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Clauses of Concession in Written Present-Day

British English

Article  in  Journal of English Linguistics · April 1988

DOI: 10.1177/007542428802100104

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 Journal ofhttp://eng.sagepub.com/
English Linguistics

Clauses of Concession in Written Present-Day British English

Bas Aarts
Journal of English Linguistics 1988 21: 39
DOI: 10.1177/007542428802100104

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 Clauses of Concession in Written Present-Day British English

Bas Aarts
University of Utrecht (The Netherlands)

In the linguistic literature the notion concession has never been dealt with
in any great depth.1 A plausible reason for this is that it is by no means an
easy task to characterize this semantic concept. Linguists have analyzed the
relation between the matrix clause and the adverbial concessive clause differ-
ently. Curme (1931:332) considers there to be a contrast between the two,
whereas Jespersen (1909-49:5.360) prefers to speak cf a contradiction.
Quirk et al. (1985:1098) claim that what is expressed in the matrix clause is
&dquo;contrary to expectation in the light of what is said in the subordinate clause&dquo;.

1 This study was based on a corpus of 61 written texts of approximately 5,000 words each in
the Survey of English Usage (henceforth SEU) at University College London. I have col-
lected from the files of the Survey all the clauses introduced by one of the concessive sub-
ordinators (see below). The material I used was distributed over twelve text categories:

Category Type (number of texts)

1 Continuous Writing (Examination Essays, 3 texts)
2 Letters a social (7 texts)
b business (8 texts)
c medical correspondence (3 texts)
3 Journals (3 texts)
4 Learned Arts (history, poetry, religion, etc., 4 texts)
5 Learned Sciences (biology, physics, etc., 5 texts)
6 Instructional Writing (handbooks, manuals, 3 texts)
7 General Non-Fiction (essays, articles, textbooks, 6 texts)
8 Press (6 texts)
9 Administrative and Official Language (reports, 2 texts)
10 Legal and Statutory Language (Health Services and Public
Health Act,1 text)
11 Persuasive Writing (sermons, party manifestoes, etc., 4 texts)
12 Prose Fiction (7 texts)

I would like to thank Sidney Greenbaum and an anonymous JEngL reader for com-
of this article.
ments on earlier drafts

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 40

These only a few definitions, but they do show that, although grammarians
are
are agreed that there is some sort of discrepancy between the matrix clause
and the concessive clause, there is disagreement about the precise nature of
the relation.
The thesis of this paper is that concession cannot be defined in a simple
and straightforward way. Even a cursory glance at some instances of con-
cessive clauses will reveal that we are dealing with a fuzzy semantic notion,
and that concession can be said to shade into three other semantic areas:
condition, time, and contrast. Consider the following sentence:

(1) When we people to take part in local affairs we

encourage
are not thrusting politics on an unwilling body of people
whose only aim is to find solutions for personal problems.
(W.11.5.2a)2
The adverbial when- clause in this example clearly has a temporal reading.
However, in substituting although or though for when, we find that the sub-
ordinate clause can also be interpreted as being concessive. As we will see,
when is not the only conjunction which can cause indeterminacy of interpreta-
tion. In describing concessive clauses we will have to take into account the
fact that ambiguities may arise when multifunctional conjunctions are used. I
propose the following definition for the concessive relation:

The concessive relation expresses a semantic discrepancy between

the matrix and subordinate clauses: what is said in one clause is
surprising and unexpected in the light of what is said in the other
clause. Sentences in which this relation is displayed can be said to
be &dquo;centrally concessive&dquo;. Where multifunctional conjunctions are
used, such as whereas (contrastive and concessive meaning) or if
(conditional and concessive meaning), the clause in question can
be termed &dquo;peripherally concessive&dquo;, but only in those cases where
the concessive element of meaning is the most dominant.

2 which
The numbers following the examples refer to the numbers of the paper slips on
the sentences are recorded in the SEU. "W" indicates that the text is from a written
source, which is the case for all the examples used here.

