Journal of Research and Innovation in Language ISSN (Online): 2685-3906, ISSN (Print): 2685-0818 DOI: https://doi.org/10.31849/reila.v3i3.5598 Vol. 3, No. 3, December 2021, pp. 226-235 226 A Closer Look on Disjunctive Coordination: The So-Called Non- Constituent Disjunctive Coordination Matlotlisang Mokapane Lemohang Tjabaka National University of Lesotho, Roma. Lesotho ltjabaka@gmail.com ARTICLE HISTORY Received : 2020-11-30 Revised : 2021-02-15 Accepted : 2021-12-12 KEYWORDS Disjunctive coordination Co-ordinands Non-constituent Logico-semantic type Taxis ABSTRACT English disjunctive coordination is a clause complex that has two co- ordinands. Many scholars and researchers dealt with this phenomenon using different standard theories. However, there is still a controversy in literature whether non-constituent coordination exists or not; therefore, this research determines whether the disjunctive coordination constituents are non- constituents. The paper also describes the relationship between the disjunctive co-ordinands, coordinated phrases, or clauses joined by conjunction /or/. The article further aims to describe the structure of the disjunctive coordination and the category label of the disjunctive coordinator. The Systemic Functional Grammar and Minimalist Program framed this study. This qualitative paper purposively and conveniently selected from Facebook and WhatsApp groups for the National University of Lesotho's students; 13 structures were chosen from the WhatsApp group, while 15 were taken from Facebook. Results reveal that the disjunctive coordination constituents are not non-constituents. What seems prevailing or irregular at the Phonetic Form (PF) results from the movement and deletion of duplicate syntactic elements. This deletion of the syntactic features is done to satisfy the economic considerations. It is also reflected that the disjunctive co-ordinands have taxis and logico-semantic type relations or relationships. The paper further divulges that the structure of the disjunctive coordination is the complementiser phrase (CP), and the category label of the disjunctive coordinator/or/ is the complementiser (C). That is, it belongs to the C category. 1. Introduction English is one of the official languages in Lesotho. It is the West Germanic language spoken in an inner and outer circle. The inner circle refers to places where English was initially brought up. The outer circle refers to the former colonies of Britain and the USA, where English is used as a foreign language (Samida and Takahashi, 2011). Therefore, English is spoken as a second language in Lesotho, a post protectorate of Britain (Samida and Takahashi, 2011). English has now gained a global status; thus, considered an international language (Crystal, 2003). Crystal affirms that politicians use English; most people use it in restaurants; predominant advertisements, movies and series are published in English. Kamwanganalu and Muyo (2003:41) also note that English is used primarily as a language of diplomacy, international business transactions, government, administration and education. Lesotho accepted Britain's Orientalist and Anglicist models (Pennycook, 1994 cited by Tlebere, 2006:2). The Orientalist model means policies that support education in local languages, while the Anglicist model supports education in English. Theoretically, Lesotho also adopted Received Pronunciation. However, what practically prevails is the notion of Englishes. Kamwanganalu & Muyo (2003:45) postulate that South African Black English much influences Lesotho's English, also known as South Africanisms, like other linguistic structures, the Syntax of Lesotho English is affected in many ways, including the syntactic features of indigenous languages. English language teaching and learning, starting from high school, concentrate more on improving the learners‟ communicative competence than the language structure in question. At the high school level, learners are taught different sentences, including simple, compound, complex and compound-complex sentences. Amongst them, compound sentences termed coordination or non- constituent constructions in this study pose a challenge to some learners. As observed, they fail to understand why disjunctive coordination constructions are claimed to have co-ordinands that have equal value. The reason is that in some structures, the disjunctive coordinator is followed by a single or two words, which is not the case with the initial co-ordinand. As a result, the question that remains is whether the coordination constituents, in 227 particular, disjunctive coordination constituents are non-constituents or not. A closer look at the tertiary level reveals that students admitted at the National University of Lesotho (NUL) are less proficient in English. This claim is maintained by Ekanjume-Illongo (2015: 1157), who affirms that the English Department at the NUL has been complaining about the poor quality of the