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The Spem conlang: linking clauses

The two main types of linking clauses are "if _ then _", and "because _ therefore _". In most languages, these expressions don't distinguish between the different types of relationships they can imply, such as causation and deduction. For example, "If you do X, Y will happen" (meaning that X will cause Y) is a different meaning from "If you do X, that entails that Y will happen" (X might not be the cause of Y, but that it happens gives us reason to believe Y will happen). Spem distinguishes these different relationships:

ye - if. Used for any type of relationship.

yey - because. (Takes the place of ye when the premise is known to be true.) yey is not strictly necessary, since a premise clause without ye already means it's true, but it exists for clarity. If the premise is long, it can be useful to have a way to signal from the start from that it's a preface to something else.

zo - causation.

ko - entailment.

θo - entailment by definition. Note that the difference between this and ko is that this one needs no other premises, while for non-definitional entailment, what's actually going on is that other premises are being used (since strictly speaking it's impossible to actually entail something without doing so by definition).

It's also possible to put them in the other order ("_ if _" and "_ because _"). When doing this it's recommended to include both words for clarity:

"zo <effect> yey <cause>"

"ko <deduction> ye <condition>"

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