151. Conditional Sentences in general. Conditional Sentences are those which cause a particular statement or command to depend on the fulfilment of a given condition: “If you lay by one dollar per week, you will have over $500 at the end of ten years”; “If you see anything strange, shoot first and ask questions afterwards!”; “If I had not known he was a criminal, I should have felt inclined to believe what he was saying.” Such sentences can often become complex, with one or more inset clauses dependent on the main ones; they may contain negative and affirmative elements indiscriminately; they may range from likelihood, through mere possibility, to outright hypotheticality and absurdity; they can often express the condition by other words than “if” (“had I known…, were it not for the fact that…, assuming that…”, etc.); and they may place the clause setting the condition (the Protasis) after the consequential statement or command (the Apodosis). In many languages, but only to a very limited extent in modern English, Conditional Sentences need special consideration as regards structure, particularly in the matter of tenses.

152. Conditional Sentences in Arabic. Most of the foregoing remarks apply to the case of Arabic, with one exception: in Arabic the Protasis (sharṭ, lit. “condition”) must practically always precede the Apodosis (jawāb, lit. “answer, response”). Three special points need attention in Arabic Conditional Sentences: the particle used for “if”; the Aspect of the verb employed; and the introduction of the jawāb, by fa- or in some other way.