Conjunctions

Conjunctions are linguistic elements that link two or more words, phrases, clauses, or sentences within a larger unit, in such a way that a specific semantic relation is established between them. In the literature, conjunctions are also referred to as “connectives” and “linkers.” Conjunctions are crucial devices in the organization and cohesion of discourse because they not only build complex units but also guide speakers toward the interpretation and processing of utterances, with respect to each other and with respect to context. Consequently, conjunctions frequently develop into discourse markers, and the border between the two is in some cases subtle. Different types of semantic relations may be encoded by conjunctions, ranging from general and basic relations such as the logical ones (e.g., combination [“and”], alternative [“or”], conditionality [“if”]) to more fine-grained, specific relations, such as concessive contrast (“although”). It is not rare to find multifunctional conjunctions: that is, conjunctions encoding more than one relation (see while “at the same time”/”whereas”). Certain conjunctions encode relations that may apply to all syntactic levels (typically logical relations, e.g., and), but the majority can only link clauses or VPs because they encode relations between events (e.g., causality). The morphosyntactic properties of conjunctions show great variation across languages. In English, they are typically characterized by short, invariant morphemes occurring between the linked elements. However, a cross-linguistic glance shows that conjunctions may also consist of multiword expressions (see, for example, in order to), may be bound morphemes (e.g., Hebrew ve- “and” Latin -que “that”), may be repeated before or after each element and may be correlative (e.g., English either. . . or. . .). Conjunctions may be coordinating or subordinating and may also be specialized for specific syntactic levels, as in languages that have different conjunctions for NPs and VPs (e.g., Korean—kena “or” for VPs and clauses, -ina “or” for NPs). Certain languages make little use of conjunctions, and interclausal relations are more typically conveyed through verbal strategies (such as converbs and switch-reference markers). The grammaticalization of conjunctions is closely connected to narrative contexts and shows different paces depending on the relation encoded: the more truth-functional, objective and basic the relation, the more stable in time the form (e.g., “and” conjunctions are quite stable over time). Languages with a written tradition tend to develop a richer set of conjunctions than languages with an oral tradition, because spoken language is characterized by a high degree of parataxis (i.e., absence of conjunctions, than written language).