And him no more than a minister’s man: The English subordinating and-construction in crosslinguistic perspective

This article investigates the origins of subordinating and. Based on a detailed semantic and syntactic description of the construction, it points out the differences from the co-ordinating use of and which justify the additional classification of and as a subordinator. Two hypotheses of the origins of the construction are considered: (i) that the construction is a calque on a Celtic construction, and (ii) that the construction is the result of a native English development.

On the basis of structural, semantic and geographical evidence the first of these two hypotheses is dismissed and possible explanations for the functional extension of and are discussed from a pragmatic and cross-linguistic point of view.