Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Detail #78: Subordinating conjunctions

English has several subordinating conjunctions - that, if, when, so that, whether, before, after, while, ...

Let us instead imagine a language with a single subordinating conjunction, and particles - somewhat optional ones, or ones whose locus of marking varies, and which also correlate to particles that have uses in main clauses as well.
Whether reasonably correlates to question marking - You know.Q that he has the merchandize.Q? Do you know whether he has the merchandize? If and whether seem somewhat similar - several languages have conflated them, and several may never have distinguished them, and some are just developing the difference.

After sometimes seems to make sense just as 'that': We watched the movie after we had decided the rules for the drinking game - we watched the movie that we were done deciding the rules for the drinking game.

This is less obvious in other tenses in English though:
can you come here after you've washed up -> can you come here that you wash up first|that you are done washing up|...

When: depending on the direction of 'causality', the particle may go in the main clause or the subclause, thus making it possible to move the bit that usually would be in the subclause in English to the main clause and vice versa:
I enjoy it that during she plays the piano
She plays the piano that during I enjoy it
These complement particles could of course have different preferences as far as word order goes - pre-verb, subclause-initial, final, etc, depending on historical origin.

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