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41

In sentence structure concessive clauses function as adverbials. They are

introduced by one of the following subordinators: although, though, even
though, whereas, if, even if, while, whilst, and when.33 Only although and even
though can be said to function exclusively as concessive subordinators. The
other conjunctions are either multifunctional (when, whilst, if, and even if) or,
in the case of though, can also function as an adverb.
Formally, we can distinguish two types of conjunction: simple and com-
plex. The simple concessive subordinators are single words, while the com-
plex concessive subordinators are formed by a conjunction preceded by the
adverb even. Quirk et al. (1985:1002) class the subordinators from this second
group as &dquo;marginal subordinators&dquo;. However, the terminology for a formal
taxonomy of concessive subordinators need not worry us too much here.
Indeed, it may even be misleading: grouping even though and even if in the
same class stresses the similarity in form between them, while the semantic

differences between these conjunctions are overlooked. I will return to this

matter later.
In the corpus of 305,000 words there were 372 concessive subordinators,
that is, 0.12% of the total number of words. This means that in every SEU
text of 5,000 words there is an average of about six concessive conjunctions.
This is not a very large number if we compare it to other subordinators in the
corpus: of the conditional if- conjunctions alone there were 835 instances,
0.27% of the total number of words, about 14 instances per text. The follow-
ing table shows the absolute frequencies of each of the concessive conjunc-
tions. As we can see, although and though are the most frequent:

although 121 even if 29

though 133 while 31
even though 16 whilst 6
whereas 1 when 5
if 30

Clauses of concession display three degrees of complexity: simple, com-

plex, and coordinated. Simple concessive clauses do not have dependent
clauses. Complex concessive clauses do: they are superordinate to one or

3 it used in letters written

Even although does not occur in the corpus, but I have seen to
me by a Scottish friend. I have not checked whether her use of this conjunction is a Scot-
ticism or an idiosyncrasy.

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 42

more general, coordinated clauses are clauses which are linked by

clauses. In
a coordinating conjunction such as and, or, or but. Examples of the simple,
complex and coordinated concessive clauses are shown in (2), (3), and (4):

(2) Although it was late, I persuaded them to have some coffee in

the King’s Coffee House. (W8.3a.5)
(3) The falsity of this progress had become more obvious as the
victories have been chalked up; for [while it was once a
serious matter that a woman could not be a doctor or a bar-
rister], it is pretty pathetic to be reduced to worrying about
when the first woman will capture some ludicrous position
like Black Rod or President of the Oxford Union.
(W.11.2a.ll)
(4) [Though the population is rising naturally and malaria is on
the decrease], there is a chronic parasitism, and in the State
of Para 49 percent of children die before the age of four,
mostly of dysentery and dehydration. (Wl1.4d.3A)
The coordinated clauses are structurally the most interesting. They have the
following shape:

The two concessive clauses can be said to be totally independent, at least to

the extent that they can be used independently outside this sentence. How-
ever, although there is no dependency relation between each of the clauses,
there is indeed a relation between each of the clauses and the concessive con-
junction. This relation is shown below:

It is because of this relation that the first part of sentence (4) can be para-
phrased thus:

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43

If one of the coordinated concessive clauses is particularly long, the conjunc-

tion is repeated.
There seem to be restrictions on which conjunctions can link two conces-
sive clauses. In the corpus and was the only conjunction found in this struc-
ture. But and or seem impossible in this type of coordinative construction:

(6) *Although John is a journalist or Mary a novelist, neither has

published anything.
(7) *Though his wife is a thief, but he has never stolen anything,
he was arrested yesterday.

