A unified account for coordinative conjunctions

in Serbo-Croatian

Boban Arsenijević

University of Amsterdam

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i-coordination

• simple additive conjunction Jovan je kupio loptu i krenuo na fudbal.J Aux bought ball and went on football‘Jovan bought a ball and went/started to play football.’

• conjunction in a negative contextJovan nije kupio loptu ni krenuo na fudbal.J Neg.Aux bought ball nor went on football‘Jovan neither bought a ball nor started to play football.’

• disjunctionJovan je dobio batine ili je pao niz stepenice.J Aux got beaten or Aux fallen down stairs‘Jovan got beaten or fell down the stairs.’

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a-coordination

• oppositive adversative coordinationJovan uze meso, a Marija odabra salatu.J took meat and.Oppos M chose salad‘Jovan took meat, and/while Marija chose for salad.

• concessive adversative coordinationJovan se okliznuo, ali nije pao.J Refl slipped but Neg.Aux fallen.‘Jovan slipped, but didn’t fall.’

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i-conjunctions multiply in contrastive coordination

Jovan je i kupio loptu i krenuo na fudbal.

J Aux and bought ball and went on football

‘Jovan both bought a ball and went/started to play football.’

Jovan nije ni kupio loptu ni krenuo na fudbal.

J Neg.Aux nor bought ball nor went on football

‘Jovan neither bought a ball nor started to play football.’

Jovan je ili dobio batine ili je pao niz stepenice.

J Aux or got beaten or Aux fallendown stairs

‘Jovan either got beaten or fell down the stairs.’

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a-conjunctions do not

(*A) Jovan (*a) je (*a) uzeo

and.opposJ and.oppos Aux and.Oppos taken

meso, a Marija je odabrala salatu.

meat and.opposM Aux chosen salad

(*Ali) Jovan (*ali)se (*ali) okliznuo, ali nije pao.

but J but Refl but slipped but Neg.Auxfallen.

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a-coordination is strictly binary left to right

*[Hodam,] a [ne gledam,] a [vidim].

[[Hodam,] a [ne gledam,]] a [vidim].

??[Hodam,] a [[ne gledam,] a [vidim]].

walk.1Sg and.Opp not watch.1Sg and.Opp see.1Sg

[Hodam,] i [jedem,] i [gledam].

[[Hodam,] i [jedem,]] i [gledam].

[Hodam,] i [[jedem,] i [gledam]].

walk.1Sg and eat.1Sg and watch.1Sg

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Topical coordinationJovan je dobio batine (BREAK) ili je pao niz

J Aux got beaten or Aux fallen down

stepenice.

stairs

‘Jovan got beaten(,) or fell down the stairs.’

Jovan je uzeo meso, (BREAK) a Marija (*je)

J Aux taken meat a M Aux

odabrala salatu.

chosen salad

‘Jovan took the meat, and Marija the salad.

*‘Jovan took meat, while Marija chose for the salad.

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Clitics only after ali and ili

Jovan je kupio loptu i/a *(je) krenuo (je) na fudbal.

J Auxbought ball i/a CL went CL on football

‘Jovan bought a ball and went/started to play football.’

Jovan je dobio batine ili (je) pao *(je) niz stepenice.

J Auxgot beaten or Aux fallen CL down stairs

‘Jovan got beaten or fell down the stairs.’

Jovan se okliznuo, ali (je) ostao (je) na nogama.

J Reflslipped but CL stayed CL on feet.

‘Jovan slipped, but stayed on his feet.’

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Decomposition

• All the conjunctions involve either i or a.

• The additional material they involve are functional items in S-C.

/n/ is a prefix related to negation,

/li/ is an enclitic that relates to questions.

• Can the syntactic and semantic properties of the conjunctions be derived from these elements?

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i vs. a

• i is additive, the most primitive coordinator.• a is non-additive, keeps conjuncts apart.• a imposes an information-structure with two mutually contrasted

constituents.

Jovan je kupio loptu i krenuo je na fudbal.

J Aux bought ball i went Auxon football

‘Jovan bought a ball and went/started to play football.’

Jovan je kupio loptu a krenuo je na fudbal.

J Aux bought ball a went Auxon football

‘Jovan bought a ball and yet he went to play football.’

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a and i, addition and opposition

Jovan je kupio loptu i krenuo je na fudbal.

J Auxbought ball i went Aux on football

‘Jovan bought a ball and went/started to play football.’

+

Jovan je kupio loptu a krenuo je na fudbal.