students they admit as far as English is concerned. To support this claim, Ekanjume-Illongo and Morato- Maleke (2020) observed and identified various errors that include lexical and syntactic errors in the NUL students‟ academic writing. The students fail to construct correct sentences, either written or spoken. Therefore, despite the students' majors, they are all introduced to Communication and Study Skills (Maleke, 2011:1-2). In addition to this course, the Department of English also offers Grammar and Syntax as linguistics courses to student teachers and humanity students. Types of clauses and kinds of sentences which include compound sentences, form part of both Grammar and Syntax courses; however, the two courses' descriptions fail to articulate anything about the relationship between disjunctive co- ordinands. Furthermore, different syntactic structures are explored in Syntax. However, as observed from the relevant literature, less is said about the structure of disjunctive coordination. Therefore, the students do not even have a chance to practise them. Apart from the education system in Lesotho, Syntax plays a pivotal role in the academic and business world as people are expected to construct grammatically acceptable sentences. Amongst the syntactic structures, disjunctive coordination is included. Nonetheless, some of the texts generated by Basotho have parallel coordination structures. There is a paucity of literature on the co-ordinands relations in line with the literature. There is also a debate whether coordination constructions are non-constituents or not. For instance, some scholars such as Oehrle (1999:252) found the so-called non-constituent coordination to be an awkward name for an "elegant" structure with two or more constituents of the same kind coordinated. On the contrary, Haspelmath (2000) argues that many languages, including English, permit non-constituent coordination. Stemming from a theoretical point of view, Kubota (2020) claims that the non-constituent coordination seems problematic for common kinds of syntactic theories where the notion of the constituency is regarded as primitive. Echoing the above shed of light, the current researcher, therefore, intends to explore the relations that exist between English disjunctive co-ordinands and the syntactic structure of the so-called non- constituent disjunctive coordination drawing from the parallel perspective. It will help the high school teachers explain the arrangement of words that constitute the disjunctive coordination to their learners. This study further articulates the syntactic structures of the disjunctive coordination at both Phonetic Form (PF) and Logical Form (LF). It brings out the claim on whether disjunctive coordination is indeed non-constituent or not. 2. Literature Review Coordination is one of the syntactic aspects studied globally. This syntactic element is described by Bruening (2015) as one of the most exciting topics since the earlier generative grammar era. According to Haspelmath (2000), coordination has the following semantic types: conjunctive, adversative, casual and disjunctive coordination. Disjunctive coordination, which is crucial in this paper, is seen as non- constituent coordination and is sub-divided into interrogative disjunctive and standard disjunctive (Haspelmath, ibid). Drawing from the Minimalism point of view, Sailor and Thoms (2014) researched the non-existence of non-constituent coordination and non-constituent ellipsis. In their study, Sailor and Thoms noted that the non-constituent coordination encompasses neither coordination of non-constituents nor ellipses of non- constituents such as left ellipses. However, such sentences are created using move-and-delete operation where the second conjunct is a complete verbaliser phrase (VP) or complementiser phrase (CP) reduced by ellipses following the movement of the pronounced material out of the ellipses. They, therefore, concluded that both movement and ellipses are operations that work on constituents. The relevance of Sailor and Thoms's study in the current study is that the focal point is on the notion of coordination having the non-constituents. Despite their study‟s relevance to the current one, their study did not explicitly interrogate the structure of the disjunctive coordination at both Phonetic Form (PF) and Logical Form (LF), which is the concern of the present study. Instead, they paid attention to the structure of the second conjunct. In addition to the form of the disjunctive coordination, the heart of the present study is on the category label of the disjunctive coordinator, which is not remarkably emphasised in their study. Unlike earlier generative grammar approaches that considered the non-constituent a sub-type of Conjunction Reduction general rule, Bruening (2015) conducted a study on a non-constituent caused by prosody, not a movement. In this study, Bruening (2015:10) also perceives ellipsis as the source of the non-constituent construction targets a specific category and “deletes all but the head of that category.” Bruening‟s study serves as a foreground to the current study as the two studies highlight the notion of the so-called non-constituent constructions. Despite his study‟s influence on this study, Bruening's work did not articulate anything about the structure of the disjunctive coordination, which is the interest of the current study. The present researcher, therefore, describes the structure of disjunctive coordination. 