Expressing Expectations

In this paper we have to say something about a variety of topics:
– Conditionals. (There is a third kind of conditionals, somewhere between indicatives and counterfactuals.)
– Relative gradable adjectives. (How do they get their evaluative force?)
– Generic sentences. (Why aren’t they all equally general?)
What these topics have in common is that one cannot explain the meaning—not even the logical properties—of the expressions concerned without explaining how they affect people’s expectations. This can best be done in a framework in which the meaning of a sentence is not equated with its truth conditions but with its (potential) impact on the intentional state of an addressee.