A Linguist's Linguist: Studies in South Slavic Linguistics in Honor of E. Wayles Brown

On Conjoined Questions and Conjoined Relative Clauses in English and Serbo-Croatian

On Conjoined Questions and Conjoined Relative Clauses in English and Serbo-Croatian* E. Wayles Browne 1. Introduction As is well known, both Serbo-Croatian (SC) and English have means for forming yes-no questions and relative clauses. What is more, these categories correspond well in the two languages: a question is normally translated by a question, and a relative clause by a relative clause, although English provides some devices which SC lacks for condensing relative clauses into other constructions1 The differences between the languages are mainly in the superficial structures of the interrogative or relative clauses. This paper seeks to point out one such difference, one which is generally unnoticed since it appears only when two of more clauses are joined by means of conjunctions. We take up questions and relatives in turn, first reviewing their usual surface structures in each language. * This article first ap peared in The Yugoslav Serbo-CroaUal1-El1glish cOl1trastive project: Studies 3. Rudolf Filipovic, ed. Zagreb: Zagreb University, 1971. We are grateful to Vesna MuhviC for suggesting we reprint it and for supplying a scan of the original. 1 For instance, present participle constructions: (i) a. [E] Anyone who drives too fast has to pay a fine. b. [SC] Svi koji prebrzo voze moraju platiti kanzu. (ii) a. [E] Anyone driving too fast has to pay a fine. b. [SC] 'Svi prebrzo vozeCi moraju platiti kanzu. See Macek 1970: 124. Steven Franks, Vrinda Chidambaram, and Brian Joseph, eds. A Linguist's Linguist: Studies in South Slavic Linguistics in Honor of E. Wa yles Browne. Bloomington, IN: Siavica, 2542 . 26 E. WAYlES BROWNE 2. Yes-No Questions 2.1. English Yes-No Questions In English, yes-no questions have inversion of subject and auxiliary verb. The question corresponding to (Ia) is (Ib). (1) a. Mary is reading Erasmus. b. Is Mary reading Erasmus? If the auxiliary consists of more than one word, only the first word is inverted with the subject2 (2) a. Mary will have finished reading the book soon. b. Will Mary have finished reading the book soon? In sentences which would otherwise have no verb that acts as an auxiliary , a form of 'do' is used as an auxiliary. This form carries the tense markers, while the verb following it is uninflected. 2 In this connection, note that contractions of auxiliary verbs with not count as single words: (i) Mary won't have finished it by then. (ii) Won't Mary have finished it by then? When not is not contracted with the first auxiliary, it does not count as a single word and does not take part in inversion: (iii) Mary will not have finished it by then. (iv) Will Mary not have finished it by then? Examples such as (v) pronounced as two words [wil not], though found in literature, are not normal in present-day English. (v) 'Will not Mary have finished it by then? This difference in behavior between contracted and non-contracted forms suggests that teachers and textbook writers should distinguish them very carefully, always writing won't, isn't, etc., for the one-word forms [wount], [iznt], and using the spelling wil/not, is not, etc., only for the two-word forms [wil not], liz not]. O N CONJOINED QUESTIONS AND CONJOI NED RELATIVE CLAUSES 27 (3) a. Mary likes the classics. b. Does Mary like the classics? 2.2 SC Yes-No Questions SC yes-no questions are generally made with special question markers : Ii, da Ii, jel'. 2.2.1. Ii Li is an enclitic and follows the general rules for SC enclitics, which we will set forth briefly. All the enclitics in a clause come in a group, one following another in a fixed order. The group normally comes after the first accented element of the clause; it may come directly after the main verb, but never comes later in the clause than that. Using the pronoun enclitic mi 'to me', ih 'them' for purposes of illustration; (4) a. Onaj tvrdoglavi rodak mi ih stalno vraea. 'That stubborn cousin continually gives them back to me.' b. *Onaj tvrdoglavi rodak ih mi stalno vraea. Here Onaj tvrdoglavi roaak, a noun phrase, counts as the first element. The first accent-bearing word, onaj, can also count as the first element. (5) Onaj mi ih tvrdoglavi rodak stalno vraea. An example of the enclitics coming directly after the main verb vraca. (6) Onaj tvrdoglavi rodak...