J Auxbought ball a went Aux on football

‘Jovan bought a ball and yet he went to play football.’

Jovan did buy a ball

↨ ↨ ↨ ↨ ↨ ↨ ↨ ↨

Jovan did go to play football11

Jovan did go to play footballJovan did buy the ball (buy the ball + go to play football)

ni

• ni in the negative concord:

Vidiš li i-kog?

see.2Sg li and-who

‘Do you see anyone?’

Ne vidim n-i-kog.

Not see.1Sg Neg-and-who

‘I don’t see anyone.’• Marks negative exhaustivity (domain broadening in a

negative context).

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Negative exhaustivity in coordination

Marija nije pojela supu, sendvič n-i kolač.

M Neg.Aux eaten soup sandwich n-andcake.

‘Marija ate neither a/the soup, nor a/the sandwich, nor a/the cake.’

Marija nije pojela supu, sendvič i kolač.

M Neg.Aux eaten soup sandwich and cake.

‘Marija didn’t eat a/the soup, a/the sandwich and a/the cake.’ (with both interpretations, she didn’t eat them all, or they are the things that she didn’t eat)

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li• Maps the focal element onto the polarity values and

contrasts it in this respect against its restrictor set.

Da li ima vode? Ima (li) vode?

comp li has water has li water

‘Is there any water?’ ‘Is there any water?’

Koga li sam zvao?! Bistar li si!

Who li Aux.1Sg called Clever li be.2Sg

‘Who of all the people did I call?!’ ‘You’re so clever!’

Njega li si se setio?(!)

him li Aux Refl remembered

‘You remembered him of all the people?!’

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ili

• ili can be decomposed into i + li.

1. i is an additive conjunction, and li requires that each of the conjuncts has an own focal element.

2. The (foci of) the conjuncts group (addition) in all the possible ways deriving two different groups of conjuncts.

3. li then maps the resulting grouped foci to the polarity values, and contrasts them in this respect with each other (i.e. with the restrictor set formed by the coordination).

4. In declaratives, a non-empty group of foci must map to the polarity value surfacing in the respective PolP.

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The denotation of ili

• ili-coordination denotes the maximal set of pairs of groups of additively conjoined foci (<G1, G2>), such that G1 maps to the positive, and G2 to the negative polarity value.

• In positive declarative sentences, the pair in which G1 is empty is out because it clashes with the surfacing polarity of the sentence. In negative declarative sentences, this holds of G2.

• This means that for syntactic reasons, at least one conjunct in disjunction must map to the specified polarity of the proposition, a logical property of disjunction.

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Adversative coordination

• a-coordination is binary left-to-right because it coordinates sentences (ForcePs), and hence the first conjunct needs to be discourse-integrated before the second is interpreted.

• li operates over uttreances, contrasting the polarity of the utterance it introduces against the polarity of the discourse at the moment of its introduction;

• a specifies that the contrasted units are not additively conjoined; as the utterance introduced by ali comes later, it updates the discourse according to its performative force (implicatures suffer changes).

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Summary

• i-coordination is additive and coordinates PolPs or ForcePs.

• a-coordination is non-additive, i.e. it introduces two sets of mutually contrasted discourse-functions; it coordinates only ForcePs.

• This explains less ellipsis possibilities with a-coordination.

• It also explains why a-cooridnation is binary and does not multiply in contrastive coordination.

• Agrees with the topical coordination data to some extent, still leaving the problem of the use of a between PolPs.

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The placement of li

• It seems odd that li cliticizes on the conjunctions, as other clitics cannot follow them.

Imam knjigu, a/i (*sam je) zaboravio sam je.

Have.1Sg book a/i CL CL forgot CL CL• However, recall that ali and ili can host clitic clusters, as if an

exception is made for sake of li, when it is present.

Imam knjigu, ali sam je zaboravio.

Have.1Sg book ali CL CL forgot• It is possible too that li on conjunctions is rather an instance of

concord with the projection in which it is really generated and elided.

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Conclusion

• S-C conjunctions are putatively derived from two core conjunctions i and a, the n-element n and the clitic li associated with extreme scalar values.

• This analysis explains a number of properties distinguishing these conjunctions from each other.

• This view also yields a provoking hypothesis in the realm of cognition, that disjunction is not a primitive cognitive operation, but one derived from syntactic configurations.

• A reformulation of the standard propositional semantics is suggested in terms of computational instructions rather than the classical inventory of types.

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THANK YOU

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