23 The Clause, Clause Types and Illocutionary Force

Abstract

The first section of this chapter discusses the clause, illocutionary force and fragments. The clause as a coherent utterance denotes a state of affairs that has illocutionary force. A clause has predicate and optional arguments, complementing the meaning of the predicate, and adjuncts, that provide circumstantial information. The second section explains the clause structure. The major clause types in Atong are presented in a table in section three that deals with clause type and illocutionary force. Clause types are either distinguished because of their dependency, i.e. dependent or independent, their illocutionary force, their function or the morphological marking on the predicate. The third section discusses general properties of dependent and independent clauses. The types of clauses discussed in this section are: declarative clauses, mirative clauses, interrogative clauses, imperative, prohibitive and optative clauses and finally presentative clause. It also explains how to say yes and no in Atong.Keywords: Atong; clause; clause types; illocutionary force