This paper explores the relationship between tense/mood and semantic interpretation of if conditionals clauses in European Contemporary Portuguese. The data that we collected and analysed show that the correlation between tense/mood and conditionals interpretation is not necessarily biunivocal/simple: (i) there are formally subjunctive conditionals, which may convey factuality and (ii) indicative tenses and imperfect subjunctive, which may be ambiguous and compatible with three semantic classes of conditionals (factual, hypothetical and counterfactual).

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Este artigo discute o estatuto e a estrutura sintática das condicionais factuais de se do português de Moçambique. Os resultados da aplicação de testes sintáticos às factuais mostram que podem ser integradas ou periféricas. Deste modo, são distintas das factuais de outras línguas, como o inglês, que são consideradas apenas periféricas (HAEGEMAN, 2003; BHATT; PANCHEVA, 2006). Do ponto de vista estrutural, as integradas ocupam uma posição relativamente baixa que é a de adjunção a VP e as periféricas, pelo contrário, posições altas na frase, em adjunção a CP ou TP (HAEGEMAN, 2003; LOBO, 2003). Para darmos conta das integradas antepostas, com base em argumentos empíricos, defendemos que são geradas por Move do interior do TP da matriz, onde são geradas, para a posição de especificador de tópico, por topicalização da oração adverbial condicional, na linha de Duarte (1987, 1996) e Valmala (2009), contrariando a hipótese de que são geradas por Merge (LOBO, 2003; IATRIDOU, 1991).

This paper discusses the semantic typology of the conditionals of the Mozambican Portuguese (MP), focusing on the occurrence of verb tenses and mood, in comparison with European Portuguese (EP). Based on data collected through a combination of different research methods, the analysis suggests that the differences between MP and EP are limited: in both varieties, there are three semantic classes of the conditionals (factual, hypothetical and counterfactual) and the correlation between tense/mood and interpretation of conditionals is not necessarily biunivocal. However, there are some differences between MP and EP in contexts where tenses and mood are used in a more marked way in hypothetical and counterfactual conditionals. Moreover, other differences result from ambiguous EP input, and the fact that MP speakers use distinct grammatical rules: common to EP and particular rules of MP.