Reduced parenthetical clauses in Romance languages: A pragmatic typology
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Stefan Schneider
Abstract
The article derives from a corpus study of reduced parenthetical clauses (RPCs) in contemporary spoken French, Italian, and Spanish (cf. Schneider 2007) and proposes a typology based on pragmatic criteria. The parentheticals are first subdivided into three major groups: phatic, reporting, and mitigating RPCs. Subsequently, drawing on the contributions of Hare (1970) and Caffi (1999, 2001), the group of mitigating RPCs is subdivided in four groups: a) clauses mitigating the phrastic; b) clauses indicating the tropic and mitigating the phrastic or the neustic; c) clauses directly mitigating the neustic; d) clauses indirectly mitigating the neustic. The taxonomy is shown to be corroborated by two independent phenomena: the positional mobility of RPCs and the occurrence of RPCs in interrogative sentences.
Abstract
The article derives from a corpus study of reduced parenthetical clauses (RPCs) in contemporary spoken French, Italian, and Spanish (cf. Schneider 2007) and proposes a typology based on pragmatic criteria. The parentheticals are first subdivided into three major groups: phatic, reporting, and mitigating RPCs. Subsequently, drawing on the contributions of Hare (1970) and Caffi (1999, 2001), the group of mitigating RPCs is subdivided in four groups: a) clauses mitigating the phrastic; b) clauses indicating the tropic and mitigating the phrastic or the neustic; c) clauses directly mitigating the neustic; d) clauses indirectly mitigating the neustic. The taxonomy is shown to be corroborated by two independent phenomena: the positional mobility of RPCs and the occurrence of RPCs in interrogative sentences.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- List of contributors ix
- Parentheticals 1
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SYNTAX AND ITS INTERFACES
- Spoken parenthetical clauses in English 25
- Integrated parentheticals and assertional complements 53
- The complement of reduced parentheticals 89
- Long extraction or parenthetical insertion? Evidence from judgement studies 121
- And -parenthetical clauses 145
- On the syntax and semantics of appositive relative clauses 173
- Invisible constituents? Parentheticals as b-merged adverbial phrases 203
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SEMANTICS/PRAGMATICS AND THEIR INTERFACES
- Reduced parenthetical clauses in Romance languages: A pragmatic typology 237
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PROSODY AND ITS INTERFACES
- The relation between syntactic and prosodic parenthesis 261
- Quieter, faster, lower, and set off by pauses? Reflections on prosodic aspects of parenthetical constructions in modern German 285
- Name Index 309
- Subject Index 311
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface vii
- List of contributors ix
- Parentheticals 1
-
SYNTAX AND ITS INTERFACES
- Spoken parenthetical clauses in English 25
- Integrated parentheticals and assertional complements 53
- The complement of reduced parentheticals 89
- Long extraction or parenthetical insertion? Evidence from judgement studies 121
- And -parenthetical clauses 145
- On the syntax and semantics of appositive relative clauses 173
- Invisible constituents? Parentheticals as b-merged adverbial phrases 203
-
SEMANTICS/PRAGMATICS AND THEIR INTERFACES
- Reduced parenthetical clauses in Romance languages: A pragmatic typology 237
-
PROSODY AND ITS INTERFACES
- The relation between syntactic and prosodic parenthesis 261
- Quieter, faster, lower, and set off by pauses? Reflections on prosodic aspects of parenthetical constructions in modern German 285
- Name Index 309
- Subject Index 311
