Conjunctions, Contextualizers, and Syntax Theory

Conjunctions, Contextualizers, and Syntax Theory*1 Elena V. Uryson AbSTRACT: According to traditional grammar conjunctions are words joining clauses (or words / word combi‑ nations). Still, many conjunctions can join also sentences or longer fragments of texts, being in fact contextualizers (these are “soft” conjunctions), while some conjunctions are able to join only clauses (these are “hard” conjunctions). Many Russian conjunctions, both coordinate and subordinate, are soft, but there are also hard coordinate and subordinate conjunctions. Hard conjunctions and con‑ textualizers have (at least) two semantic actants. The difference in the surface expression of seman‑ tic actants of conjunctions vs. contextualizers is discussed. KEY wORDS: clause, conjunction, contextualizer, semantic actant, sentence, syntactic actant, text, the Russian language 1. INTRODUCTION By definition, aconjunction is aword that connects other words (cf. It became dark AND cold) or clauses (cf. It became light AND Igot up; I’ll get up WHEN it is light). Acon‑ textualizer is aword or an expression that joins text fragments. Cf. (1) We had lost our way in the forest. Everybody was hungry (P). | MEANTIME it was getting dark. The wind was strengthening (Q). Here, the contextualizer meantime joins two text fragments P and Q, each of them consisting of two sentences. Acontextualizer can join also two paragraphs. Cf. the transformation of text (1): (2) We had lost our way in the forest. Everybody was hungry (P). | MEANTIME it was getting dark. The wind was strengthening (Q). Such aposition is likely to be apeculiarity of contextualizers. It is needless to say that acontextualizer can join two sentences. Cf. (3) It became dark (P). | NEVERTHELESS, we moved forward (Q). * This work is supported by RGNF (grant no. 10-04-00273a), by OIFN RAN, and by the grant NSh-6577.2012.6. 8 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY 1/2013 Acontextualizer can also occupy the position between two clauses. Cf. (4) We had lost our way in the forest (P), | MEANTIME it was snowing (Q). The class of contextualizers comprises adverbs (cf. meantime; hence ‘for this reason’), specific expressions (cf. in aword; in other words), etc. Some of the conjunctions are also apart of this class. Cf. (5) It became light. Birds began singing (P). | AND Igot up (Q). The conjunction AND joins here two text fragments P and Q, thus it is acontextualizer. The subject of this paper is Russian conjunctions. Iwill show that some of them can behave as contextualizers, while others cannot connect text fragments (s. 2). Iwill also discuss some theoretical questions relating to syntax of contextualizers (s. 3). 2. HARD AND SOfT CONjUNCTIONS Some of the Russian conjunctions cannot join sentences or longer text fragments— they join only words or clauses. Iwill call such conjunctions hard. Hard conjunctions cannot behave as contextualizers. Other Russian conjunctions can join sentences and some of them join even longer text fragments. Iwill call such conjunctions soft. Soft conjunctions are contextualizers. It should be noted that only written texts with their markers of asentence end, but not oral speech with its prosody, are discussed in this paper. Probably, some pro‑ sodic contours may mark both aclause end and asentence end. However, this is be‑ yond the scope of the present work. My main suggestions are following. Neither soft nor hard conjunctions are quite uniform. In fact, conjunctions line up on ascale, so some of them are softer, while others are harder; absolutely soft and absolutely hard conjunctions occupy the opposite ends of the scale. As is often the case, it is necessary to describe each meaning of apolysemic word in its own right. In the case of aconjunction, it can be soft in one of its meanings but hard in another one. (Thus we should regard aconjunction in agiven meaning as aseparate entry; apolysemic conjunction is represented as aset of entries.) It seems likely that the ability of aconjunction to behave as acontextualizer is closely related to its stylistic features. Aneutral, widely used conjunction is most likely to be soft. As aresult, conjunctions with close meaning but contrasting stylistic properties can differ in their syntactic functions. Generally, subordinate conjunctions are harder than coordinate ones. Indeed, it is quite easy to find ahard subordinate conjunction. For example, the subordinate con‑ junction ČEM … TEM ‘the … the’ is absolutely hard; cf. ČEM noč temnej, TEM jarče zvëzdy ‘THE darker the night, THE brighter the stars’. The subordinate conjunction ČTO ‘that’ is also hard: it can join only the main and the subordinate clauses; cf. On skazal ej, ČTO snimaetsja vkino ‘He told her, THAT he is afilm actor’. The coordinate conjunction I‘and’, ELENA V. UrYSON 9 much like English AND, is soft; cf. (5) and (18)–(19) below. Still, it appears that some co‑ ordinate conjunctions are hard, while some subordinate conjunctions are soft. Now let us regard some examples supporting these suggestions. 