Conditional Structuring and Incomplete Settlement: Local Dynamics of if and maybe in Understanding Formation

This paper examines two highly frequent English expressions that participate differently in understanding formation: if and maybe. Existing studies often treat if as a conditional connective and maybe as a marker of uncertainty or modality. However, such analyses largely remain at the level of semantic content or pragmatic function, and less frequently address how these expressions influence the formation and stabilization of relations during understanding. Based on small-scale observations of n