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Narrative when in English1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 May 2016

CARL BACHE
CARL BACHE*
Affiliation:
Department of Language & Communication, University of Southern Denmark, Campusvej 55, 5230 Odense M, Denmarkcba@sdu.dk
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Abstract

This article examines the so-called ‘narrative when’ construction in English. No one has come up with an entirely satisfactory description of this construction which accounts appropriately for both its syntax and content. The descriptive challenge is to explain the unusual balance between the main clause and the when clause: unlike an ordinary temporal when clause (which offers circumstantial information in relation to the main clause), a narrative when clause expresses the primary situation while the main clause merely has a supporting textual function. This article suggests a simple framework for the description of all when clauses within which narrative when clauses are very comfortably accommodated as one of the metaphorical extensions of the basic meaning and syntax of when.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , July 2016 , pp. 273 - 294
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

1

My sincere thanks to Alexandra Holsting and Nina Nørgaard, two anonymous ELL reviewers, ELL editor Bernd Kortmann, as well as colleagues and friends more generally in the Danish national grammar network and in the Danish Functional Linguistics network, for critical comments and suggestions.

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