17. Mrz 2026
Katalin É. Kiss
Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Institute for Linguistics
From parataxis to hypotaxis: Evidence from the Ugric languages and typological parallels from Indo-European
Abstract: The dominant view in current diachronic syntax is that the assumption of a pathway from parataxis to finite subordination is unfounded for lack of reliable evidence. This talk will challenge this view by documenting an evolutionary pathway from parataxis via the correlative construction to finite subordination in the Ugric languages. It is argued that the source of the emergence of finite subordination is a paratactic precorrelative sentence pair, with an indefinite pronoun in the first sentence that is anaphorically resumed in the second sentence. This pattern, characteristic of the conservative SOV Ob-Ugric languages, developed into a full-fledged correlative construction in Hungarian by the end of the 12th century. In Hungarian, drifting to head-initial grammar, the correlative construction is shown to have been both the source of the evolution of finite relative clauses, and the source of the grammaticalization of finite complement clauses. The Ugric facts provide an interpretation framework for similar but disputed Hittite and Early Latin phenomena, as well. The developmental path from parataxis to hypotaxis also bears on debates about the source of wh- based relative pronouns, and about the origin of the relative pronoun strategy, typical of the European linguistic area.