Cover not available
Article published In:
Studies in Language
Vol. 47:1 (2023) ► pp.1–31

Concessive conditionals beyond Europe

A typological survey

ORCID logo | Ghent University

The present study is concerned with complex sentences known as concessive conditionals from a functional-typological perspective. It examines the coding strategies used in the protasis of the three subtypes of concessive conditionals – viz. scalar, alternative, and universal concessive conditionals – in a global sample of 17 languages, thus complementing a previous study of their formal properties in European languages (Haspelmath & König 1998). The results include some coding strategies which are unattested in European languages and suggest that Haspelmath & König’s division between languages which mark the three subtypes uniformly and languages which mark them differentially is too simplistic, there being at least four overall marking patterns rather than two. Although these results are only preliminary in nature, they do look promising for future research, which should be based on a larger and more strictly stratified sample.

Keywords: concessive conditionals, subordination, complex sentences, linguistic typology
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Language sample
  • 3.Coding strategies
    • 3.1Scalar concessive conditionals
      • 3.1.1Identical to conditional
      • 3.1.2Conditional clause plus focus particle
      • 3.1.3Specialized marker meaning ‘even if’
      • 3.1.4Connective without conditional component, also used in concessives
    • 3.2Alternative concessive conditionals
      • 3.2.1Based on conditionals
      • 3.2.2Based on (embedded) conditionals
      • 3.2.3Marked by subjunctive or optative
      • 3.2.4Marked by ‘(you) want’
      • 3.2.5Marked by an expression of irrelevance
      • 3.2.6Special connective
    • 3.3Universal concessive conditionals
      • 3.3.1Particle on or following the verb
      • 3.3.2Particle following the question word
      • 3.3.3Particle preceding the question word
      • 3.3.4Reduplication
      • 3.3.5Marked by subjunctive, conditional, or optative mood
      • 3.3.6Marked by an expression of irrelevance
      • 3.3.7No question word
  • 4.Analysis and discussion
    • 4.1Some generalizing remarks
    • 4.2Uniform and differential marking in concessive conditionals
  • 5.Conclusion and outlook
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Abbreviations
  • References
Published online: 14 February 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sl.20068.bos
References
AnderBois, Scott
2014 Unconditionals in Yucatec Maya. Proceedings of Form and Analysis in Mayan Linguistics 21. 1–20.Google Scholar
Berghäll, Liisa
2015 A grammar of Mauwake. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bhat, D. N. S.
2000 The indefinite-interrogative puzzle. Linguistic Typology 51. 365–400.Google Scholar
2004 Pronouns. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bisang, Walter
1998 Adverbiality: The view from the Far East. In Johan van der Auwera (ed.), Adverbial constructions in the languages of Europe, 641–812. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bystrov, Igor’ S. & Nonna V. Stankevich
2012 Concessive constructions in Vietnamese. In Viktor S. Xrakovskij (ed.), Typology of concessive constructions, 330–343. Munich: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar
Ciardelli, Ivano
2016 Lifting conditionals to inquisitive semantics. Proceedings of SALT 261, 732–752. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Creissels, Denis & Pierre Sambou
2013 Le mandinka: Phonologie, grammaire, textes. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
d’Avis, Franz
2016 Satztyp als Konstruktion: Diskussion am Beispiel ‘konzessive Konditionalgefüge’. In Rita Finkbeiner & Jörg Meibauer (eds.), Satztypen und Konstruktionen, 267–295. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar
De Groodt, Sarah
2002 Reanalysis and the five problems of language change: A case study on the rise of concessive subordinating conjunctions with ob- in Early Modern German. Sprachtypologie und Universalienforschung 55(3). 277–288.Google Scholar
Dryer, Matthew S.
1992 The Greenbergian word order correlations. Language 68(1). 81–138. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duffley, Patrick & Pierre Larrivée
2020 Whatever floats your boat: A corpus-based investigation of definiteness, quantification, modality, presuppositional content, scalarity and epistemic stance with wh-ever words. International Review of Pragmatics 121. 206–245. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Forker, Diana
2020 A grammar of Sanzhi Dargwa. Berlin: Language Science Press.Google Scholar
Fortescue, Michael
1984 West Greenlandic. London: Croom.Google Scholar
Fujii, Seiko Y.
1994 A family of constructions: Japanese temo and other concessive conditionals. Berkeley Linguistics Society 201. 194–207. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haiman, John
1978 Conditionals are topics. Language 54(3). 564–589. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hammarström, Harald, Robert Forkel, Martin Haspelmath & Sebastian Bank
2020 Glottolog 4.3. Jena: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. (Available online at [URL], accessed on 10/04/2021.) DOI logo
Haspelmath, Martin
1997 Indefinite pronouns. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
2010 Comparative concepts and descriptive categories in crosslinguistic studies. Language 86(3). 663–687. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin. & Ekkehard König
1998 Concessive conditionals in the languages of Europe. In Johan van der Auwera (ed.), Adverbial constructions in the languages of Europe, 563–640. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hellenthal, Anneke Christine
2010 A grammar of Sheko. Leiden: University of Leiden PhD dissertation.