It seems that clauses preceded by but and or are outside the &dquo;scope&dquo; of the
concessive conjunction in coordinative structures.
Of the three types of concessive clauses, simple, complex, and coordinated,
the first was by far the most frequent: at least two thirds of all the concessive
clauses were simple. There were considerably fewer complex concessive
clauses and only a handful of coordinated concessive clauses.
In the sentence concessive clauses may appear in the following positions:
initial, medial and final, i.e. before, in the middle of, and following the matrix
clause.4Medial concessive clauses can occur in various positions. Here is an
example in which the concessive clause is positioned following the subject of
the matrix clause:

(8) Sidney, although not primarily concerned with poetry, was

interested in raising its general standards. (W6.2a.18)

It appears from the data that the frequency of occurrence of the concessive
subordinators is a determining factor for the position of the concessive clauses
they introduce. Thus, concessive clauses introduced by the least frequent con-
junctions (i.e. whilst and when) in most cases appear initially, whereas con-
cessive clauses introduced by conjunctions of intermediate frequency (i.e. even
though, if, and even if) principally occur finally. While is an exception, as it
occurred mostly in initial clauses.5
--- ----

4 In the following sentence, where the concessive clause follows the subordinator of the
clause which is superordinate to it, the concessive clause is also taken to be in initial posi-
tion : "Something tells me that, although the weather is fine, it will rain later".
5 Because it only appeared once, whereas was not taken into consideration here.

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 44

For the most frequent conjunction, though, the following pattern emerges:
27 initial clauses, 21 medial clauses, and 85 final clauses (out of a total of 133).
This means that 64% of the concessive though-clauses appear in sentence-
final position. The data for although show that 57 although-clauses precede
the matrix clause, and that 55 follow it. The remaining clauses occur in a
medial position. Fowler remarks that &dquo;... it is safe to say, that the condi- ...

tions in which although is likely to occur are (a) in the more formal styles of
writing, (b) in a clause that does not follow, but precedes the main sentence&dquo;
(1965:637). He is right about point (a): although does chiefly occur in formal
texts, as we will see. As for point (b), strictly speaking he is right again. How-
ever, we should really conclude that there is no marked preference for the
position of clauses introduced by although. This is because the number of
concessive clauses that precede the matrix clause is only marginally greater
than the number of concessive clauses that follow it.
The subordinator though occurs in a syntactic configuration which deserves
special mention. It is exemplified by the following sentences:

(9) I am concerned not only with kings and their courts, crucial
though they are. (W7.8.43)
(10) Tall person though he is, he can’t reach the light switch.
(11) Fail though I did, I would not abandon my goals (Quirk et al.
1985:1098)
(12) Hard though he worked, he wasn’t tired in the evenings.
The construction is not at all very productive, as there are only three instances
of it in the whole corpus. We can distinguish three types:

I. With preposed subject complement:

a. with preposed predicative adjective, as in (9).
b. with preposed nominal group, as in (10).
II. With preposed main verb, as in (11).
III. With preposed adverb, as in (12).

Group I seems to be the most common. However, this is only a general

impression which cannot be based on the corpus data alone.
The construction can be explained in transformational terms. If we restrict
ourselves to construction I, we can say that the subject complement is moved

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45

to the front of the clause. Although this transformation has been discussed in
the literature, it has never been formalized. It has been called &dquo;though-
attraction&dquo; (Culicover 1976:166) and &dquo;though-movement&dquo; (Radford
1981:213). The difficulty of formalizing the exact mechanism of this move-
ment is presumably the reason why no one has attempted to do so. For one
thing, not all copulas seem to allow the construction. Consider the following
examples:

(13) ?True though it came, the wish should never have been
made.
(14) ?True though the wish came, it should never have been
made.

These sentences sound decidedly unnatural. The though-construction is often

ungrammatical if there are restrictions on the type of complement after the
verb with a copular function. As Quirk et al. note: &dquo;The restriction may be a
lexical restriction to certain idiomatic verb-adjective sequences ... or it may
be a semantic restriction&dquo; (1985:1172):

(15) *Assured though he rests, he is not happy.