228 The study also establishes the relationship between the disjunctive co-ordinands or coordinated clauses. Another study was conducted by Asante (2018) on the syntactic phenomenon of coordination in Nkami, a member of the Niger-Congo language of Ghana. Unlike the English language, which has coordinator "and", Nkami language has two distinct coordinators: "kple" and "eye" for phrasal and clausal conjunctive coordination correspondingly. In this language, both syndetic and asyndetic coordination strategies connect coordination constructions. As for the disjunctive coordination, Asante observed that Nkami has bee/be translated as "or" coordinator to state alternative. This disjunctive coordinator is multi-functional as it can function as a coordinator, purposive clause linker, complementiser and preposition. There is a close resemblance between his study and the present one concerning the function of disjunctive coordination. However, there is still a relative difference as Asante's study draws from a diverse viewpoint since no theory guides or frames his study. Furthermore, his research has not identified the relations between the disjunctive co-ordinands. As a result, the purpose of the present study is to extrapolate and describe the relationship between the co-ordinands and the structure of the so- called non-constituent disjunctive coordination. Kubota (2020) studied non-constituent coordination in Japanese as constituent coordination analysis in Hybrid Type-Logical Categorial Grammar on a hybrid calculus. It was observed that previous approaches within syntactic theories "equate non- constituent coordination with coordination of full- fledged clauses at some level of grammatical representation." He noted that delete-based approaches coupled with the movement-based approaches are the sources of non-constituent constructions. However, movement is not supported as it poses a problem. For this reason, the non- constituent coordination does not appeal to the movement. A look at the generativists and the non- generativists point of view reveals that movement and deletion operations are not embraced in the latter perspective. This calls for a debate concerning non- constituent coordination. Therefore, the current research combined the two perceptions, including the structure and meaning. From these two combinatory views, the parallel viewpoints, the researcher seeks to find if disjunctive coordination encompasses the non- constituent. Unlike in English, Conti‟s (2018) studied disjunctive clauses with o…o “either… or” in Spanish and clausal co-subordination. It has been found that o… o clauses demonstrate traces of desententialisation; they are mutually dependent. Contrary to the Spanish subordinate clauses, o… o- clauses share illocutionary force, mood and tense. This implies that all the clauses are co-indexed and depend on the similarity matrix of clausal operators, as is the co-subordination (dependent, but not embedded). Even though Conti‟s (2018) study focused on a different language to the present study, it has some relevance to the current research as it articulated the notion of disjunctive clauses, which relates to the syntactic relation: disjunctive coordination. He also argued for desententialisation, which is equivalent to non-constituent construction. However, his study focused on correlative markers. Furthermore, Conti's study seems to have centred mainly on the disjunctive coordination at the Phonetic Form (PF). The reason is that those disjunctive clauses marked with o… o "either… or" reflect both subordinate and coordinate clauses. If ever he had focused on those constructions at the Logical Form (LF), different results would have been anticipated. For this reason, the present study concentrates on the structure of the disjunctive coordination at the level of both PF and LF. These reviewed studies relate to the present paper, concentrating on non-constituent coordination. Some draw from the syntactocentric perspective, others from the communication-and-cognition and hybrid perspectives. Some of the scholars in reviewed literature focused on issues that are not the concern of the present study, for instance, the causes of the non- constituent coordination. However, those studies shed some light on which areas to investigate concerning coordination. Therefore, they paved the way for the present study to fill some methodological and theoretical