Chapter 4. Pragmatic subordination

Abstract

The article deals with a special type of causal clauses in German which exhibits the properties of verb-first position, an obligatory modal particle doch and obligatory postposition. It has often been noted that these clauses are neither clearly subordinated nor coordinated. Syntactic tests show that these clauses are not constituents of the clause they are related to and they may not be focussed, nor may the causal relation itself be focussed. Moreover, there are no correlates for them in their host clause. These characteristics show that the clauses in question contain their own information units. It is argued that the causal meaning of these clauses is an inference due to an interplay of the verb first position, the meaning of doch and the postposition of these clauses. The verb position signals a close connection to the preceding clause as well as a diminished assertive force. The modal particle doch signals that the information given is uncontroversial but assumed not to be taken into account presently by the recipient. It is argued that the postposition of these clauses is due to the fact that these clauses have a kind of repair function and serve to support the acceptance of the preceding clause. It is shown that these clauses express their own illocutions which are subsidiary to the illocution of the preceding utterance. Thus these sentences are pragmatically subordinated although they do not exhibit characteristics of syntactic subordination. The article closes with a short discussion of some hypotheses concerning the diachronic development of this special sentence type.