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I am having trouble with the effect of "not required" in a conditional statement, more specifically, the effect of "not" as to which condition it modifies:

Example1: (from SuperPrep, test C, section 2, question 22) "One's being at home is NOT REQUIRED for one's being in one's own house"

--which it equates to "one can be in one's house without being at home" this second restatement tells me that the condition is, essentially: [not in house --> at home]
I don't know how to make that conditional relationship from the original statement using "not required" !?

Example 2: (modified from ex given by edinbourgh) "Sam being at home is NOT REQUIRED for the dog to bark"

since "required" indicates the Necessary condition, I know that "Sam being at home" is the Necessary condition, and that "dog bark" is the Sufficient condition; however, I know that one of them is negated (due to the "not" in "not required") but I don't know how to assess which condition it applies to !?!?

Please HELP!

If something is "not required" then you do not have a conditional statement. The whole idea of conditionals is that a sufficient condition guarantees the occurrence of a necessary precondition. So if something is not required, then it has no place in a conditional statement.

In example 1, I have no idea where you got that conditional, because it is most certainly incorrect.

yeah, dakatz is right. That statement can be rephrased into:

1. One can be at home, but not in one's own house.
2. One can be at home and in one's own house.
3. One can be in one's own house, but not at home.
4. One can be in one's own house and at home.

......and all the possible modifications with "not" present or absent in different clauses.

dakatz wrote:If something is "not required" then you do not have a conditional statement. The whole idea of conditionals is that a sufficient condition guarantees the occurrence of a necessary precondition. So if something is not required, then it has no place in a conditional statement.

In example 1, I have no idea where you got that conditional, because it is most certainly incorrect.

Thank you so much dakatz and TheLuckyOne!!!

I can't believe I've been stuck on this for so long, when it is as simple as that!!!

Like I said, I got that statement from SuperPrep and in the explanation for that problem it made it seem like a conditional statement, restating it using "without" so I was completely stumped by the "NOT required" but now it is all clear--though I'm still not sure wtf is up with that problem in SuperPrep...

Thanks again for the clarification!