gaps. 3. Method This paper is exploratory qualitative research. The researcher employed the qualitative approach to use soft data rather than complex data (Neuman, 2013). Neuman (2013) states that exploratory analysis is used when the researcher has limited knowledge about the research topic. The researcher was not well- informed about the non-constituent disjunctive coordination; therefore, the study adopted an experimental research design. According to Johnson and Christensen (2019), exploratory research is descriptive and attempts to generate ideas about phenomena. In this study, the researcher tries to discover essential factors, including the structure of the disjunctive coordination and the relationship between the disjunctive co-ordinands. The study is exploratory as it further generates new ideas for further research. 3.1 Data Collection Data were extracted from the social media where the former and the current National University of Lesotho (NUL) students discussed emerging issues, including COVID-19, business and Syntax matters. Singer et al. (2020) suggest that WhatsApp and other smartphone-based messaging applications are platforms for qualitative methodologies mostly found to access adolescents. Singer et al. (2020) further indicate that using different technological platforms may increase interest to give an additional level of information; and have practical implications for data 229 collection, quality and analysis. Consequently, data were purposively and conveniently taken from the NUL WhatsApp group chats such as Syntax groups and Phuthalichaba Savings and the Facebook group and/or pages like the NUL Newsletter the NUL Faculty of Humanities and the NUL Research Innovations chats. Since the researcher is a member of these groups, it was easy to access the data. The researcher identified and read posts and comments on COVID- 19, business and Syntax issues. Many students use more conjunctive coordination than disjunctive coordination. This observation is also supported by Haspelmath (2000), who avers that disjunctive coordination is rarely used in various languages. The researcher purposely noted only the disjunctive coordination, not the conjunctive coordination or any other types of coordination. The goal was to align the data with the objectives of this study. Correlative coordination "either…or" constructions were also included as the second conjunction is the disjunctive coordinator "or". However, the study exclusively used disjunctive coordination, which is the concern of this study. Data were collected in November 2020 and in May 2021. Twenty-eight disjunctive coordination constructions were composed. Thirteen of these were disjunctive constructions were collected from WhatsApp group chats. Fifteen of the constructions were extracted from the stated Facebook group chats. Data were analysed using theoretical analysis as it provides a foundation for a better understanding of non-constituent disjunctive coordination (Tan, 2016). The disjunctive coordinate structures were also analysed through syntactic representations such as a tree diagram and bracketing notation under the terms suggested by The Minimalist Program. 3.2 Theoretical Framework This paper is framed by the Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG) and Minimalist Program (MP). The SFG is a theory proposed by Michael Halliday (1985). The theory is adopted as it views language as a resource for making meanings (Bavali and Sadighi, 2008). In this theory, the following concepts describe the relationship between clauses: taxis, logico- semantic type and recursion. As a result, the current study uses taxis and logico-semantic type to describe the relations between the disjunctive co-ordinands. The second espoused theory is the Minimalist Program (MP) initiated by Noam Chomsky (1995). It is also employed in this paper as the SFG is not syntactically and formally oriented; so, it fails to account for the structural issues. Bavali and Sadighi (2008) pin-point that the MP highlights some erroneous forms accounted for by the MP's copy theory, unlike the SFG, which lacks a similar device. The theory was also adopted as the structures are derived from the bottom-up. It also has the operations select; merge, move and copy. These operations were adopted in this paper. 1 The derivational Uniformity Principle was applied in this article. Razaghi, Rahavard and Sadighi (2015) describe the Derivational Uniformity Principle as structures derived by transformations and sameness. Through this principle, deletion of duplicate elements can be done. Therefore, through the selection and merge operations, the structures of the disjunctive coordination are illustrated, showing whether the non-constituent disjunctive coordination exists or not; and the category label of the disjunctive coordination is identified. 