(16) *Dead though he fell down, he didn’t make a noise.
(17) *Bright red though he blushed, he wasn’t ashamed of him-
self.

Types II and III of the though-construction occur nowhere in the SEU files,
indicating their restricted frequency. Type Ib is syntactically the most interest-
ing. It has been regarded as providing further evidence for the contention
that we have an additional level in phrase structure, namely X (where X N, =

V, A, or P). Radford (1981:95) discusses the following three sentences:

(18) Tall girl though she is, few people look up to her.
(19) Short girl though she is, few people look down on her.
(20) Bad politician though he is, everyone admires him.

The preposednominal groups in these examples, Radford argues, cannot pos-

sibly be NPs, because they cannot be preceded by determiners in this con-
struction :

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 46

(21) *A tall girl though she is, few people look up to her.
(22) *A short girl though she is, few people look down on her.
(23) *This bad politician though he is, everyone admires him.

A further argument in favor of denying these nominal groups the status of NP

(not mentioned at this point by Radford) is that they cannot occur in typical
NP functions, such as subject and object, as in (24) and (25), and the group
cannot occur as a prepositional complement, as in (26):

(24) *Tall girl bought an ice-cream.

(25) *I saw tall girl.
(26) *I gave a book to tall girl.

And yet the sequence tall girl is a constituent for two reasons, as Radford
shows elsewhere in the chapter:

a. Tall girl can be conjoined with another similar sequence as in

&dquo;This tall girl and tall boy came to see me yesterday&dquo;. If two
identical structures can be coordinated they are constituents.
b. The pro-form one can refer back to tall girl as in the following
sentence: &dquo;I saw this tall girl, but John saw that one&dquo;.

The status, then, of the sequence tall girl is intermediate between NP and N:
N. If we adopt the framework of Chomsky 1981, the Deep Structure presum-
ably looks like the phrase marker below, where the higher N will have to be
moved by some obligatory rule:

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47

As we have seen, the word though can also function as an adverb. As a con-
cessive subordinator it can only occur initially in the clause and cannot move
elsewhere (except in the special though-construction discussed above). As an
adverb it can be moved to other positions in the clause, usually to a final posi-
tion. We can say that the movement potential of though in any given clause
can serve as a diagnostic for determining the syntactic status of the word. In

the corpus there were 169 instances of the word though. Of these the majority
were conjunctions, 133 instances. There were 17 adverbs, 16 instances of the

subordinator even though, and three sentences with as though. The last func-
tions in clauses of similarity and comparison and as such falls outside the
scope of this study. The percentages for each type of though are as follows:

Conjunction though 79%

Adverb though 10%
Even though 9%
As though 2%

The use of the concessive conjunctions is chiefly determined by stylistic

considerations. Thus we can see in the table below that although is used in
rather formal styles of writing.6This has often been observed by grammarians
and other writers on the English Language, but it has never been substan-
tiated. Although is relatively most frequent in category 1 (the Examination
Essays), followed by the categories 2c (Medical Correspondence), 5 (Learned
Sciences), 9 (Administrative and Official Language), 2b (Business Letters),
and 2a (Social and Intimate Letters). It is least frequent in the categories 3
and 7, i.e. the Journals and General Non-Fiction. It is noteworthy that the rel-
ative frequency of this conjunction in the category of Social Letters (2a) does
not differ all that much from its relative frequency in the category of Business
Letters (2b). Furthermore, if we look at the relative frequency of though in
category 2b (see below), we must conclude that writers of business letters use

6
In the following tables, "absolute frequency" is the number of occurrences of the con-
cessive conjunction actually counted in each category; "relative frequency" is an index of
how many times one might expect the concessive conjunction to occur in body of 305,000
words from each category. The relative frequency thus offers a figure appropriate for
comparison of different categories and for comparison of any single category against the
overall frequency of the concessive conjunction, given as the total of absolute frequencies.

