Some subordinate clause constructions in Modern German, Swedish, and English.

This study is an examination of subordinate clause constructions, focusing in particular on dass-clauses in German, and where necessary their Swedish and English equivalents. Chapter 1 discusses previous definitions of the term "subordinate clause", concluding that the presence of a COMP node in the underlying structure of subordinate clauses accounts for differences in their behaviour from that of main clauses. In Chapter 2 we examine the role of primary and ancillary markers of syntactic status, which serve to disambiguate syntactic relations. Chapter 3 concentrates on the function of these markers in German, showing that this language requires a comprehensive system of surface markers, due to the potential ambiguity arising from the existence of a number of polyfunctional elements and constructions. This chapter also includes a discussion of the use of the Subjunctive, which is viewed as yet another ancillary marker in German. Resultant upon this, the verbs of Reported Speech are focused upon in Chapter 4, where a reappraisal of this type of dass-clause is undertaken. Chapter 5 explores supporting evidence from recent analyses of German, discussing the implications of our findings for a general theory of word order. We conclude by suggesting that the term "subordinate clause" be restricted in German to those clauses which display both a complementizer/subordinating conjunction and verb-final word order, the primary markers of subordination. This is a consequence of the interaction of basic word order in German and the fact that German clause-introductory morphemes are often polyfunctional in nature, which weakens their subordinating power and necessitates the use of both word order and morphological markers to clarify syntactic status