| 释义 |
hypothetical, a. (n.)|hɪpəʊˈθɛtɪkəl, haɪpəʊ-|
[f. as prec. + -al1.]
A. adj.
1. Involving or of the nature of hypothesis; conjectural.
1617Bacon Sp. on taking his place in Chancery in Resuscitatio (1661) 82, I must utterly discontinue the Making of an Hypotheticall, or Conditionall Order. 1663Butler Hud. i. iii. 1322 Thy other arguments are all Supposures, Hypothetical. 1759Johnson Rasselas xlvii, He that can set hypothetical possibility against acknowledged certainty, is not to be admitted among reasonable beings. 1893Sir R. Ball In High Heav. ix. 196 The..line which divides the truths that have been established in astronomy from those parts of the science which..[are] more or less hypothetical.
b. Logic. Of a proposition: Involving a hypothesis or condition, conditional: opp. to categorical. Of a syllogism: Having a hypothetical proposition for one of its premisses.
(By some logicians used to include all complex propositions and syllogisms, conjunctive and disjunctive; by others restricted to the conjunctive.)
[1551T. Wilson Logike (1580) 21 b, Propositio Hypothetica.] 1588Fraunce Lawiers Log. ii. v. 93 The woord, hypotheticall,..is neither proper nor fit..for, in absolute copulative and discretive axiomes there is no ὑπόθεσις, no condition at all. 1624N. De Lawne tr. Du Moulin's Logic 155 Of compounded Enuntiations, some are Conditionall or Hypotheticall, and some Disjunctive. 1656Stanley Hist. Philos. v. (1701) 182/1 Of Propositions some are Categorical, some Hypothetical. 1837Whewell Hist. Induct. Sc. iv. ii. §3 I. 271 Theophrastus stated..the rules of hypothetical syllogisms. 1860Abp. Thomson Laws Th. §73 (ed. 5) 120 The Hypothetical Judgment expresses seemingly a relation between two judgments, as cause and effect, as condition and conditioned.
c. Of a person: Dealing in hypotheses or groundless suppositions; fanciful. rare.
1748Anson's Voy. iii. vi. 349 The extravagant panegyrics, which many hypothetical writers have bestowed on the ingenuity and capacity of this Nation [the Chinese].
2. Depending on hypothesis; concerning which a hypothesis is made; supposed, assumed.
1665Hooke Microgr. 236 The hypothetical height and density of the Air. 1822Wellington in Desp. (1867) I. 293 It would be..impossible..to declare..what would be our conduct upon any hypothetical case. 1860Tyndall Glac. ii. xxix. 401 Any other obstacle will produce the same effect as our hypothetical post. 1874Stubbs Const. Hist. I. iv. 63 A hypothetical colony from a hypothetical settlement on the Littus Saxonicum of Gaul.
†3. hypothetical necessity: that kind of necessity which exists, not absolutely, but only on the supposition that something is or is to be: repr. Aristotle's ἀναγκαῖον ἐξ ὑποθέσεως, opp. to ἀναγκαῖον ἁπλῶς. Obs.
1615Crooke Body of Man 320 Hypotheticall or materiall necessitie. 1656Hobbes Lib., Necess. & Chance (1841) 247 It is granted by all divines, that hypothetical necessity, or necessity upon a supposition, may consist with liberty. 1678Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. iii. §33. 138 The necessity of a plastick life, which Aristotle calls an hypothetical necessity. 1685Baxter Paraphr. N.T., Acts i. 16 This must needs signifie no necessity or constraint put on Judas, but a necessity Hypothetical, and of consequence, that is, it cannot but be true which God foretelleth or foreseeth. 1717S. Clarke tr. Leibnitz's 5th Paper §5. 157 Hypothetical Necessity is that which the Supposition or Hypothesis of God's Foresight and Pre-ordination lays upon future Contingents.
B. as n. A hypothetical proposition or syllogism: see A. 1 b.
1654Z. Coke Logick (1657) 131 Let a compound or Hypothetical, never be put in the place of a conclusion, but only a Simple or Categorical. 1849Sir W. Hamilton Logic II. App. 378 Hypotheticals (Conjunctive and Disjunctive Syllogism). 1881Athenæum 27 Aug. 269/2 As he used the logic of chance to elucidate the difficult subject of modals, so here he employs symbolic logic to cast light on hypotheticals. 1888[see conjunctive a. 4].
Add:[A.] [1.] d. Gram. Of or pertaining to the expression of a hypothetical statement, esp. in hypothetical clause, hypothetical subjunctive; loosely, = conditional a. 6.
1892H. Sweet New Eng. Gram. i. 108 We use tenses to express thought-statements in the hypothetical clauses of conditional sentences, as in if I knew his address, I would write to him. 1902Low & Briggs Matric. Eng. Course i. xiii. 99 The subjunctive in the protasis is called conditional, that in the apodosis is called hypothetical. 1937H. R. Stokoe Understanding of Syntax xiv. 132 Notice too that ‘Hypothetical’ is a better term (to mean expressing a ‘hypothesis’, ‘supposition’ or ‘ condition’) than ‘Conditional’, because this latter term is applied to the whole Sentence of which the ‘Hypothetical’ Clause is a part. 1946A. M. Clark Spoken Eng. viii. 187 The protasis is a subordinate hypothetical clause (or clauses) introduced by if.., whether..or not.., unless.., though or although.., lest [etc.]. 1961R. B. Long Sentence & its Parts vi. 132 The verb forms used as hypothetical subjunctives are forms belonging to the four past tenses. 1985R. Quirk et al. Comprehensive Gram. Eng. Lang. iv. 232 The past tense modals can be used in the hypothetical (or unreal) sense of the past tense..in both main and subordinate clauses.
[B.] b. Gram. A hypothetical clause; a word or phrase which expresses conjecture: see *A. 1 d. Chiefly in pl.
1957D. L. Bolinger in Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. xxviii. 94 The verbs that freely absorb or do not absorb the negative are the high-frequency hypotheticals..suppose, imagine [etc.]. 1972W. Labov Language in Inner City iv. 138 Traditionally, relative clauses on any have also been understood as reduced hypotheticals. |