Nontruthconditional

Nontruthconditional is a term used in linguistics and semantics to describe utterances or sentence meanings that do not primarily convey truth-conditional content. In truth-conditional semantics, the meaning of a declarative sentence is analyzed in terms of the conditions under which it would be true. Nontruthconditional analysis, by contrast, accounts for aspects of meaning that cannot be captured solely by truth conditions, such as illocutionary force, mood, presupposition, and context dependence.

The category encompasses several related phenomena. Directives and performatives, such as commands or promises, typically lack explicit truth conditions in their primary content, yet they perform social actions and convey force. Questions and exclamatives often do not aim to express truth-conditional propositions, focusing instead on information requests or expressive impact. Presuppositions, while they may interact with truth conditions, introduce background assumptions that are not themselves provided by the truth-conditional content. Additionally, many utterances carry social, evaluative, or expressive information about the speaker or situation that is not reducible to truth-conditions.

The concept is used to analyze linguistic data that challenge purely truth-conditional approaches, helping to explain how language can act in the world beyond stating facts. The notion interacts with theories of speech act, pragmatics, and discourse, and it remains a topic of debate, with some researchers advocating predominantly truth-conditional analyses supplemented by presuppositions, while others argue for a broader, nontruthconditional framework.

See also: truth-conditional semantics, presupposition, speech act theory, pragmatics, illocutionary force.