Coordination

The process of coordination, simply stated, involves the linking of structures of equal grammatical rank — single words and phrases in elementary compound groups or independent clauses in compound sentences. The coordinative conjunctions and the correlatives serve to produce this coordination by joining the grammatically equivalent elements in question. Two or more clauses equal in rank can together be given the status of a single sentence. Such co-ordinated units make up a compound sentence.

It is overtly simple to describe the conjunctions as coordinators without certain qualifications. Even and is not purely a coordinator. Whatever the units it combines, and usually indicates an additive relationship, and sometimes it intensifies, or indicates continuous and repeated action, as in: She waited and waited. She talked and talked and talked. They went around and around. The words but and yet indicate contrast, opposition, or negation; so and for show several relationships, among them purpose, cause, result, or inference or and nor indicate what might be described as alternation, choice or opposition. Obviously conjunctions cannot be considered as empty connecting words, and there is always selection in their use in terms of style and purpose.

There is usually a sense of grammatical balance that characterises coordination, even if there is a logical inequality between the coordinated elements.

As a matter of fact, the only situations in which the process of coordination seems to combine elements of both grammatically and logically equal rank with significant frequency is at the level of single words and short phrases.

The traditional trichotomy — the classification of sentences into simple, compound and complex — arose in English prescriptive grammar in the middle of the nineteenth century on the basis of a simple-compound dichotomy, which can be traced to at least two non-grammatical sources. The first was the concept of the period (as a rhetorical unit expressing

complete sense) and its parts, colons and commas, evolved by classical and medieval rhetoric. This concept was the guiding principle of English punctuation not only in the sixteenth century, before the appearance of the earliest English grammars, but also later, when the notion of the sentence came to be included into syntax proper (since the beginning of the eighteenth century).

The second non-grammatical source of this classification was the logical concept of simple and compound axioms or propositions, which furnished the basis for classifying punctuation units (periods) into simple and compound sentences, according to the number of " nouns" and " verbs", that is, subjects and predicates, contained within these punctuation units (in the grammars of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century).

Some English grammarians have abandoned the trichotomic classification introducing new descriptive terms such as " double" and " multiple" sentences (beginning with N e s f і e 1 d' s grammar in 1924), or later — the " duplication" and " combination" of the patterns (by J. Hook and Mathews and P. Roberts).

The concept of the trichotomic classification was also rejected in С. О n і о n' s and E. Kruisinga's scientific grammars. In O. Jespersen's works such syntactic structures are treated in terms of his theory of three ranks.

Following Ch. Fries, some structural grammarians introduce the terms " included sentences" and " sequence sentences".

Interesting observations in this part of syntax have been made by Soviet linguists. In L. І о f і к' s monograph¹ we find a strictly formal analysis with a new dichotomic structural classification based on purely grammatical criteria of the syntactic relations between the predicative constituents of Early Modern English texts of the pre-Shakespearian period (compared with the corresponding constructions in present-day English). Our investigation, in which we have not followed traditional concepts and punctuation too closely, has led to the following results: of the four syntactic modes of connecting subject-predicate units (or clauses) in English I—coordination, II — relative annexation (cf. the German term " relativische Anknupfung"), III — subordination and IV — insertion (parenthesis), two are predominant in forming multi-clause sentences (which are opposed to single-clause sentences, according to the new dichotomic classification of sentences advanced by the author). These are subordination and insertion. These syntactic devices are particularly important because they serve to introduce clauses functioning only as parts of other sentences (unable to " standalone"), which is a relevant factor for a multi-clause sentence.

Coordination within a multi-clause sentence is a means of joining a series of parallel subordinate clauses in joint dependence upon a subordination centre in the leading clause, or a means of connecting two or more independent main clauses, which jointly subordinate, a common

¹ See: Л. Л. И о ф и к. Сложное предложение в ново-английском языке. Л., 1968.

member, mostly expressed by a dependent clause. In other words, coordination in this monograph is recognised as a syntactic means of connecting the constituent parts of multi-clause sentences only when it is made use of in the same way as in single-clause sentences, which contain a member in common subordinating or subordinated by coordinated syntactic elements. In all other cases independent coordinated subject predicate units are viewed as syntactically independent though contextually related sentences, regardless of the marks of punctuation which divide them.

