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Aarts B (2006), Subordination. In: Keith Brown, (Editor-in-Chief) Encyclopedia of
Language & Linguistics, Second Edition, volume 12, pp. 248-254. Oxford: Elsevier.
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Subordination
Definition
Markers of Subordination
When a clause is subordinate to another clause, the
subordination is often marked. This can be done in a
variety of ways.
Subordination 249
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The items that, whether, if, and for are often called
complementizers because they introduce clauses that
function as a complement to a verb or some other
head. Some linguists have argued that a subset of
items traditionally regarded as subordinators are
prepositions; they then reserve the class of subordinators for only that, whether, if, and for (see, e.g.,
Huddleston, Pullum et al., 2002).
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Subordinators
Verb Forms
Word Order
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Clauses may be finite, nonfinite, or verbless. Nonfinite and verbless clauses are always subordinate
because they cannot stand on their own, as the
following examples illustrate.
(16) having taken a shower, Fred was now ready to
go out
(17) Sally had to walk home, her car a wreck
venir
come
Another way in which verb forms can signal subordination is through the phenomenon of switch
250 Subordination
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(21) Kitu-man
[Quito-ALL
rijsi-ta
riku-rka-ni
acquaintance-ACC see-PAST-1.SING
when I arrived in Quito, I saw a friend
(22) nuka
[I
Kitu-man
Quito-ALL
Pe
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(20) dako
o`po`yo`
woman
remembered.3.SING.SUBJ
n
o`cego`
dOgola
COMP
closed.3.SING.SUBJ
door
the woman1 remembered that she2 closed the
door
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chaya-jpi-mi
arrive-ADVLR.DS]-VAL
rijsi
riku-wa-rka
acquaintance
see-OBJ.1-PAST.SUBJ.3
when I arrived in Quito, a friend saw me
(Here ALL indicates allative; ADVLR.SS indicates adverbializer, same subject; ADVLR.DS indicates adverbializer, different subject; and VAL indicates validator.) In
these examples, the inflections on the verb at the end
of the subordinate clause signal whether its subject is
the same or different from that in the main clause.
Scope, Intonation, Semantic Linking, and
Grammatical Category Dependence
Consider (23)
(23) I didnt go to the gallery because I wanted to
meet Sue
(25) ch-in
NPAST-1.SING.ABS
xubli
whistle
an
1P
x--(h)in-txah-ni
PAST-3.ABS-1.SING.ERG-wash-SUFF
xil
CLASS
kape
an
clothes 1P
I washed the clothes whistling
(Here NPAST indicates nonpast, ABS indicates absolutive, ERG indicates ergative, SUFF indicates suffix, and
CLASS indicates classifier.) Van Valin (1984: 546) notes
that
the verb in the first clause must be in the neutral nonpast
tense form, and the two clauses must have the same
subject. The tense interpretation for the whole sentence
is a function of the tense inflection of the verb in
the second clause; there is therefore G[rammatical]
C[ategory] dependence between the clauses.
Subordination 251
Circularity
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Some of these components have already been discussed (see also Haiman and Thompson, 1984:
511). For a discourse approach to subordination, see
Matthiessen and Thompson (1988). For a typological
approach see Cristofaro (2003: 2) where subordination is regarded as a particular way to construe the
cognitive relation between two events, such that one
of them (which will be called the dependent event)
lacks an autonomous profile, and is construed in the
252 Subordination
Content Clauses
Comparative Clauses
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(36) these days Ben likes syntax more than he did last
year
Degrees of Subordination
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Subordination 253
Criteria
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(49a) John plays the guitar, and his sister plays the
piano
(49b) *John plays the guitar; his sister and plays the
piano
254 Subordination
Criteria
Coordinators
Conjuncts
Subordinators
and, or
but
yet, so, nor
however, therefore
for, so that
if, because
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Bibliography
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