Causal relations between discourse and grammar.

Degand, Liesbeth [UCL]

In this talk I would like to propose an analysis of causal relations on three distinct levels of analysis: syntax, semantics and discourse (following Blühdorn, 2008). The question raised concerns the posited correlation between syntactic relations of coordination and subordination, and coherence relations at the discourse level. This will be illustrated on the basis of two case studies: (i) the coordinating use of the Dutch subordinating conjunction omdat (‘because’); and (ii) the impact of syntactic vs. prosodic segmentation on the discourse level use of the French subordinating conjunction parce que (‘because’). Topic of discussion will be the question whether all uses of the connective omdat/parce que should be analyzed as signaling a coherence relation at the discourse level.