Notes on sentential connections (predominantly) in Portuguese

Abstract

In this article, we discuss a general typology of inter-sentential connections involving an explicit connective, including but not limited to subordination and coordination. In the first section, we briefly describe a proposal on the topic by one of the authors, which is taken as a point of departure. In the fol- lowing section, we analyse step by step the diverse levels of organization of the connection system, ending in an overall picture and a suggestion of further additions related to hitherto fully or vastly ignored kinds of data. In the third and final section, we focus on the particular kind of connection that involves the notion of (discourse) “explanation”, in order to draw attention to the messy conceptual and descriptive domain it constitutes, particularly in Portu- guese linguistics. We aim at demonstrating that a system of well-defined se- mantic notions, in most cases paralleled by conspicuous syntactic properties, is needed for this and other kinds of connections to be fully understood.