Studies in Language. International Journal sponsored by the Foundation “Foundations of Language” - Volume 29, Issue 1, 2005

Clause linkage has long been associated with the cohesive narrative functions of temporal organisation and participant tracking (eg. Givon 1983a, Myhill & Hibiya 1988). In this paper I use data from Garrwa, a language of Northern Australia, to show that in addition to these functions, clause linkage also contributes to the interpretation of narrative perspective. The results of this investigation illustrate the range of functions that can be associated with clause linkage, contributing to the analysis of clause linkage cross-linguistically, as well as demonstrating the utility of narrative perspective as a discourse-pragmatic phenomenon motivating choices in linguistic form, and coherence in narrative structure.

The terms “(clause) chaining” and “converbal constructions” are used for the classification of similar types of clause linkage. Chaining is generally used for constructions which do not entail subordination, while converbs are defined as subordinate. In Dolakhā Newar adverbial and “participial” clauses are not syntactically distinct, but neither are they subordinate. I propose that the term “converb” be redefined as a clause-linkage strategy that subsumes adverbial clauses and clauses akin to the Dolakhāe “participial”, and that there be no requirement that converbs be either subordinate or adverbial. I provide an analysis of “case prolepsis”, the casemarking of an argument by a verb in a non-adjacent clause, and argue that this results from the participial construction applying at a distinct level of clause structure.

This study investigates the role of constituency in structuring clauses during spoken interaction. It examines transitive clauses in a corpus of conversational Javanese. Do clauses unfold in a flat structure as each element is produced in real-time, or is there evidence of a hierarchical structure among constituents? By looking at adjacency in the production of clausal elements, with prosody as the key to understanding how speakers organize linguistic elements into larger groups, evidence is found for the emergence of a verb phase structure within clauses of lower discourse transitivity, but a lack of hierarchical structure in clauses of higher discourse transitivity.