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Ewald Lang
1. Introduction
I wish to thank the editors for useful comments on an earlier draft of this paper and
Chris Wilder for improving my English.
2 Ewald Lang
(1)a. John came back because he loved her. [content or fact level]
b. John loved her, because he came back. [epistemic level]
c. What are you doing tonight,
because there's a good movie on. [speech act level]
(1) b-i. John must have loved her, because he came back.
(1b-ii) John undoubtedly loved her, because he came back.
1
Note that Sweetser uses the term »conjunction« for the syntactic operation of
clause-linking without distinguishing coordination and subordination. In order to
avoid confusion with the word class »conjunctions« I will call the latter
»connectors« (subdivided into »coordinators« and »subordinators«) and the con-
stituents they link »conjuncts«; otherwise I will follow Sweetser's terminology.
Adversative connectors on distinct levels of discourse 3
(C-2) The lexical items, i.e. the connectors that are used to
connect clauses on the three levels of interpretation, display
more level-specific distributional restrictions than the
sample of cases discussed by Sweetser would suggest.
(C1-1) Are the clauses of the same or of different clause type ? (in
morphosyntactic terms of being declarative, interrogative, or
imperative sentences)
2
It may be noted in passing that sameness of clause type with non-declaratives
raises some problems concerning the conjoining of clauses on the speech act level.
I will take for granted that pragmatically (i) is asymmetric, while (ii) is symmetric
regarding the alternatives presented:
This is the point where further criterial features enter the picture.
One of them, of course, is comma intonation. Due to its interaction
with other features the indicative role of comma intonation is more
far-reaching than Sweetser assumes. Below the level of sharing
declarative mood there are important indicators of clause-internal
differences which interact with comma intonation. Thus, in isolation,
the first clause of (1b) may render a STATEMENT as does the first
clause in (1a). Both behave differently, though, if we add an adjunct
like presumably or a parenthetical like I guess which mark the
hypotheticality or assumption status of the assertion being made:
(1a) on the content level allows both orders - John came back
because he loved her and Because he loved her John came back
though there is a difference that distinguishes backgrounded vs.
focussed material on the level of discourse related information
structure. In any case, preposing the subordinate clause does not
prevent a content-level reading as shown by (2a). Coherence is
maintained independently of the order of clauses. However, as
shown in (2b-c'), Sweetser's examples (1b) and (1c) as well as their
German equivalents do not allow of preposed because / weil clauses
if they are to keep their respective readings on the epistemic or
speech act level (marked * and ??, respectively):
3. Adversative connectors
From the set of about 30 lexical items that may be subsumed under
the label “adversative connector” in German we will select only
those needed to illustrate (C-1) to (C-3).
3
The advantage of illustrating the issue at hand with German data consists in the
fact that aber is an unambiguous adversative connector. It does not share the range
of additional uses and readings that are covered by but, as in German these are
rendered by separate lexical items like sondern, außer etc. Analysing but-
constructions in comparison with aber-constructions thus will help us to pick out
only those having adversative readings.
Adversative connectors on distinct levels of discourse 9
Let us now look at some data that are representative of the range of
cases to be taken into account.
(3)a. Dein Vortrag war sehr lang, aber das soll keine Kritik sein.
'Your talk was rather lengthy, but this is not a criticism'
c. Willst du heute etwa ins Kino - aber ich komme nicht mit.
'Do you want to go to the movies today
- but I 'm not coming along'
What we are left with is the problem of where to locate (5a): it does
indeed indicate a different contrast from (5b), I doubt whether this
contrast can be accounted for in terms of the »epistemic level«
without rendering this notion completely void. I would contend that
the alleged »epistemic« difference between (5a) and (5b) is that the
interpretation of the former requires some additional inferencing
which the interpretation of the latter does not. Hence, (5a) and (5b),
like (5c) when compared with (5d), clearly differ as to the conditions
they impose on the context in order to get interpreted properly.
