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The Functions of the Coordinate Conjunction a in Modern Slavic Languages

  • Cross-Cultural Studies
  • 2022, 65(), pp.79~115
  • DOI : 10.21049/ccs.2022.65..79
  • Publisher : Center for Cross Culture Studies
  • Research Area : Humanities > Literature
  • Received : January 11, 2022
  • Accepted : February 3, 2022
  • Published : February 28, 2022

JEONG, JEONG WON 1

1연세대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

This article aims to examine functions of the Slavic coordinate conjunction a. All modern Slavic national and regional languages have a conjunction that is pronounced as /a/ which fulfills functions, such as contrastive, introductory, adversative (in a narrow sense), copulative, consecutive, and disjunctive functions. The contrastive function occurring among semantically related or unrelated things juxtaposed by the Slavic conjunction a is the most basic and prominent function of this conjunction, and all the modern Slavic conjunctions pronounced as /a/ can represent a contrastive relation between coordinates. The Slavic a also serves as an introductory conjunction appearing at the beginning of an utterance without a related precedent utterance or context, and as an adversative conjunction connecting incompatible events. These two functions must have been derived from its contrastive function since the introductory conjunction juxtaposes a new utterance to an unuttered inner speech or an unrelated precedent discourse, and the Slavic adversative a juxtaposes propositions that do not usually co-occur, not implicating a breaking of a usual chain of causation. In the West Slavic languages, except Polish, the conjunction a is, above all, a copulative conjunction and can also serve as a consecutive conjunction. On the other hand, some South Slavic languages have a correlative disjunctive conjunction a, repeatedly added at the beginning of each coordinate. Many Russian linguists suggested that the Russian conjunction a is the most typical Russian conjunction that cannot be translated into other languages. However, the Russian conjunction a shares its main functions and pragmatic peculiarities with other Slavic equivalents, and the corresponding conjunctions in other Slavic languages also have their own idiosyncratic functions. Therefore, the conjunction a should be considered a characteristic Slavic conjunction rather than a peculiar Russian conjunction.

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