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In my two most well-developed conlangs ai Basata and Txtana the word "if" is a conjunction which connects two complete sentences and must come between them: "I stay home IF the storm arrives." I tend to simplification and would likely use the simple present tense to imply counter-factuals: "I do not say that IF I am you." or possibly even "I do not say that WHEN I am you." Or if I really wanted to make it clear that I'm talking about hypotheticals I might invent a new conjunction something like "I do not say such things WERE-IT-SO-THAT I am you." but I would still use the present tense with it. (I prefer to avoid needless proliferation of tenses.) --gary On Wed, Dec 19, 2012 at 8:23 AM, Roger Mills <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > In Kash, contrafactual sentences use _kendi......., kendi...._. roughly = if.....then. The two clauses can't be reversed, as they can in Engl. and I think other SAE languages. The verbs are in present tense: > > kendi me hahanga, kendi te malolan > "if" me you-pay, "then" you I-protect > Best Engl: If you (should/would/were to) pay me, I would protect you. > There is no certainty ( in fact there's doubt) that either action will take place.