OT: Syntax for if/then statement

[Bill Briggs]

At 12:33 PM -0600 6/29/06, Grant Hogarth, self-professed pedant, wrote:
>To build still further on Eric's excellent discourse:
>
>There also exists the possibility of a conditional dependency of action.
>       E.g. "If your book wins a Pulitzer, [then] you
>             [will/can/must/shall/may/ought to/...] celebrate..."
>
>
>- If A, then B     (explicit consequence, implied (but not required)
>order)
>- If A and B       (explicit connection, both elements required)
>- If A, and then B (explicit consequence, conditions must occur in fixed
>order)
>- If A, B          (explict set construction with tacit connection, but
>no required sequence)
>
>In the first three of these, the time separation element is implied as a
>requirement;

 Sorry, but that's not so. My example in a previous message has no time element and satisfies the first just fine thank you. It's not necessary that these things are sequences of instructions, they can be existing conditions, which is how the constructs arise in logic and in programming any kind of logic based system.

 Further, the first instance is a complete notion. The second and third are not and require a consequence to complete the statement. The last is totally unclear to me. Is it "if A and B" or "if A or B" or "if A given B" or something else? It is not possible to ascertain from what you've written.

- web