と as a consequence

Question

I was told that [と] can be used to indicate a condition such as "if x, then y"; however, it should have a "natural" nuance. For example, there's an example people usually teach you: "if you turn off the lights, it becomes dark". So, i guess it indicates a condition in which there's something that's supposed to be obvious. But..please, take a look at this example:

だめ。じゃないとお前さんとシーラ君の仲をテリーに言っちゃう。

The context is someone trying to get his friend to his lab, even though it's late at night and he doesn't want to come. The translator made it this way:

"if you don't come, i'll tell Terry about your relationship with Shelia"

The [と] here it's used to indicate that kind of condition, but it doesn't seem something "natural" or obvious. Im poorly educated about its use, or there's something more than i don't know?

Thank you very much for reading.

Answer 1

Yes, the particle と can be used as you described. My grammar reference states that

と marks a condition that brings about an uncontrollable event or state. The clause following と cannot be a command, request, suggestion or invitation.

So in this case, the speaker is telling the listener that basically the "natural" consequences of not coming to the lab will be Terry learning about Sheila. Or the condition is not coming to the lab, and the resulting state is Terry learning about Sheila. The と give the idea that there is nothing the listener can do to change the outcome.

Hope that helps!