From rhetorical question to adversative conjunction. The case of Croatian <i>ali</i>

Abstract

The paper revises etymologies of Croatian adversative conjunction ali, commonly associated with Polish ale. Even though both lexemes contain a conjunction a, they are composed of a question particle li and restrictive particle le respectively. Old Croatian, Serbian, and modern Slovenian disjunctive function of ali seems to be unrelated to the adversative function, which might have evolved directly from rhetorical questions. The paper shows what such change could look like, in line with the pragmatics of rhetorical questions and adversative coordination, Old Church Slavonic examples, and the uses in Old Croatian texts.

Keywords

• etymology
• historical syntax
• coordination