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 48

the conjunctions although and though indiscriminately. It should also be noted

that although is relatively infrequent in Prose Fiction (category 12).

Category Absolute Frequency Relative Frequency Number of Texts

1 23 467 3
2 50 170 18
a 15 131 7
b 19 145 8
c 16 325 3
3 1 20 3
4 3 46 4
5 14 214 4
6 3 61 3
71 10 6
8 8 82 6
9 6 183 2
10 0 0 1
11 8 122 4
12 4 35 7
Total Instances of although 121

It is not obvious why although should be so popular in Examination Essays.

One possible explanation for this is that it enables the writer to make tentative
statements in the matrix clause. Consider the following examples:

(27) ...
although we must allow for the convention of apology,
there does seem in Sidney’s work a certain amount of scom
for the writings being produced. (W6.2a-19)
(28) His use of song rhythms and refrains adds simplicity and
again, directness to his tone, although it can produce some
trivial poems. (W6.2-7)

In (27) the writer is making an impressionistic statement in the matrix clause,

but to show his knowledge of a certain literary phenomenon he uses a con-
cessive clause. Concessive clauses in these texts often express what could
have been someone’s (here the examiner’s) critical comments in the margin.
The writer forestalls the critic’s possible objection to what is being said. This
is especially clear in (28).

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49

There is an enormous discrepancy between the use of although in categor-

ies 4 and 5 (Learned Arts and Learned Sciences). The conjunction is used
almost five times more often in scientific texts. Presumably the reason for this
is that the use of formal sounding although in the Learned Arts inhibits a lively
style of writing which is not a requisite for scientific writing. Although sub-
stitution of though for although is usually possible in scientific texts, it is not
always stylistically desirable. For some speakers substitution of though for
although in the following example (from a scientific text) would introduce a
dissonant tone of casualness:

(29) Thus Rondenstevedt and Blanchard (1955) found that 4%

of dibenzyl is formed (by dimension of the resonance-
stabilised benzyl radicals C6HsCH2) in the reaction of nitro-
soacetanilide with toluene, although dibenzyl formation
seems to be less important at lower temperatures.

(W9.10.30-4)
The distribution of the conjunction though over the 12 text categories is
shown below, and we can see that it is far more even than the distribution of
although:

Category Absolute Frequency Relative Frequency Number of Texts

1 13 264 3
2 47 159 18
a 23 200 7
b 21 160 8
c 3 61 3
3 8 162 3
4 12 183 4
55 77 4
6 3 61 3
7 17 173 6
8 10 102 6
9 7 214 2
10 0 01
11 3 46 4
12 8 70 7
Total Instances of though 133

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 50

It can be observed that though does not occur in exceptionally low frequen-
cies : the lowest number of occurrences, relatively speaking, is in category 11
(persuasive writing) with 46 instances per 305,000 words, which is almost five
times as many occurrences as the lowest number of occurrences of although in
category 7 (General Non-Fiction) with only 10 instances per 305,000 words.
The more even distribution of though is also borne out by the fact that there
are no high peaks in relative frequency for this subordinator as in the case of

although in category 1. It seems, then, that though is stylistically less marked

than although. However, there are still a number of interesting distributional
facts worth mentioning.
The most popular text category for though is category 1. Its relative fre-
quency is 264 instances per 305,000 words (as opposed to 467 instances for
although). This suggests that this conjunction is less formal than although and
this is what was expected. Other data in the table confirm the less formal
status of though: we see a reversal of preferences for this conjunction in the

categories 2a, 2b, and 2c, the letters. Though is used more often in social let-
ters than in business letters or medical correspondence. A further reversal in