4. Findings This section presents findings obtained from the data collected. It has been shown that the data was collected from the former and current NUL students' WhatsApp (WA) and Facebook (FB) group chats to reflect their experiences on the concept of the disjunctive coordination constructions, as illustrated in Table 4.1. 1 Minimalist Program is a syntactic theory initiated by Noam Chomsky (1993). The theory is developed from the Government & Binding. Hornstein (2018) states that drawing from the GB, MP has eliminated derivational levels, instead of having four, which are deep structure (DP), surface structure (SS), phonetic form (PF) and logic form (LF). Derivation Uniformity Principle incorporates move, copy and merge operation. 230 Table 4.1 Disjunctive coordination from WA and FB WhatsApp Facebook 1. The editor said he‟ll be done tomorrow or Wednesday… 2. … it is still easier or cheapest. 3. … inbox for any clarifications and/ or guidance. 4. Once you have deposited or transferred the M150 into our account, visit our website… 5. … when you hit with unforeseen circumstances like loss of a job or when your circumstances change. 6. Above is a guide or procedures to register… 7. Take the picture and send it here, or you can use your laptop. 8. … is this sentence correct or incorrect? 9. … do I write the same programme in both or I can write different programme? 10. They want to use vaccine or Chloroquine. 11. I will continue to help Basotho using my witchcraft or Chemistry of Basotho. 12. Will the English lecturers incorporate the notion of COVID-19 or Malaria in the exam? 13. Will you be there or not? 1. … are those requirements considered or you look at the diploma qualifications? 2. Will it be offered during the course of his year or next year…? 3. Does MA in English Language and Linguistics have part- time or it‟s only full time? 4. 4 … is it possible for me to go for PhD or I have to start from MA first, or it will depend on my academic performance? 5. We should use sanitisers or running water. 6. You don‟t follow the COVID-19 measures or you are all expelled from the residents. 7. … there is either a shortage of certain medication or a shortage of medication of a certain concentration. 8. It‟s either we as Pharmacists feel inclined to cut a table into quarters, which is not allowed, or we send the patients to private Pharmacies, which we often do. 9. … you indirectly become a shareholder in the businesses which Phuthalichaba will create or invest in… 10. … you can join Phuthalichaba from anywhere in Lesotho or anywhere in the world… 11. … I am passionate about this thing or that thing. 12. He might be wrong or right… 13. … it is either on the same level with, or beats some of the international brands… 14. … members have the flexibility to increase or decrease their contributions. 15. These compulsory savings are debited from your bank, which is charged M15.00 or any other amount, depending on the bank. Table 4.1 demonstrates the disjunctive co- ordination constructions collected from WA and FB. As shown, there are 13 collected constructions from the WA and 15 from the FA, amounting to 28 disjunctive co-ordination constructions. Amongst 28 constructions, three of them are “either…or” contrastive co-ordination) constructions. However, such data are not used in this study, for the concern lies strictly on disjunctive co-ordination. The identified constructions align with the outlined study's objectives. As stated earlier, the present study intends to determine whether the disjunctive coordination constituents are non- constituents. The paper also seeks to describe the relationship between the disjunctive co-ordinands. The paper further aims to describe the structure of the disjunctive coordination and the category label of the disjunctive coordinator. Therefore, this section is divided into three sub-sections: a) the disjunctive coordination constituents b) the relationship that exists between the disjunctive co-ordinands c) the structure and the category label of the disjunctive coordinator. 4.1 The Disjunctive Coordination Constituents One of the issues that intrigued the researcher's interest is determining if the disjunctive coordination constituents are non-constituents. From the evidence in the current study, most of the secondary or final co- ordinand lacked the subject or other constituents. At the PF, they seemed to be incomplete or dependent. However, this feature does not label the disjunctive coordination as non-constituents. The view is seen in example (1) below. (1) a. Will the English lecturers incorporate the notion of COVID-19 or Malaria in the exams? (WA) b. … is this sentence correct or incorrect? (WA) c. Will it be offered during the course of the year or next year…? (FB) d. We should use sanitisers or running water. (FB) 231 Examples in (1) depict the disjunctive coordination constructions. From the data, it has been observed that the second co-ordinands in all structures lack the sentence's subject. The pronounced group of words were only phrases but not clauses or sentences. 