Hercus, Luise A.
1982 The Bāgandji language. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
1994 A grammar of the Arabana-Wangkangurru language, Lake Eyre Basin, South Australia. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
1999 A grammar of the Wirangu language of the West Coast of South Australia. Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
Hutchison, John P.
1981 The Kanuri language: A reference grammar. Madison: University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Kibrik, Alexander
(ed.) 1996 Godoberi. Munich: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar
Kieviet, Paulus
2017 A grammar of Rapa Nui. Berlin: Language Science Press.Google Scholar
Kim, Minju
2015 From choice to counter-expectation: Semantic-pragmatic connections of the Korean disjunctive, concessive, and scalar focus particle -na . Journal of Pragmatics 801. 1–21. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
König, Ekkehard
1985 Where do concessives come from? On the development of concessive conditionals. In Jacek Fisiak (ed.), Historical semantics: Historical word-formation, 263–282. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1986 Conditionals, concessive conditionals and concessives: Areas of contrast, overlap and neutralization. In Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Alice ter Meulen, Judy Snitzer Reilly & Charles A. Ferguson (eds.), On conditionals, 229–246. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1988 Concessive connectives and concessive sentences: Cross-linguistic regularities and pragmatic principles. In John A. Hawkins (ed.), Explaining language universals, 145–166. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lehmann, Thomas
1993 A grammar of modern Tamil. Pondicherry: PILC.Google Scholar
Leuschner, Torsten
2006 Hypotaxis as building-site: The emergence and grammaticalization of concessive conditionals in English, German and Dutch. Munich: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar
2008 From speech-situation evocation to hypotaxis: The case of Latin quamvis ‘although’. In Elena Seoane & María José López-Couso (eds.), Theoretical and empirical issues in grammaticalization, 231–252. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2020 Concessive conditionals as a family of constructions. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 341. 234–246. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Levshina, Natalia
2015 How to do linguistics with R: Data exploration and statistical analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Liljegren, Henrik
2016 A grammar of Palula. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Menz, Astrid
2016 Concessive conditionals in Turkish. Turkic Languages 20(1). 90–103.Google Scholar
Nasilov, Dmitrij M., Xoršid F. Isxakova & Irina A. Nevskaya
(2012) Concessive constructions in Turkic languages. In Viktor S. Xrakovskij (ed.), Typology of concessive constructions, 387–412. Munich: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar
Olguín Martínez, Jesús F.
2016 Adverbial clauses in Veracruz Huasteca Nahuatl from a functional-typological approach. Hermosillo: University of Sonora MA thesis.
Oppliger, Rahel
2018 Whatever the specific circumstances, …: A Construction Grammar approach of wh-ever clauses in English. In Elena Seoane, Carlos Acuña-Fariña & Ignacio Palacinos-Martínez (eds.), Subordination in English: Synchronic and diachronic perspectives, 263–284. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rawlins, Kyle
2008 Unifying if-conditionals and unconditionals. Proceedings of SALT 181. 583–600. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2013 (Un)conditionals. Nat Lang Semantics 401. 111–178. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rubino, Carl
2013 Reduplication. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds.), The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at [URL], accessed on 10/04/2021.)
Sandman, Erika
2016 A grammar of Wutun. Helsinki: University of Helsinki PhD dissertation.
Song, Jae Jung
2018 Linguistic typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sweetser, Eve
1990 From etymology to pragmatics: Metaphorical and cultural aspects of semantic structure. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van der Voort, Hein
2004 A grammar of Kwaza. Berlin: de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vander Haegen, Flor
2019 Die Emergenz irrelevanzkonditionaler Subjunktoren des Typs egal was: Variation und Grammatikalisierung anhand des Deutschen Referenzkorpus. Germanistische Mitteilungen 45(1–2). 113–138.Google Scholar
Weber, David J.
1989 A grammar of Huallaga (Huánuco) Quechua. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Zaefferer, Dietmar
1987 Satztypen, Satzarten, Satzmodi: Was Konditionale (auch) mit Interrogativen zu tun haben. In Jörg Meibauer (ed.), Satzmodus zwischen Grammatik und Pragmatik: Referate anläßlich der 8. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Sprachwissenschaft, Heidelberg 1986, 259–285. Tübingen: Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1991 Conditionals and unconditionals: Cross-linguistic and logical aspects. In Dietmar Zaefferer (ed.), Semantic universals and universal semantics, 210–236. Berlin: Foris. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Aubrey, Rachel & Michael Aubrey
2022. Bibliography of Conditionals. Journal of Translation 18:2 ► pp. 135 ff. DOI logo
Haegen, Flor Vander, Tom Bossuyt & Torsten Leuschner
2022. Emerging into your family of constructions. Constructions and Frames 14:1 ► pp. 150 ff. DOI logo
Nicolle, Steve
2022. Conditionals in the New Testament: Interpretation and Translation. Journal of Translation 18:2 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 january 2023. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.