preferences is found between the categories 4 and 5. As we have seen,

although was used more often in scientific texts and considerably less fre-
quently in Learned Arts texts. For though the situation is the other way
round: it occurs more than twice as often in category 4 texts. Contrary to
what we might expect, though occurs quite often in category 9 (Administrative
and Official Language). As the relative frequency for although in this
category is about the same, we may tentatively conclude that in official lan-
guage although and though are stylistically neutral. The same conclusion was
reached above in connection with the use of these subordinators in category
2b. In Fiction (category 12) there is a marked preference for though over
although: it occurs twice as often as although in this type of text. Here again,
it is probably felt by authors that although sounds stilted.
For even though the stylistic preferences are even less marked than was the
case for though. The conjunction occurred relatively most often in category 1
and 2c texts (Examination Essays and Medical Correspondence) and rela-
tively least frequently in the Learned Arts texts. All this suggests that even
though is fairly formal. Even though is the emphatic version of though: con-
cessive clauses introduced by this subordinator are even more unexpected and
surprising in view of what is said in the matrix clause than concessive clauses
introduced by though alone.

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51

Category Absolute Frequency Relative Frequency Number of Texts

1 2 41 3
2 9 31 18
a 3 26 7
b 4 31 8
c 2 41 3
3 0 0 3
4 1 15 4
5 0 0 4
6 0 0 3
7 2 20 6
8 2 20 6
9 0 0 2
10 0 0 1
11 0 0 4
12 0 0 7
Total Instances of even though 16

The conjunction if is chiefly used for introducing adverbial clauses of condi-

tion. Of the 895 if- clauses in the corpus, 836 were conditional, over 90%.
The remaining 59 if- clauses were concessive and were introduced either by if
or by even it-

Conditional if 836
Concessive if 30
Concessive even if 29

Concessive if shows interesting distributional facts. It occurs in six of the 12

text categories, and is relatively the most frequent in category 4, as can be
seen in the table below. This table also shows that concessive if is con-
spicuously absent from the formal categories of writing, such as 2c (Medical
Correspondence), (Administrative and Official Language), and 10 (Legal
9
and Statutory Language). It is much more popular in categories 2a (Social
Letters) and 2b (Business Letters). Furthermore, there is an interesting
discrepancy between categories 4 and 5: category 4 (Learned Arts) shows a
relative frequency of 107 instances, while in category 5 (Learned Sciences)
there were no instances of concessive if at all. All these data suggest that con-
cessive if- clauses are stigmatized in the official uses of language, and are
characteristic of more free styles of writing.

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 52

Category Absolute Frequency Relative Frequency Number of Texts

1 0 0 3
2 10 34 18
a 7 61 7
b 3 23 8
c 0 0 3
3 1 20 3
4 7 107 4
5 0 0 4
6 0 0 3
7 9 92 6
8 2 20 6
9 0 0 2
10 0 0 1
11 0 0 4
12 1 9 7
Total Instances of if 30

Writers onthe English Language seem to disapprove of the use of the con-
junction if in clauses of concession. Cottle, in a chapter called &dquo;The Four
Wickedest Idioms&dquo; (1975:90-91), discusses two uses of this subordinator,
both of which he condemns. The first is found in sentence (30):

(30) If the weather has been fine this August, there were far sun-

nier Augusts recorded in the late nineteenth century.

He remarks that &dquo;arising from the first kind is an even worse if which is gain-
ing currency: the if that really stands for although or although perhaps, but
stands for it very inadequately&dquo;. He gives the following example:

(31) [Byron’s relationship with his half-sister Augusta], if

unnatural, was genuine and lasting.

In my view both if- clauses in Cottle’s examples are concessive, differing

semantically only so far as (30) is peripherally concessive, whereas (31) is
in
centrally concessive. Both sentences are perfectly acceptable English and I
am one of those readers of Cottle who he suspects will accuse him of

pedantry.

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53

About a third of the total number of instances of the conjunction if is fol-

lowed by not (11 out of 31). As has often been observed, if not- clauses are
ambiguous, as can be seen in the example below:

(32) Their aim-and by they may have succeeded-is to find

now
MP’s who gained a high place in the ballot to steer similar, if
not identical, measures through the Commons and thus on to
the statute book. (W.11.2.3)

For a more detailed discussion of concessive if not see Kjellmer 1975.

