A formal typology of clause linkage in Sandawe

Sandawe (Tanzania) exhibits numerous different clause linkage strategies. Categorising these strategies according to the traditional distinction between coordination and subordination is challenging as Sandawe has an atypical system of marking the subject and TAM of a clause. Furthermore, as discussed in Haiman and Thompson (1984), the concept of ‘subordination’ in clause linkage is itself problematic and needs to be rigorously defined in order to be useful and consistently applicable cross-linguistically. This talks discusses three of the nine types of clause linkage identified in Sandawe which fall in the first category of Dixon’s (2006) three-way division of complex sentences into (i) coordinate and non-embedded subordinate construction, (ii) relative clauses and (iii) complement clauses. The first of these categories is then further classified with reference to the composite approaches to subordination found in Haiman and Thompson (1984) and Lehmann (1988).