Capturing a syntactic oxymoron in the wild

Mendoza, Imke; Sonnenhauser, Barbara und Wiemer, Björn (2024): Capturing a syntactic oxymoron in the wild. Directive subordination in Slavic. In: Italian Journal of Linguistics, Bd. 36, Nr. 2: S. 83-106

Abstract

Loss of illocution, the presence of a clause-initial connective and word order are usually taken to be indicators of structural asymmetries in clause combining. In this exploratory study, we aim to operationalize the relation between word order and clause type, using Russian, Polish, and Slovene as representatives of the three major Slavic branches. On the assumption that clause-initial function words may indicate subordination, we analyze the distribution of the presumably unequivocal complementizers że (Pol.), čto (Ru.) and da (Slv.), and compare them with Pol. niech, Ru. pust’ and Slv. naj. These elements function as illocutionary force indicating devices for directive speech acts, but at the same time show complementizer-like properties when introducing a clause that follows a clause containing a complement-taking predicate. Using corpus data from two different diachronic stages we try to establish diachronic and cross-linguistic patterns that provide information on possible links between word order and the ‘complementizerhood’ of a clause-initial element. Our findings reveal that the concepts of word order and connective, i.e. the very concepts, that are often used for diagnosing subordination, seem to be ill-defined and need to be reconsidered on the basis of thorough empirical research.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaften > Department 2 > Slavische Philologie
• Themengebiete: 400 Sprache > 490 Andere Sprachen
• ISSN: 1120-2726
• Sprache: Englisch