According to an observation first made by Bellert (1972), the
interpretation of but/aber-conjunctions involves at least two semantic
contrasts to be read off or inferred from the conjuncts. (5d) contains
the overt contrast John - Bill but fails to provide cues to reconstruct
the second contrast needed, i.e. an INFERRED ASSUMPTION which is
in opposition to the STATEMENT Bill is rich. This pragmatic
insufficiency has its grammatical counterpart: (5d) can be
considered deviant because it does not allow a contrastive stress
pattern – just try and you will see!
Moreover, contrary to most work done in the field, we claim that
the »semantic opposition« (more exactly, the occurrence of antonym-
ous predicates in logically compatible STATEMENTS) in (5a) is not a
crucial feature of this type of conjunction (as shown by (5c) which
lacks opposition); and that this opposition is by no means the carrier
of the contrast indicated by aber/but. Instead, the contrasting entity
has to be inferred from outside the coordination. However, the
opposition in (5a) as well as its absence in (5c) serve as structural
clues to reconstructing it. We will return to this in 3.3 below.
Now, if (5a) cannot be located on the epistemic level, why not
consider it a content-level conjunction – very much like (5b)?
Sweetser (1990:103) rejects this idea by stating: “I have not been
able to unearth any indubitable content-conjunction examples with
but ” and by offering “as a plausible explanation for the use of but in
only two domains” [epistemic and speech act level - EL] the
following consideration: “what does it mean to say that A and B
»clash« or »contrast« in the real world? How can discordance or
contrast exist outside of the speaker's mental concept of harmony or
non-contrast ?”
12 Ewald Lang
This section will provide an outline of the way in which sentence and
discourse level interact in determining the interpretation of
adversative conjunctions. To begin with, note that the semantic
contribution of aber/but in combining two clauses into a conjunction
is twofold. In a nutshell, it may be conceived of as:
(VI) (a) conjoining semantically compatible and non-inclusive
propositions that - depending on the amount of structural
parallels shared by the clauses expressing them - may be
bundled up or enumerated as instances of a »common
integrator« (Lang 1984, 1991, in print);
formation (including C1-1 to C1-5), while the other part, which reads
»an ASSUMPTION that either may be read off, or must be iferred from,
previous information«, is where pragmatics proper enters the picture.
Assessing (4) and (7) once more, we may state this: in isolation these
conjunctions are not really ambiguous but pragmatically
underspecified regarding the cues needed to get interpreted.
(9)a. Hans ist nicht dumm und faul [ambiguous as to scope of negation]
'Hans is not stupid and lazy'
b. Hans ist nicht dumm, aber faul [scope of negation unambiguous]
'Hans is not stupid but he is lazy' 4
4
(9b) points to an important difference between German aber and English but
regarding scope determination under negation. Since German adversative
coordinators for contrast (aber) vs. correction (sondern) are lexically distinct, their
Adversative connectors on distinct levels of discourse 17
scopal behaviour is built-in and need not be indicated by other means - cf. (i, ii),
English but- constructions, however, have to render the distinction of contrast vs.
correction under negation by distinct conditions on deleting non-focussed material
in the second clause. Thus, but- constructions expressing contrast disallow (iii),
whereas but- constructions expressing correction require (iv), the deletion of
repeated material in the second conjunct (for details see Lang (1991)).
(i) Hans ist nicht dumm, aber (er ist) faul [contrast]
(ii) Hans ist nicht dumm, sondern (er ist) faul [correction]
(iii) Hans is not stupid but *(he is) lazy [contrast]
(iv) Hans is not stupid but (*he is) lazy [correction]
The same point can be made to explain the difference in the following cases:
Despite the differences shown, aber and adversative but both mark scope
boundaries in preventing propositional operators to take scope over them.
18 Ewald Lang
4. Concluding remarks
References
Bellert, Irena
1972 On certain properties of the English Connectives and and but. In:
Senta Plötz (ed.) Transfomationelle Analyse, 327-356. Franfurt / M.:
Athenäum
Brauße, Ursula
1998 Was ist Adversativität? aber oder und ? Deutsche Sprache 26:138-159
Kortmann, Bernd
1997 Adverbial Subordination. A Typology and History of Adverbial
Subordinators Based on European Languages. (EALT 18).
