Language Typology and Syntactic Description, Volume I: Clause Structure, Second edition
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Lgg Typology, Synt Description v. I - Clause structure
Parts-of-speech systems 45 also occur as postpositions. In other languages, however, for example Ga’anda, the verbal particles are entirely distinct from adpositions. While the particles are, in general, selected by the particular verbs with which they occur, and while they often join with the verbs in forming idiomatic units, the verbs and particles are, as the examples cited above have shown, not necessarily adjacent to one another. The syntactic rules of a language may specify that a verb and an associated particle may or must be separated from one another under certain circumstances. In English, for example, the object of a transitive verb may in most cases come between the verb and the particle, as well as after the particle (but cf. (53) where only one order is allowed with direct-object personal pronouns): (126) John looked two words up John looked up two words In German, if the verb is in clause-final position, the particle is prefixed to it, as in: (127) Ich weiss, dass er sehr fr¨uh auf-stand I know that he very early up-stood ‘I know that he got up very early’ But if the verb follows the initial constituent of the clause (as it regularly does if the clause is a main clause and the verb is tense-marked – see above), the particle follows the verb, and is separated from it by other constituents of the verb phrase, as in (123). Similarly in Akan and Ga’anda a transitive verb and a particle are separated by the object of the verb (see (124) and (125)). 2.4 Conjunctions Conjunctions are words that are used to connect words, phrases, or clauses. Two general classes of conjunctions, coordinating and subordinating, are tra- ditionally distinguished. The coordinating conjunctions are those that assign equal rank to the conjoined elements. (English examples are and, or, and but.) The subordinating conjunctions are those that assign unequal rank to the con- joined elements, marking one of them as subordinate to the other. (English examples are whether, that, although, etc.) These two classes of conjunctions are discussed in turn below. Coordinating conjunctions generally occur between the elements that they conjoin. There is often evidence, however, that the conjunctions are more closely associated structurally with one of the conjuncts than with the other. One type of evidence to this effect is phonological, having to do with the points within a conjoined structure at which a pause (often reflected in writing by a comma) 46 Paul Schachter and Timothy Shopen is possible. In some languages, such as English, there is a potential for pause immediately before a coordinating conjunction but not immediately after one, while in others, such as Japanese, just the opposite is true – compare (128) from English and (129) from Japanese: (128) John, (and) Bill, and Tom came *John and, Bill and, Tom came (129) John to, Bill to, Tom ga kita John and Bill and Tom subj came ‘John, Bill, and Tom came’ (cf. *John, to Bill, to Tom ga kita) Thus in languages like English, coordinating conjunctions can be character- ized as prepositional, since they form structural units with the conjuncts they precede, while in languages like Japanese they can be characterized as postpo- sitional, since they form structural units with the conjuncts they follow. It appears that the prepositional or postpositional character of the coordinat- ing conjunctions that occur in a language are quite systematically associated with the language’s general word order characteristics. Specifically, non-verb- final languages generally have the prepositional type of conjunction, verb-final languages the postpositional type. Further evidence to this effect is to be found in the positions of correlative – or paired – coordinating conjunctions, such as English both–and and either–or. In non-verb-final languages, such as English (see (130)) and Hausa (see (131)), correlative conjunctions typically precede each of the conjuncts, while in verb-final languages, such as Japanese (see (132)) and Turkish (see (133)), they typically follow each of the conjuncts: (130) Both John and Bill like Mary (131) Da Audu da Bello sun ci abinci and Audu and Bello they.perf eat food ‘Both Audu and Bello have eaten’ (132) Michiko to Michika to ga gakusei desu Michiko and Michika and subj student are ‘Both Michiko and Michika are students’ (133) ˇSapkan da paltonu da giy your. hat and your. coat and wear ‘Wear both your hat and your coat’ (As examples (131–3) suggest, correlative coordinate conjunction in most lan- guages involves repeating the same conjunction, whether before each conjunct, |
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