Causal-implicative relationships in the Serbian hypotaxis (Complex of generative complex sentences)
Authors: Vojvodic Dojcil 
Published: May 2016

The paper analyzes the causal-implicative relationships in the segmented
complex sentences with a ?closed? (asymmetric, mandatory bi-situational)
generative (conditional) semantic structure on the corpus of the Serbian
language. The generative (conditional) semantic structure consists of
meaningfully interconnected antecedents and consequents that are based on the
principle of subordination. These sentences are characterized with a general
causal link due to the specific implicative relationship between the segments
that can be realized within dependent clauses with diverse
categorically-differential semantics (i.e. causal, consecutive, final,
conditional and concessive). The author reaches a conclusion that the given
implicative relationships (P ? Q, P ? Q/Q ? P, P ?Q, P ? Q? ? P? ? Q) represent,
in fact, semantic invariants of generative complex sentences. It
is pointed out that the structure, formation and functioning of these
relationships (sentences) are always determined by the interconnectedness of
syntax and lexicon. They are based on a general causal adverbial meaning of
the conjunctions in a subordinate clause, which are also used to determine
the adverbial semantics of a sentence as a whole. The article discusses in
particular the aspectual-temporal correlations that are realized in complex
sentences with a generative structure. It has been noted very often in the
literature that there is no differentiation made among all of the types of
the hypothetical conditionality - real, eventual, potential and unreal. The
paper analyzes taxis of simultaneity and succession
(anteriority/posteriority) of the main and subordinate clause predicates in
conditional sentences as a special type of the relative-temporal
relationships within the same temporal plan. In order to interpret these
correlations, the Serbian data was compared to the data in Russian and
Polish. It is noted that the Northern Slavic languages (in this case Russian
and Polish) are unable to distinguish real from eventual conditionality
because they, unlike the Serbian language, do not have formal (grammatical)
means for delimitation between different types of hypothetical modality. In
other words, the perfective present in the Serbian language, which in
conditional sentences formally coincides with the Northern Slavic perfective
future (which is the same as analytical, imperfective, future, used in those
languages in both the main and the subordinate clauses of the conditional
sentences), can never signify real conditionality, but only an eventual one.
In addition to this, the Serbian language in order to express eventual
conditionality in subordinate clauses uses future II (exact) as well.
Therefore, based on a short contrastive analysis of the material, it can be
concluded that the inventory of resources used to express these types of
modal hypothetical relationships is much richer in the Serbian language than
it is in Russian or Polish. In relation to this, it is pointed out that the
abovementioned specific features of the compared languages represent a
typological boundary between the Southern Slavic and Northern Slavic
languages. Likewise, the paper analyzes in a detailed manner complex
concessive sentences with an emphasis on their semantic interpretation. This
interpretation implies primarily ascertaining the basic components of the
semantic invariant of the concession category, as well as an explanation of
the principle of ?unfulfilled expectations?, i.e. an implicit cause which
enables the subject to unexpectedly overcome or fail to overcome an obstacle,
which is precisely what concessive relationships are built on. In this
regard, it can be noted that concessive relationships are closely associated
with categories of evidentiality and epistemic modality, which is, in
principle, the result of a mandatory, although, as a rule, formally
inexplicit presence (participation) of the addresser (speaker) in the
organization of given relations. In this way, ?modus-dictum? relationships
are realized in concessive sentences, because in a certain sense a
subordinate clause (with a propositional frame - modus) interprets the
contents of a main clause (proposition - dictum). The author emphasizes a
special role of a referral (either explicit or implicit) to the source and
credibility of the information communicated by the addresser, whereby the
source can be presented by both observations and gained experience of the
addresser (direct evidentiality) as well as other people, or logical
reasoning which is based on his/her own beliefs and assumptions (indirect
evidentiality). Statistical analysis of a frequency of conjunctions (and thus
the sentences as well) with generative semantics in the concluding section of
the article allows the author to conclude that certain types of texts - in
this particular case the texts are represented by the New Testament discourse
- are characterized precisely by the causal-implicative orientation of the
hypotaxis, because more than 1/3 of a total text of the four gospels uses
precisely sentences with a causal meaning. The author concludes that this
result confirms further that the causal- implicative syntactic structures
considered in this article demand further, even deeper, research.