Berlin/New York: de Gruyter
Lakoff, Robin
1971 Ifs, ands and buts about conjunction. In: Charles J. Fillmore & D. T.
Langendoen (eds.) Studies in Linguistic Semantics, 114-149. New
York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston
Lang, Ewald
1984 The Semantics of Coordination. (SLCS 9) Amsterdam/ Philadelphia:
John Benjamins
20 Ewald Lang
Lang, Ewald
1991 Koordinierende Konjunktionen. In: Semantik / Semantics, Art. 26,
597-623. (HSK 6) Berlin/New York: de Gruyter
Lang, Ewald
(in print) Die Wortart »Konjunktion«. In: Lexicology / Lexikologie , Art. 88.
Berlin/New York: de Gruyter
Martin, Jim R.
1983 Conjunction: the Logic of English Text. In: J. S. Petöfi and E. Sözer
(eds.) Micro and Macro Connexity of Texts, 1-72. Hamburg: Buske
Raible, Wolfgang
1992 Junktion. Eine Dimension der Sprache und ihre
Realisierungsformen zwischen Aggregation und Integration.
Heidelberg: Winter
Rudolph, Elisabeth
1996 Contrast: adversative and concessive relations and their expressions
in English, German, Spanish, Portuguese on sentence and text level.
(Research in text theoy 23) Berlin/New York: de Gruyter
Spooren, Willibrordus
1989 Some Aspects of the form and interpretation of global constrastive
coherence relations. PhD Dissertation. University of Nijmegen
Sweetser, Eve E.
1990 From Etymology to Pragmatics. Cambridge University Press
Author's address:
HU Berlin, Phil. Fak. II
Institut für deutsche Sprache und Linguistik
Schützenstr. 21
D-10 117 Berlin
email: Ewald.Lang@rz.hu-berlin. de
or
Assessing (4) and (7) once more, we may state this: in isolation and
in written form, these conjunctions are not really ambiguous but
pragmatically underspecified regarding the cues needed to get
interpreted.
n
n
Without going into details (to be found in Lang 1984, 1991), let me just point out
that the derivation of the Common Integrator of a given conjunction is (a) sensitive
to surface structure parallels shared by the conjoined clauses, and (b) can best be
illustrated by means of a (multiple) question to which the given conjunction would
serve as an appropriate answer.
n
Without going into details (to be found in Lang 1984, 1991), let me just point out
that the derivation of the Common Integrator (CI) of a given conjunction (a) is
sensitive to surface structure parallels shared by the conjoined clauses, and (b) can
best be illustrated by means of a (multiple) wh-question to which the given
conjunction would serve as an appropriate answer.
22 Ewald Lang
So while (ii) - (iii) share the propositional formula "someone transmits something
to someone" as constituent part of their respective CIs, the specific make-up of the
latter depends on the information structure of the clauses and on the (non-)
coreference of the items instantiating the argument places.
(44) a. Opa vererbt den Enkelni das Hausk und Oma unsj die Hüttel
b. Opa und Oma vererben den Enkelni und unsj das Hausk
bzw. die Hüttel
c. CI: WER vererbt WEM WAS?
(45) a. Opa vererbt den Enkelni das Hausk, aber Oma schenkt unsi
die Hüttek
b. Opa vererbt, aber Oma schenkt, [uns Enkeln]i das Hausk
c. CI: WER ÜBEREIGNET WIE uns Enkeln das Haus ?
b. Grandpa and Grandma will bequeath the house and the cottage to
the grandchildren and to us, respectively
(45) a. Opa vererbt den Enkelni das Hausk, aber Oma schenkt unsi
die Hüttek
b. Opa vererbt, aber Oma schenkt, [uns Enkeln]i das Hausk
c. CI: WER ÜBEREIGNET WIE uns Enkeln das Haus ?