The division of conditional sentences is usually made on the grounds of their relation toward the fulfilment of the condition. Hence, open conditionals are those which are neutral with respect to the fulfilment of the condition, whereas hypothetical ones exhibit the speaker's negative belief about the possibility of the fulfilment of the condition and depending on the time reference they are interpreted as contrary to the expectation, assumption or fact.

Open conditions

The speaker's neutral attitude in open conditionals means that he/she has no fixed opinion on whether the condition will or will not be fulfilled. After a closer analysis it can be clearly seen that there are differences in this “neutrality”. Thus, Dancygier's example (already cited before):

seems to be definitely less neutral than its possible classic counterpart, such as:

The speaker's assumption that “he” will not come before nine is stronger in [1] that in [2]. There are examples in which that lack of neutrality is even more obvious, like in:

What the speaker wants to say in [3] is not neutral at all. The message is that, to the speaker's knowledge or opinion, his passing the examination is hardly possible.