Premise conditionals are echoic thematic conditionals.

This paper discusses the information structural properties of so-called premise (also factual) conditionals, conditional sentences whose antecedent repeats previously evoked content. We argue that, semantically, premise conditionals are hypothetical conditionals, with two pragmatic properties: their antecedent is echoic and thematic. We show that some of the differences identified in the literature between hypothetical and premise conditionals follow from the informational status of the antecedent. While the antecedent of a premise conditional is thematic, the antecedent of a hypothetical conditional can also be rhematic. Rhematic conditionals happen to be compatible with all the characteristics that stand out as incompatible with premise conditionals. Additionally, we argue that echoicity is a definitional property of the premise reading of indicative conditionals. • Premise (also called factual) conditionals are not a syntactic/semantic object on their own. • They are just a possible interpretation of an indicative conditional given the right discourse conditions. • We define them as thematic and echoic; the antecedent need not be Common Ground. • Thematicity explains previously observed characteristics of premise conditionals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]