expectationsthat

Expectationsthat is a neologism used in some theoretical discussions to refer to a way of encoding expectancy about propositions expressed with that-clauses. The term blends the notion of an expectation with a sentential complement headed by that, and it is typically used in deliberations about semantics, pragmatics, and formal representations of belief states.

In linguistics, expectationsthat can denote the semantic-pragmatic corner where a speaker attributes an expectation to a proposition embedded under that. For example, sentences like The committee has expectations that the budget will be approved illustrate a stance in which the embedded content is not asserted outright but projected as something the speaker deems likely or desired. The focus is on how the speaker’s attitude toward the embedded proposition is structured within the larger clause.

In a probabilistic or logical setting, the phrase can be used conceptually to discuss an operator that maps a proposition introduced by that to its associated degree of expectation, such as a probability or elicited belief strength. This is not standard notation, but it serves as a heuristic for modeling how agents assign likelihoods to future or hypothetical states described by that-clauses.

Usage notes: expectationsthat is not a widely standardized term, and its interpretation relies on context. It intersects with epistemic modality, evidentiality, and clause-embedding structures, and is related to broader discussions of complement clauses, belief representation, and probabilistic semantics.