather than actual occurrences. In fact, it is hard to imagine how we could communicate the non-actualness of situations without language. If we mimed a situation, or drew a picture of it, how could we show that it was not an actual situation? We could only get this across if we had some agreed gesture or symbol indicating that a situation is conjectured. This is just what language does: it provides forms that signpost the modality of situations, that is, their status as actual or non-actual situations.
