Prolegomenon

While grammatical concepts, in general, have a functional and a structural side that are not related by biunique mapping, the lack of correspondence is particularly pronounced in the case of coordination:

• Coordination as a cognitive operation and relation is treated in the section on coordinative junction.
• Coordination as a structural relation is treated here.

Fundamentals

Coordination is a particular kind of sociation such that the relata are of equal rank in the following sense:

1. The structural relation between each pair of relata is symmetric.
2. The construction functions as a composite whole vis-à-vis its context.
3. In terms of constituent structure, the relata belong to the same category, and the coordinative construction again belongs to the same category (with the restriction to be specified presently). In other words, each member can represent the construction grammatically.

This, however, requires more precision:

• What is at stake in condition #3 are generic syntactic categories. This is the level where an adjective and a relative clause may belong to the same category (Adjective Phrase), and an NP with nominal head and a nominalized clause may belong to the same category (Nominal Syntagma). This generic notion of category is determined by the parallel syntactic function of the coordinate elements.
• The semantic relation between the relata may be additive, esp. in conjunction. If it is additive, the resulting composite whole may count as grammatically plural even if its members are singular. Condition #3 must be restricted correspondingly ().

The distinction between a semasiological and an onomasiological perspective makes us see that not every coordinative junction takes the form of coordination in structure. In languages such as Japanese and Yucatec Maya, Irvin and Linda is translated as something corresponding to Irvin with Linda (or Linda with Irvin). This construction does not fulfill the above criteria for coordination.

Coordinative constructions are described along the following parameters:

• levels of coordination,
• number of coordinates,
• explicitness of linking.

Levels of coordination

In principle, syntagmas at all the grammatical levels can be coordinated. We thus get coordination of

1. sentences
2. clauses
3. phrases: nominal, verbal, adjectival, adverbial syntagmas
4. word forms: tonic forms, clitics
5. morphological units: stems, affixes.

There are structural differences among coordinative constructions of these levels, which mainly result from the fact that a sentence may function as an independent utterance and a clause may function as a sentence, while phrases and subphrasal units are by definition constituents of clauses. In principle, coordinative constructions are described independently for each of these levels. The question of whether coordination at some lower level may be analyzed as a reductive variant of coordination of some higher level is an empirical one to be answered for every language. In some languages like English, coordinative constructions at the various syntactic levels are maximally alike, involving always the same connectives, while in other languages such as Japanese constructions and connectives are specific to each syntactic level.

With respect to the levels of coordinative constructions, the following implicational generalization holds as a tendency: If coordination is possible for syntagmas of a given level, then it exists for syntagmas of the higher levels. Specifically, while coordination at the highest syntactic levels is always possible, coordination at the lowest levels is rare and tied to special conditions. German has coordination of derivational prefixes (though not of other affixes or of clitics), as in .

The question concerning the possibility of analyzing coordination at a lower level by reduction of coordination at a higher level – usually, the clause level – arises on the basis of examples like :

In a semasiological grammar of English, an analysis of E1 recognizes that E1.a involves coordination of two clauses, while E1.b involves coordination of two predicates, as indicated by the bracketing. So far, the two sentences, although being in a paradigmatic relationship, have a different syntactic structure. One may wish to analyze E1.b by some kind of zero anaphora, i.e. as a variant of E1.a in which the pronoun she has been omitted, but otherwise with the same syntactic structure as E1.a. This is taken up in the section of conjunction reduction and zero anaphora.

A coordinative syntagma, especially a nominal syntagma formed by conjunction, may count as plural grammatically. It may then trigger plural agreement of the verb.

The coordination in b fulfills the above condition #3 concerning the category of the coordinative construction without restriction, while the coordination in b shows how the restriction specified above applies.

Number of coordinates

Since coordination is additive, it may be iterated, and then the potential number of coordinates is infinite. Many languages have different rules for just two coordinates vs. more than two coordinates; cf. e.g. the section on topology of connectives. This differential treatment results from the fact that a binary coordinative construction is symmetric, while an n-ary_n>2 coordinative construction is not.

Explicitness of linking

The following is an application of the parameter ‘explicitness of linking’ to coordinative constructions.

Asyndetic coordination

In asyndetic coordination, coordinates are serialized, and the construction is interpreted as coordinative junction.

In (the most celebrated example of an asyndetic construction), the interpropositional relation is one of immediate temporal sequence (“no sooner did I arrive than I saw ...”). The sequential order of the clauses iconically reflects the order of the events they designate. This is not so in a sentence like I could not come earlier, the train was late (cf. the section on asyndetic subordination). Nevertheless, the temporal order of events is part of the linguistic meaning of . It can be inferred on the following basis:

• the clauses have the same subject,
• all verbs are in perfective aspect,
• there is no explicit indication of a different temporal order.

Under such circumstances, the inference that the events occurred in the order of the clauses is cogent (it would also be the default interpretation if the subjects differed). Moreover, the asyndesis iconically reflects absence of delay between the phases. At the stylistic level, simplicity and asyndesis generate an effect of conciseness.

Syndetic coordination

Classes of connectives are introduced in the section on syndesis. The present section describes the constructions in which they are used.

In constructions with two coordinates below the clause level, connectives are used in most languages.

Thus, .a is the standard construction if two noun phrases are coordinated. The variant #b rather gives the impression of an unfinished enumeration.

In constructions with more than two coordinates, syndesis and asyndesis are often combined by a principle according to which the first to the one-but-last coordinate units are juxtaposed asyndetically and only the last one is linked by syndesis, as in .

Coordination reduction

Reduction phenomena in coordination are dealt with in the section on fusion of clauses.