Clause chaining in the languages of the world in typological perspective

The ways of forming sentences and of describing events vary across the languages of the world. The grammars of hundreds of languages permit a special type of complex sentence containing a set of dependent clauses, unavailable to languages like English: the ‘clause chain’. Clause chains are found, especially, in languages of the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, East Africa, and in numerous languages across central Asia. Clause chaining often goes together with switch-reference marking, an indication of whether upcoming subjects will be co-referential or not. A brief overview of previous approaches to and investigations of clause chains is followed by an overview of recurrent grammatical features of clause chains. Further dimensions of clause chaining include bridging constructions, non-canonical uses of medial clauses, and the interaction of clause chains with cognitive processes. The last section contains an overview of the volume and perspectives for further studies. The Appendix lists points for fieldworkers.