Before discussing the distributional characteristics of even if, a number of
observations should be made. Even if is not purely concessive in meaning; it
has an inherent element of conditional meaning. For that reason this complex
subordinator has been called &dquo;conditional-concessive&dquo;. However, I would
prefer the term &dquo;peripherally concessive&dquo; for clauses introduced by this con-
junction, as the concessive element of meaning is somewhat more dominant.
Notice that we cannot say that clauses introduced by if are also peripherally
concessive; this is because we can have if- clauses which have a concessive
interpretation only, as in (31) above.
As we have seen, the effect of the adverb even was to achieve greater
emphasis in clauses introduced by even though. For the conjunction even if
the adverb may have the same effect, as in (33):

(33) And anyhow, even if I don’t want advice, I do really want a

father figure, however English and awful it is of one to do so.
(W.16.6.175-1)
If weleave out the adverb even in the adverbial clause, there will be little
change in meaning; we then have a concessive if- clause. Note that we can
replace even if by (al)though in (33). However, in most cases the effects of
even are not so straightforward. Consider sentence (34), where the effect of
even is not merely one of emphasis:

(34) And even if the Archangel Gabriel were the leader of the
L.C.C., the problem would not be solved with the present
resources. (W.15.1.48-3)
If we leave out the adverb here, we *end up with a sentence which is not con-
cessive but conditional. The effect of leaving out the adverb is changing a

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 54

peripherally concessive clause (that is, here, a concessive clause with a condi-
tional element of meaning) into an adverbial clause of condition. It would
seem, then, that the role the adverb even plays in conjunction with if is unpre-
dictable. In some cases it has an emphatic function, in other cases it has the
effect of introducing concessive meaning into the clause.
The table below shows that even if occurs in categories 1 (Examination
Essays), 2 (Letters), 4 (Learned Arts), 5 (Learned Sciences), 8 (Press), 11
(Persuasive Writing), and 12 (Fiction):

Category Absolute Frequency Relative Frequency Number of Texts

1 4 81 3
2 13 44 18
a 8 70 7
b 5 38 8
c 0 0 3
3 0 0 3
4 3 46 4
51 15 4
6 0 0 3
7 0 0 6
81 10 6
9 0 0 2
10 0 01
11 5 77 4
12 2 17 7
Total Instances of even if 29

The relative frequencies of this conjunction in the letter category are more or
less the same as those for if in this category. However, if we compare the dis-
tribution of if and even if over the other categories, we find that the use of
even if is quite different from the use of if alone. The latter is used more than

twice as often in Learned Arts texts (category 4), and it is used very frequently
in Non-Fiction (category 7) where even if does not occur. Even if does occur,
rather frequently, in the Examination Essays (category 1) and in Persuasive
Writing (category 11). In both these categories if is conspicuously absent. We
can conclude that even if, in contrast to if, is looked upon as being formal.

Apparently it is not considered as such by writers of administrative and legal

texts (categories 9 and 10), because the use of this subordinator is shunned by
them.

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55

The conjunction while, like whilst and when, occurs principally in temporal
clauses. Out of a total of 116 whiles, 63 were temporal, 22 were contrastive,
and 31 were concessive conjunctions:

Temporal while 54%

Contrastive while 19%
Concessive while 27%

In the following table we see that as a conjunction of concession while is

used in very formal styles of writing: it occurs most frequently in category 9
(Administrative and Official Language). It is also used frequently in categor-
ies 1 (Examination Essays) and 7 (General Non-Fiction). We see that in the
scientific texts the conjunction is used twice as often as in the arts texts.

