Adverbial Clauses

Abstract

After questioning the traditional category “adverbial clause,” which, unlike “complement clause” and “relative clause,” is not syntactically defined, the inventory of the formal markers of this category is presented, which encompasses connectives; their possible correlatives in the main clause; and the verbal categories finiteness, mood, aspect, and tense. Subsequently, the verbal categories are examined in more detail by illustrating the interplay of aspect and tense in expressing taxis relations and the role of dedicated TAM markers in conditional clauses. Russian conditional clauses exhibit a particular cluster of markers including inverted word order, mood, and asyndetic linkage. On a more general level, the cross-linguistic competition of finite and infinitival constructions is illustrated in the subsequent section. The last section explores the semantic links between conditional, causal, consecutive, concessive, and purpose clauses; the different subtypes of temporal relations and comparisons; and the varying degree of polysemy and semantic specialization of connectives.