Abstract
Hardly any analyses have been made about concesssive clauses. The purpose of this paper is to investigate, from the pragmatic point of view, some semantic characteristics of concession. I argue that reason sentences incorporating an adjunct because-or since-clause presuppose the fulfillment of a condition which is suggested by a conditional sentence introduced by the subordinator if substituted for because, whereas concessive clauses with a though clause presuppose the non-fulfillment of that condition; because a, b presupposes if a, b, but though a, b presupposes.∼(if a, b) in logic. A contrary expectation arising from this semantic relationship is considered to be the main property of concessive meanings. The triad of logical sentences consisting of reason, conditional and concessive ones can derive a definite number of mutual combinations of these logical sentences which account for conversational implicatures related to the maxim of relation proposed by H. P. Grice (1975). Now there is need of further investigation as to the semantic parallelism between the coordinators and, or, but and the subordinators because, if, though in natural logic and pragmatics.
