Coordination Relations in the Languages of Europe and Beyond

This work investigates the cross-linguistic coding of the three conceptual relations of combination, contrast and alternative between functionally equivalent states of affairs, that is, states of affairs characterized by an autonomous cognitive profile (neither is presented in the perspective of the other) and by the presence of some illocutionary force. These conceptual relations are usually discussed within the traditional approach to coordination under the labels ‘conjunction’, ‘adversativity’ and ‘disjunction’ respectively, by virtue of their being often coded by means of similar structurally symmetric constructions. In this work however, the notion of coordination will not be defined in the traditional way, i.e. in structural terms, but it will be identified on the basis of functional criteria.