Absolute Frequency Relative Frequency Number of Texts

Category
1 3 61 3
2 6 20 18
a 0 0 7
b 6 46 8
c 0 0 3
3 0 0 3
4 2 31 4
5 4 61 4
6 0 0 3
7 7 71 6
8 4 41 6
9 3 92 2
10 0 0 1
11 2 31 4
12 0 0 7
Total Instances of while 31

While occurs almost eight times more often in clauses of concession than
either of the other two mainly temporal conjunctions (whilst and when).
The distributional data of the remaining conjunctions (whereas, when, and
whilst) are shown below. It should be noted that the absolute frequencies of
these conjunctions are very low, and that, as a result, we cannot really draw
any conclusions from these data. It is possible that the use of these

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 56

conjunctions in concessive contexts is avoided by speakers of the language for

fear of there being an unintended ambiguity between a concessive and non-
concessive reading of the sentences in which they occur.

Category Instances
whereas 6 1

when 2b 2
7 1
8 1
12 1

whilst 2b 3
2c 1
4 1
7 1

Whereas was the most infrequent of the concessive conjunctions. It

appeared only once, in the following sentence:

(35) Also it is suggested the phosphate may become chemically

fixed in the soil and therefore unavailable to the plant,
whereas by concentrating it in a narrow band more remains
available in solution for the plant to absorb. (W10.36)

The whereas- clause in this sentence is problematic. The conjunction is clearly

not purely contrastive in meaning, but neither is it straightforwardly con-
cessive. The clause can be said to be peripherally concessive as substitution of
whereas by although or though is possible (the contrastive element of meaning
is then lost). Whenever whereas expresses a contrast, there are always two
variables, X and Y, the one in the matrix clause, the other in the subordinate
clause, as in (36):

(36) [XRussia] was colonised under the Absolute Monarchy by a

tied peasantry, whereas [ythe USA] was colonised by free

agriculturalists under a capitalistic Republican set up.
(W6.D.14)

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57

On the other hand, whenever whereas is concessive, the Y-element is not

normally a contrastive Noun Phrase but an anaphoric pronoun:

(37) Whereas Tom is intelligent, he failed his exams.

(38) Whereas the amendment is enthusiastically supported by a
large majority in the Senate, its fate is doubtful in the House.
(Quirk et al. 1985 :1097)
Here there is no contrast between what is said of two different entities, X and
Y, but there is a discrepancy between what is said of one entity in the matrix
clause and what is said of that same entity in the subordinate clause.
In this article I have been concerned with the main characteristics of the
semantic notion concession. I have tried to show that concession is a fuzzy
notion which shades into three other areas: time, contrast, and condition, and
that in many cases it is hard to decide what type of subordinate clause one is
dealing with. The notion &dquo;peripherally concessive&dquo; has been introduced for
clauses which contain an element of meaning other than concession, but in
which the concessive element is nevertheless dominant. Apart from their
syntactic features, I have also discussed the distribution of concessive clauses
over twelve text categories. This provides insight into their use in current
written British English.

References

Aarts, B. 1985. Clauses of Concession in Written Present-Day British

English: A Corpus-Based Study. MA Thesis, University of London.
Chomsky, N. 1981. Lectures on Government and Binding. Dordrecht: Foris.
Cottle, B. 1975. The Plight of English. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House.
Culicover, P. W. 1976. Syntax. New York: Academic Press.
Curme, G. O. 1931. A Grammar of the English Language. Vol. 3, Syntax.
Boston: Heath.
Fowler, H. W. 1965. Modem English Usage. 2nd ed., rev. by E. Gowers.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jespersen, O. 1909-49. A Modem English Grammar on Historical Principles
.
Copenhagen: Munksgaard.
Kjellmer, G. 1975. "The weather was fine, if not glorious", On the Ambiguity
of Concessive if not. English Studies 56:140-46.

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 58

Quirk, R., S. Greenbaum, G. Leech, and J. Svartvik. 1985. A Comprehensive

Grammar of the English Language. London: Longman.
Radford, A. 1981. Transformational Syntax: A Student’s Guide to Chomsky’s
Extended Standard Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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