COMPLEX SENTENCES WITH THE TIME CONJUNCTIONS NÄR AND DÅ IN SWEDISH
Е.М. Чекалина · 2024
The article analyses compound sentences with the time conjunctions när and då in Ingmar Bergman’s memoirs “Laterna Magica”. The pecu liarities of their use are conditioned by textual functions and depend on the character of the semantic link between the main and subordinate parts of a sentence. Sentences with the conjunction då are considerably more frequent (140 occurrences). They serve to indicate external time reference points in the narrative, which is characterised by chronological inconsistencies and returns to events in the past. They are particularly frequent as the theme at the beginning of a chapter or a paragraph, as well as after an empty line, which indicates a new point of reference in the reminiscences of the past, and they express the ‘outer’ reference points of the objective time that are outside of the scope of the events of the main part. The content of the subordinate clause proves to be the most important part of the utterance, while the main clause provides it with an additional description of concomitant circumstances. Compound sentences with när (28 occurrences ) indicate the ‘inner’ time of the event of the main part, which is directly conditioned by the content of the subordinate clause. The analysis of the empirical material within one literary work allows for revealing the functional and semantic peculiarities of close but not identical linguistic units, conditioned by the inner logic of the narrative and not evident in utterances outside a given text and context.