Subordinate clauses and asymmetry in English

Abstract

Linguists are constantly invoking a relation of subordination of one clause to another and there seems to be agreement among linguists, about their native tongues at least. Yet the reason for the existence of the relation and the consistency of judgments concerning it is not well understood. The study of subordination and of argumentation for assigning the relation can profitably be made from at least two viewpoints. One viewpoint is paradigmatic or transformational. Evidence for subordination derives from an asymmetry in certain transformational relationships. Non-subordinating constructions on a pair of clauses show identical properties in each clause when the whole construction undergoes transformation, while the same transformations display non-identical properties in the clauses of subordinating constructions. The other viewpoint is syntagmatic or textual. One might even call this viewpoint semantic. Subordinating constructions are restricted in their co-occurrence within coreference patterns of a text in a way that corresponds to an intuitive feeling that a subordinate clause is not the topic of the text at the point where it occurs. Thus one might state the pattern by saying that the common element of meaning of all subordination markers is to indicate that the clause they operate on is subordinate in topic to the non-marked clause. However, the precise account will be in cerms of coreference patterns.