A descriptive study of conditional constructions in Odia

Abstract

This study investigates the types of conditional constructions found in the Indo-Aryan language Odia and studies the morpho-syntactic structure and linear function of it. In Odia, Conditional constructions consist of a main clause (adoposis), and a subordinate clause (protasis). It is usually protasis, which functions as antecedent, and adoposis functions as consequent, forming a single sentence, in which consequent is referentially linked to its antecedent by anaphoric relation. Odia Conditional clause is marked in one of the various morpho-syntactic ways: lexically by 4 conjunctive morphemes like, jad̪i ‘if’/ ‘whether’, manekara ‘supposing’, natʃet̪ ‘otherwise’, kāɭe ‘in case’ or grammatically by a bound morpheme ‑ile added with the verbal form as suffix, in the protasis, or by a je…se correlative phrase ‘as long as’. This paper tries to formalize such relation of conditional clauses and finds that a single conditional operator can map with different conditional scopes for denoting different types of conditional meanings.