Peculiarities of Adversative Relations in Compound Sentences with the conjunction ‘and’

Abstract

The article describes compound sentences with the conjunction “and” expressing adversative relations. Adversative relations are defined as a broad category covering the meanings of opposition, contrast and contradiction. Three different semantic types of the structures under the analysis are singled out, namely adversative-concessive, adversative-contrastive and adversative-restrictive. They are characterized by certain lexical and grammatical peculiarities, as well as the degree of their participation in the development of narration. They are also compared to the compound sentences with the conjunction ‘but’, which is the explicit marker of the adversative relations. The differences go along semantic and pragmatic lines: on the one hand, structures with ‘but’ express a wider range of meanings than sentences with ‘and’, on the other, the conjunction ‘but’ is a marker of the subjective assessment of information while the conjunction ‘and’ reinforces the progressive development of narration.