Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics
Society (1984), pp. 437-449

This paper describes a corpus of unscripted, task-oriented dialogues which has been designed, digitally recorded, and transcribed to support the study of spontaneous speech on many levels. The corp...

How People Use Adverbial Clauses

The HCRC Map Task Corpus

Restrictions on quantifier domains

The factors cross-linguistically relevant to clause linkage are surveyed in the form of a couple of continua. These pertain to: 1. the integr ation of one clause into the other (parameters of downgrading of the subordinate claus e nd of its syntactic level in the main clause), 2. the expansion vs. reduction of the clau ses (parameters of desententialization of the subordinate clause and of grammaticalization of the main predicate) and 3. the mutual isolation vs. linkage of the two clauses (parameter s of interlacing of the clauses and of explicitness of linking). The six parameters hang together in various ways an d co stitute types of clause linkage. They are founded in a functional theory of clause l inkage which conceives complex sentence formation as varying between the poles of elaborati n and compression. This variation fulfills the double-sided function of either unfold ing a proposition into two or more component propositions or combining two or more pro positions into a composite one.

Towards a typology of clause linkage

1. Conditional constructions, mental spaces and semantic compositionality 2. Prediction, alternativity and epistemic stance 3. Tense, epistemic distance and embedded spaces 4. Future and present forms in conditional constructions 5. Non-alternatives and alternatives: mental spaces in different domains 6. Then and even if: mental-space deixis and referential uniqueness 7. Clause order and space building: if, because, unless and except if 8. Uniqueness and negative stance: only if and if only 9. Coordinate constructions and conditional meaning 10. The door-scraper in the Wild Wood: conditional constructions and frame-based space building References Indexes.

Mental Spaces in Grammar: Conditional Constructions

This article examines the ordering distribution of main and adverbial clauses. Using corpus data from spoken and written English, it is shown that the positioning of finite adverbial clauses vis-a-vis the main clause varies with their meaning or function: conditional clauses tend to precede the main clause, temporal clauses are common in both initial and final position, and causal clauses usually follow the main clause. The article argues that the positional patterns of adverbial clauses are motivated by competing functional and cognitive forces. Specifically, it is shown that final occurrence of adverbial clauses is motivated by processing, while initial occurrence results from semantic and discourse pragmatic forces that may override the processing motivation.

Competing motivations for the ordering of main and adverbial clauses

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How People Use Adverbial Clauses

Citations

The HCRC Map Task Corpus

Restrictions on quantifier domains

Towards a typology of clause linkage

Mental Spaces in Grammar: Conditional Constructions

Competing motivations for the ordering of main and adverbial clauses

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