Typological features of adverbial clauses

Lecture 10: TYPOLOGY OF THE COMPLEX SENTENCE

6. Typological features of adverbial clauses.

The main criteria on the basis of which the classification of all adverbial subordinate clauses is performed are common in the contrasted languages. These criteria include as obligatory the following characteristics of these clauses:

a) their function;

b) their semantics;

c) partly their ways of connection with the principal clause as well as

d) the structure of the sentence as a whole.

The functional classification of adverbial clauses in English and Ukrainian is established on the basis of their role in the sentence where it correlates with that of the corresponding adverbial modifiers.

Accordingly, there are two common groups of adverbial clauses distinguished in the contrasted languages:

1) adverbial clauses expressing the adverbial relations proper (the adverbial clauses of place, time, condition, concession, purpose, cause and result);

2) adverbial clauses expressing the quality of relations or their quantity. These are the adverbial clauses of manner or attending circumstances and the adverbial clauses of measure and degree.

This typologically relevant classification also roughly corresponds to the quantitative representation of these groups of clauses in the contrasted languages.