Relative annexation is described by L. Iofik as a mode of connection which has no parallel in the single-clause sentence. Such connectives introduce sentences which are not subordinated to any part of the preceding sentence and are therefore viewed as semi-dependent contextually related sentences.

The patterns of multi-clause sentences containing more than two clauses (from three to twelve or thirteen) are based upon two fundamental principles of connection. The first is the principle of consecutive (step-wise) subordination, according to which in each clause (except the last one) there is a single subordination centre, nominal or verbal. It subordinates only one dependent clause. According to L. Iofik the resulting sentence-pattern may be described as a chain of clauses, in which there is one absolute principal clause, one absolute dependent clause (the last in the chain) and one or more clauses both subordinating and subordinated. The number of clauses corresponds to the number of syntactic levels in the multi-clause sentence.

The second principle is that of parallel (or homogeneous) and non-parallel con-subordination (i. e. dependence of two or more parallel or non-parallel clauses upon one, two or more subordination centres within the main clause). In the second sentence-pattern (represented by several variant patterns) there are only two syntactic levels as all dependent clauses are of the same level of subordination.

When both these principles are combined within one and the same sentence, the most complicated structures of multi-clause sentences arise. These structures represent combined or " mixed" patterns displaying features characteristic of both basic patterns — they contain more than two syntactic levels, with two or more subordinate clauses on different levels of subordination.

There is a certain interdependence between the number of clauses in a mult-clause sentence and the patterns employed to arrange these clauses within the sentence. These two basic patterns described arise on the level of three-clause sentences. On the level of four-clause sentences, the simplest combination, of two basic patterns, becomes possible. When the patterns are combined, there is always a common link between them — a clause belonging to both patterns.

The new assumptions and acute observations made in L. Iofik's investigation are of considerable linguistic interest as a distinctively progressive step in the development of syntactic theory. Some points of her significant and original argumentation are however open to thought and questioning. This concerns primarily the view advocated by the

author in discussing the linguistic status of compound sentences, the existence of which in English can hardly be denied.

It seems more in accord with the nature of language to recognise coordination as a grammatical category organised as a complex system with many variant and borderline cases, where the role of conjunctions serving to unite certain syntactic units into a larger whole is extremely important and must never be lost sight of.

There is also little justification to dispense with the terms " principal" and " subordinate" clause introducing the term " predicative unit" instead. The latter seems to be ambiguous as commonly used with reference to the so-called secondary predication as well. Little is gained by this.

The formative words linking the parts of a compound sentence fall into clearly distinct types: 1) coordinative conjunctions, 2) conjunctive adverbs, 3) fixed prepositional phrases.

It is important to remember that sometimes there is no formal link binding the members together since the logical connection forms a sufficient tie and makes it abundantly clear. Upon close investigation, however, it will become clear that such apparently independent sentences are not absolutely independent and one of them implicitly stands in some grammatical relation to the other.

It will be helpful to identify linking words in co-ordination as follows:

a) Copulative, connecting two members and their meanings, the second member indicating an addition of equal importance, or, on the other hand, an advance in time and space, or an intensification, often coming in pairs, then called correlatives: and; both... and; equally... and; alike... and; at once... and; not... nor for neither, or and neither); not (or never)... not (or nor)... either; neither... nor, etc.

b) Disjunctive, connecting two members but disconnecting their meaning, the meaning in the second member excluding that in the first: or, in older English also either or outher(-or) and in questions whether... or with the force of simple or; or... either; either... or, etc., the disjunctive adverbs else, otherwise, or... or, or... els e, in older English other else.