“Diacronia” bibliometric database (BDD)
Title:

Iar − operator pragmatic

Author:
Publication: Limba română: controverse, delimitări, noi ipoteze. Actele celui de-al 9-lea Colocviu al Catedrei de Limba Română, II, Section Pragmatică și stilistică, p. 341
Editors:Rodica Zafiu, Adina Dragomirescu, Alexandru Nicolae
Publisher:Editura Universității din București
Place:București
Year:
Abstract:[A Pragmatic Operator: Romanian iar] The first part of the article presents major interpretations of conjunctions in natural languages, in various theoretical frameworks (1.). The second part of the article deals with the Romanian conjunction iar. First, it summarizes the views expressed in Romanian linguistics on adversative conjunctions, and the conjunction iar in particular; backed by earlier studies which noticed a gradation along the adversative continuum, latest studies in the field consider iar a conjunction with an intermediate meaning between the copulative şi (Engl. and) and the adversative dar (Engl. but) (2.). Then, based on a corpus generated by a Google search, the article presents the syntactic, semantic and discourse features of iar structures (3.). Several features have been detected. Iar is used for the addition of two or more events encoded in syntactic clauses, which can have either the same, or distinct predicate(s), and at least one distinct argument or/and adjunct; ellipsis and syntactic isolation can affect compound sentences coordinated by iar (3.1.). The distinct arguments/adjuncts enter into contrast, extended over the event encoded by the clause; the arguments/adjuncts that form the contrast series fill various syntactic positions (subject, direct object, indirect object, time/space/cause adverbials, etc.); especially declarative sentences are coordinated by iar, but interrogative, imperative and exclamative structures are not excluded; the contrast between/among the units of the contrast series may be explicit, implicit or diffuse, and also literal or non-literal; a special case of contrast marked by iar is opposition, realized either as explicit or implicit antithesis; regularly, the contrasted terms are phrases, rarely clauses; often, the discourse contrast of the terms is over-marked by the symmetry of the clauses (3.2). The contrast series is foreground by the last term which is immediately adjacent to the right of the conjunction iar (3.3). The clauses that form the coordination string are elaborations of a common discourse (sub)topic, implicit, explicit or highly dependent on extralinguistic situational knowledge (3.4). Iar focuses an oriented progression of the topic, and gives instructions for a regressive reading of the syntactic coordination as semantic subordination; it functions as a “last resort strategy” for elaborating discourse as a hierarchy of information items (3.5). In certain contexts, iar is functionally equivalent to the copulative conjunction şi (Engl. and), and the adversative conjunctions dar and însă (Engl. but); while şi, dar, însă are syntactic operators, iar is a pragmatic operator which focuses topic progression by foregrounding the contrast series; the functional equivalence between the conjunctions enumerated above is the effect of the discourse extensions of the syntactic operators şi, dar, însă (4.). Starting from some proverbs well rooted in language, the iar compound sentences template has become a cliché with stylistic import (5.).
To conclude, Romanian developed a pragmatic operator of compromise between coordination and subordination, developed from the Latin adverbial iară “again” by grammaticalization in Old Romanian into a conjunction and later by pragmaticalization into a discourse organizer.
Language: Romanian
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Citations to this publication: 1

References in this publication: 4

1Camelia StanConstrucții adversative cu inversiune sintactică în limba română contemporanăSCL, XXXIX (2), 1511988
1Ioan N. BîteaConjuncția iar în limba română contemporanăLR, XXXVII (1), 211988
1Dumitru IrimiaCoordonarea opozitivăAUI, XXXIII, 411987
224Mioara AvramGramatica pentru toțiEditura Academiei; Humanitas1986; 1997, 2001

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