2.1 ThE cOOrDINATE cONjUNcTION A‘AND, bUT’ IN DIffErENT mEANINGS The Russian conjunction Ahas three main meanings, each of them representing aseparate entry (Krejdlin— Padučeva, 1974). Here is the list of them in outline (for more details see Uryson, 2002; 2004a): (i) “amarker of an abnormal effect”. More precisely: Q, aP ≈ ‘P is an abnormal effect of Q’. Cf. (6) P’esa slabaja (Q), Azal polon (P). ‘The play is poor (Q), BUT the hall is full of people (P).’ (In Russian there are two conjunctions corresponding to BUT— Aand NO ‘but’. They slightly differ in semantics (Uryson, 2004b; 2011). For simplicity, Iignore this differ‑ ence now.) (ii) “amarker of comparison”. More precisely: Q, aP ≈ ‘The speaker compares Q and P’. Cf. (7) On bogatyj (Q), Aona bednaja (P). ‘He is rich (Q), BUT/AND she is poor (P).’ (iii) “amarker of atopic change” (or alternatively “amarker of anarration turn”). Cf. (8) Ja stojal na ostanovke, ždal avtobusa (Q), amoroz byl gradusov tridcat’ (P). ‘Iwas standing at astop waiting for abus (Q), AND/BUT the frost was about 30degrees Celsius (P).’ (The first clause (Q) is about the subject, while the second one (P) is about the frost.) It is evident that the meaning of the conjunction Aagrees with the meaning of the context. It does not follow that this conjunction has an “empty” meaning: on this as‑ sumption it would be impossible to distinguish Russian conjunctions I‘and’, A‘and, but’ and NO ‘but’, which can be used in the same context. The conjunction Ain each of these meanings is soft. Cf. (9)–(11) where Ajoins text fragments. In (9) Ais “amarker of an abnormal effect”; in (10) Ais “amarker of com‑ parison’; and in (11) Ais “amarker of atopic change”. (9) Delo kvesne. Den’ udlinilsja, solnce svetit jarče. Na kalendare— seredina marta (Q). | Amoroz vsë žestče. Veter rezkij, severnyj (P). ‘The spring is near. The day is longer, the sun is brighter. It is the middle of March (Q). | BUT the frost is harder. The north wind is severe (P).’ 10 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY 1/2013 (10) Katja— intelligentnaja devuška iz xorošej sem’i. Ejo roditeli— vrači. Ona eščë vdetstve rešila stat’ xirurgom (Q). | ADaša— prostaja, iz sela. Mama uneë do‑ jarka. Otec byl traktoristom, pil irano umer. Ni okakom universitete Daša ne po‑ myšljaet (P). ‘Kate is an intellectual girl of agood family. Her parents are physicians. Being asmall girl she has already decided to be asurgeon (Q). | BUT/AND Daša is an ordinary girl. Her mother is adairymaid. Her father was atractor driver, drank hard and died early. Daša does not think about studying at auniversity (P).’ (11) Stoju na ostanovke, ždu avtobusa. Sumka umenja nepodëmnaja (Q). | Amoroz gradusov tridcat’. Vokrug ni duši (P). (The verbs in the Russian text are in the Praesens historicum.) ‘Iwas standing at astop waiting for abus. My bag was extremely heavy (Q). | AND/BUT the frost was about 30 degrees Celsius. There was not asingle person around (P).’ In all the meanings discussed the conjunction Acan join paragraphs, so in all these meanings it is absolutely soft. Still, this conjunction has another meaning in which it is hard. Cf. (12) Vyxožu ja včera iz doma (Q), Avnašem dvore stoit mašina moego prijatelja (P). ‘Yesterday Ileft my home (Q), AND (suddenly saw that) there is my friend’scar in the yard (P).’ This example expresses the meaning ‘Q, the subject suddenly reveals that P’, which is due to the conjunction A. To make sure, let us omit the conjunction in this sentence: (13) Vyxožu ja včera iz doma (Q), vnašem dvore stoit mašina moego prijatelja (P). ‘Yesterday Ileft my home (Q), there was my friend’scar in the yard (P).’ Example (13) does not contain the conjunction and as aresult does not express the meaning ‘the subject suddenly reveals that…’. We are dealing here with aseparate meaning of A. It has been described in Sannikov (1989, pp. 176–177). Iwill call this entry “amarker of sudden disclosure”. Cf. another example (by V.Z.Sannikov): (14) Tronul gubu (Q), Aumenja iz ‑pod guby— klyk (P). (V. Majakovskij). ‘Itouched my lip (Q), AND (suddenly discovered that) there is afang from un‑ der the lip (P).’ It is easy to verify that Aas “amarker of sudden disclosure” can join only clauses. Let us transform the sentence (12) into atext consisting of two sentences, cf. (15) Vyxožu ja včera iz doma (Q). Avnašem dvore stoit mašina moego prijatelja (P). ‘Yesterday Ileft my home (Q). AND there was my friend’scar in the yard (P).’ ELENA V. UrYSON 11 Example (15) does not express the meaning ‘Isuddenly saw/revealed that…’. In this text the conjunction Amarks “atopic change” (or “anarration turn”): the first sen‑ tence contains information about the speaker, while the second one is about his friend’scar in the yard. So, (12) and (15) differ not only in syntax, but also in seman‑ tics. Due to this semantic difference each of these examples presupposes its own text. Let us imagine that sentence (12) is the beginning of atext. The most probable contin‑ uation of this text is: ‘Iwas amazed: when did he park?’. So, the whole text deals with the subject’ssurprise caused by finding the car in the yard. As for sentence (15), its most conceivable continuation is: ‘Some time ago Ihad permitted my friend to park his car in my yard. And now Ithought that…’. This continuation deals with the sub‑ ject’sfriend and his car— that is the topic of the sentence (15). It should be noted that A“amarker of atopic change” can join clauses, cf. (8). Strictly speaking, sentence (12) can also contain the conjunction Ain this meaning. Due to this, (12) has two meanings: ‘Q, AND (the subject suddenly discovers that) P’ vs. ‘Q, AND (atopic change) P’. Each of these meanings requires its own specific prosody. So, these meanings differ in their surface realization. The point is that the conjunction A“amarker of sudden disclosure” can join only clauses but not sentences. Thus, the conjunction Ain this meaning is hard. 2.2 ThE cOOrDINATE cONjUNcTIONS I, ATAKŽE, DA ‘AND’ The conjunction Iconnecting two clauses expresses one of its two main meanings (for more details see Uryson, 2000; 2011): (i) “amarker of anormal effect”. More precisely: Q, iP ≈ ‘P is anormal effect of Q’. Cf. (16) P’esa slabaja (Q), Ipublika na neë ne idët (P). ‘The play is poor (Q), AND the hall is empty (P).’ (ii) “amarker of atopic change absence” (or alternatively “amarker of anarra‑ tion turn absence”). Cf. (17) Sijalo solnce (Q), Idul veter (P). ‘The sun was shining (Q), AND the wind was blowing (P).’ (Both clauses (Q) and (P) deal with the weather at the described moment.) It is easy to see that the conjunction Iin the first meaning (“amarker of anormal ef‑ fect”) correlates with the conjunction Ain its first meaning (“amarker of an abnor‑ mal effect”). These two meanings can be represented as antonyms. In asimilar man‑ ner, the conjunction Iin the second meaning (“amarker of atopic change absence”) correlates with the conjunction Ain its third meaning (“amarker of atopic change”). The meaning of I‘and’ agrees with the meaning of the context. Nevertheless, it is convenient to describe Ias apolysemic conjunction but not as an “empty conjunction” with broad syntactic functions and no specific meaning. 12 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY 1/2013 The conjunction Iin these two meanings is soft. Cf. (18)–(19): in both examples Ijoins text fragments; in (18) it is “amarker of anormal effect”; in (19) it is “amarker of atopic change absence”. (18) On vsegda pomogal mne, byl rjadom vtrudnuju minutu. Deti očen’ ego ljubili (Q). | Ija stala dumat’, čto naši otnošenija mogut byt’ pročnymi. Ja načala nadejatsja na nego (P). ‘He always helped me in my difficulties. My children liked him (Q). | AND Ibegan to think that our relations can be durable. Ibegan to rely on him (P).’ (19) Sneg taet. Lyži končilis’ (Q). | Iden’ uže očen’ dlinnyj. Nebo večerom byvaet zeleno‑ vatym (P). ‘The snow is melting. Skiing came to an end (Q). | AND the day is already very long. In the evenings the sky is greenish (P).’ In many cases the conjunction I‘and’ (no matter what its meaning is) joins two para‑ graphs, so it is absolutely soft in both meanings. Now let us consider the conjunction ATAKŽE ‘and’, lit. ‘and also’. Although it con‑ sists of two parts and is spelt as two separate words, it is in fact one word. The con‑ junction is bookish, in contrast to neutral I‘and’. ATAKŽE, similarly to I, can join words or clauses. We will consider ATAKŽE connecting clauses. ATAKŽE ‘and’ resembles I“amarker of atopic change absence”. (It should be men‑ tioned that contrary to I, ATAKŽE cannot mark “anormal effect”.) There is aslight semantic difference between ATAKŽE and I“amarker of atopic change absence”: ATAKŽE signals that the piece of information P is given as an addition to Q. Cf. (20) Vdome razbity okna (Q), ATAKŽE vybita dver’ (P). ‘The windows are broken in the house (Q), AND (ALSO) the door is knocked out (P).’ (21) Vkonce semidesjatyx godov vrjade stran bylo zapreščeno ispol’zovanie freonov (Q), ATAKŽE sokraščeno samo proizvodstvo freona (P). ‘In the end of the seventies in some countries the use of Freons was forbidden (Q), AND (ALSO) the making of Freon was cut down (P).’ In these examples ATAKŽE joins clauses that have acommon group. Cf. Vdome ‘in the house’ in (20); Vkonce semidesjatyx godov vrjade stran ‘in the end of the seventies in some countries’ in (21). It is apeculiar syntactic feature of this conjunction that in narration it normally cannot join clauses that have no common part. Because of this, one could believe that ATAKŽE is ahard conjunction. However, in special cases ATAKŽE can join sentences and even longer text fragments. Cf. (22) Objasnite, prav li ja, sil’nejšij povelitel’ zemel’ islama, trebuja, čtoby xalif bag‑ dadskij podčinjalsja mne (Q)? ATAKŽE objasnite, čto ja dolžen delat’, esli xalif mne ne pokorjaetsja (P)? (V.Jan). ELENA V. UrYSON 13 ‘Explain to me, the most potent ruler of Islamic countries, am Iright to re‑ quest the Baghdad caliph to obey me (Q)? AND ALSO explain to me: what should Ido if the caliph does not obey me (P)?’ (23) Ja vynužden potrebovat’, čtoby vy podpisali ètu bumagu. Objazatel’stvo nikuda ne uezžat’ vbližajšie dva mesjaca. Ijavljatsja po moemu vyzovu, esli vètom vozniknet neobxodimost’ (Q). ATAKŽE očen’ očen’ sovetuju vam: vspomnite nakonec, gde vy byli pjatnadcatogo ijunja (P). (I. Efimov). ‘Iam obliged to demand that you sign this document. It is your promise not to leave for anywhere in the next two months. And to come to me if Icall you (Q). AND ALSO Iadvise you to recollect where you were on the fifteenth of June (P).’ It is easy to see that neither (22) nor (23) is anormal narration. In these examples both Q and P express requests. ATAKŽE can join sentences only in such aspecific con‑ text. Strictly speaking, this conjunction is soft, but it is not nearly as soft as I. In fact, ATAKŽE is close to hard conjunctions. Let us now turn to the conjunction DA. It has interesting stylistic features be‑ ing colloquial in some contexts and slightly poetic in others. DA can join clauses and in that case it is aclose synonym of the conjunction I“amarker of atopic change absence”. There is asmall semantic difference between them: using DA the speaker estimates the state of affairs— (s)he believes that not only Q and P but also more situations could have aplace in the described moment. In other words, DA expresses that there are few elements in the described set of situations {Q, P}. Cf. (24) Zolotye iskry leteli vtemnotu (Q), DA vdali, po polotnu, krasnel fonar’ poslednego vagona (P). (B. Zajcev). ‘Golden sparks flew into the dark (Q), AND the red lantern of the last carriage lightened along the railway (P) (nothing more was seen).’ DA freely joins clauses, cf. (24). It can also connect sentences: it is possible to trans‑ form the compound sentence (24) into two sentences. Cf. (25) Zolotye iskry leteli vtemnotu (Q). DA vdali, po polotnu, krasnel fonar’ poslednego vagona (P). ‘Golden sparks flew into the dark (Q). AND the red lantern of the last carriage lightened along the railway (P) (nothing more was seen).’ But due to its meaning the conjunction DA can hardly join longer text fragments. In the strict sense, DA is asoft conjunction, but it is close to hard ones. 2.3 SOmE SUbOrDINATE cONjUNcTIONS The conjunctions POTOMU ČTO ‘because’ and XOTJA ‘though’ are soft. In texts (26) and (27) these conjunctions join fragments consisting of two or more sentences. Cf. 14 STUDIE ZAPLIKOVANÉ LINGVISTIKY 1/2013 (26) Maša vsë delaet dlja Peti. Ona pomogala ego mame, kogda ta byla vbol’nice. Ona našla dlja nego xorošuju rabotu. Ona daët emu den’gi vdolg (Q). POTOMU ČTO ona do six por ljubit ego. Vse eë plany svjazany snim (P). ‘Maša does everything for Petja. When his mother was in hospital Maša helped her. Maša managed to find agood job for Petja. She lends money to him (Q). BECAUSE she still loves him. She links her future to him (P).’ (27) My dolgo iuporno delali ètu rabotu. Sideli nočami. Tščatel’no proverjali točnost’ rasčetov (Q). | XOTJA ètot proekt nam vsem uže nadoel. Každyj iz nas iskal druguju rabotu (P). ‘We had been doing this work persistently and for along time. We sat working at night. We thoroughly checked the calculations for accuracy (Q). | THOUGH we had been already bored with this project. Each of us had been searching for another job (P).’ It is possible to transform these examples, so that each fragment P and Q is aparagraph. Thus, both conjunctions POTOMU ČTO ‘because’ and XOTJA ‘though’ are absolutely soft. The main Russian neutral temporal conjunction KOGDA ‘when’ usually joins clauses, cf. (28) Ja zakryl knigu (Q), KOGDA stalo sovsem temno (P). ‘Iclosed the book (Q), WHEN it grew quite dark (P).’ KOGDA can also join sentences, but not in all contexts. Cf. the abnormal transforma‑ tion (29) of sentence (28) and the normal text (30). (29) ??Ja zakryl knigu (Q). KOGDA stalo sovsem temno (P). ‘Iclosed the book (Q). WHEN it grew quite dark (P).’ (30) Petja časami igraet vkompjuternye igry. On boltaet po telefonu ine prikasaetsja kučebnikam (Q). Kogda otca net doma (P). ‘Petja plays computer games for hours. He chatters over the phone and does not touch his textbooks (Q). WHEN his father is not at home (P).’ In the normal text (30) the speaker underlines the fact that the situations Q take place— this information is new and unexpected (for the addressee). He also under‑ lies the temporal relation of Q and P. In such acase KOGDA can behave as asoft con‑ junction joining sentences or longer text fragments. In other words, in such acontext KOGDA behaves as acontextualizer. In (28)–(29) both situations Q and P are trivial and expected, so nothing should be underlined. In such acase acomplex sentence, like (28), cannot be transformed into two sentences, cf. (29). KOGDA functions here as ahard conjunction. In general, KOGDA is close to hard conjunctions; it can be acontextualizer only in particular contexts. In this regard the neutral subordinate conjunction KOGDA is similar to the bookish coordinate conjunction ATAKŽE. Another Russian temporal conjunction VTO VREMJA KAK ‘while’ is hard— it joins only clauses. Cf. ELENA V. UrYSON 15 (31) On byl ženat na bednoj dvorjanke, kotoraja umerla vrodax (Q), VTO VREMJA KAK on naxodilsja votezžem pole (P). (A. S.Pushkin). ‘He was married to apoor noblewoman who died giving birth to achild (Q), WHILE he was hunting (P).’ Note that VTO VREMJA KAK ‘while’ is abookish conjunction in contrast to the neu‑ tral one KOGDA. 2.4 cONcLUSION Russian conjunctions (both coordinate and subordinate) differ in their ability to join clauses vs. sentences vs. longer text fragments. Furthermore, aconjunction in one of its meanings and the same conjunction in another meaning can contrast in their syntactic properties. It follows that syntactic features of aconjunction should be de‑ scribed in adictionary; aconjunction in each meaning should be described as asep‑ arate lexical entry with its syntactic peculiarities. It is of interest to consider syntactic properties of conjunctions in different lan‑ guages. It is quite possible that in some languages conjunctions act as contextualizers, in other words they are generally soft. It may appear that there are also languages in which conjunctions are in general hard, and for the most part they cannot behave as contextualizers. 3. CONTExTUALIZERS AND SYNTAx THEORY In this section Iwill compare conjunctions and contextualizers in terms of the act‑ ant theory. 3.1 INITIAL ASSUmPTIONS For simplicity let us consider conjunctions in the position between two clauses but not between sentences or longer text fragments. Let us call the first position hard. Aconjunction is apredicate describing acertain situation (or astate of affairs) with two participants (=semantic actants) P and Q, each of them in its turn being asituation. Cf. (32) P ← WHEN → Q [e.g. When you come (P), Iwill leave (Q).] (33) P ← IF → Q [e.g. If Peter comes (P), Maša will be glad (Q).] Let us assume that the first semantic actant of asubordinate conjunction is expressed by the subordinate clause (P); so the main clause (Q) expresses its second semantic actant. Let us represent it as follows: (33a) When P, Q : P = 1, Q = 2.