4.2 The Relationship that Exists between The Disjunctive Co-Ordinands In this study, the second objective is to describe the relationship between the disjunctive co-ordinands. The data were also extracted from the NUL currents and formers students' WhatsApp and Facebook group chats. Consequently, this sub-section discusses the findings on the relationship between the disjunctive co-ordinands. It was evidenced that the disjunctive co- ordinands did have a relationship as they had tactic and logico-semantic relationships. The tactic relation is defined by Halliday (2004) as the relations between co-ordinands that are coordinated and have either equal or unequal status. As for the logico-sematic relations, the meaning of the initial co-ordinand is expanded from the secondary co-ordinand (Jomaa and Bidin, 2019). The constructions that portray the two relations are demonstrated in example (2). (2) a. They want to use vaccine or Chloroquine. (WA) b. … take the picture and send it here, or you can use your laptop. (WA) c. You don’t follow the COVID-19 measures or you are all expelled from the residents. (FB) d. … is it possible for me to go for PhD or I have to start from MA first, or it will depend on my academic performance? (FB) Examples in (2) reflect the disjunctive coordination constructions. All the sentences in examples (2) had taxis or tactic relations from this evidence. Looking at the pronounced constructions at the Phonetic Form (PF), the (2) a. had unequal status as the second pronounced co-ordinand was composed of just a word or phrase. However, (2) b, to d. had equal status since the second co-ordinands conveyed a complete thought just like the first co-ordinands. They had subjects and predicates. The data also illustrated that the disjunctive coordination had logico-semantic relations as all first co-ordinands in the examples (2) had been expanded through the second co-ordinands. In (2) d., on the other hand, the initial co-ordinand was expanded through the second and the third co- ordinand. 4.3 The Structure and The Category Label of The Disjunctive Coordinator The study describes the structure of the disjunctive coordination and the category label of the disjunctive coordinator/or/. Therefore, from the experiences of the NUL former and current students, the following sentences in example (3) were used for the researcher to describe the structure of the disjunctive coordination and the category label of the disjunctive coordinator/or/. (3) a. I will continue to help Basotho using my witchcraft or Chemistry of Basotho. (WA) b. The editor said he’ll be done tomorrow or Wednesday. (WA) c. … do I write the same programme in both or I can write different programme? (FB) d. Does MA in English Language and Linguistics have part-time or it’s only full time? (FB) Examples in (3) demonstrate disjunctive coordination. From these examples, it was observed that the structure of the disjunctive coordination is complementiser phrase (CP) and the vP as affirmed by Thoms and Sailor (2014). The present study found that the disjunctive coordinator/or/'s category label belongs to the complementiser (C). 5. Discussion This section presents a discussion on the relationship between the disjunctive co-ordinands and the structure of the disjunctive coordination. It also identifies the category label of the disjunctive coordinator or. The present study views these co- ordinands as the syntactic elements equivalent to the clause complex. This perception is supported by Yuniar (2018), who vows that a clause complex is the grammatical and semantic unit established when two or more clauses are linked by tactic and logic- semantic relations. This implies that the clause complex is not composed of clauses but extended by adding further clauses. In clause complex, the same element is repeated by iteration, commonly as recursion in Minimalism. Therefore, taxis and logico- semantics describe the disjunctive coordinates relations. 5.1 Logico-semantic Type Logico-semantics emanates from the logical meaning to show the relationship between a primary and secondary member of a clause. The present study defines the primary element of the clause as the initial clause or co-ordinand, while the secondary element of the clause is seen as the second or the final clause or co-ordinand. According to Jomaa and Bidin (2019), in logico-semantic relations, the meaning of the primary clause is expanded or projected through the secondary one. The secondary co-ordinand extends the initial clause by "elaborating, extending or evaluating”. This inter-connection can be identified between the disjunctive co-ordinands in example (4). (4) You do not follow the COVID-19 measures, or you are all expelled from the residents. (FB) Example (4) demonstrates the regular disjunctive coordination “you don’t follow the COVID-19 measures, or you are all expelled from the residents”. The construction is the regular disjunctive coordination as the two co-ordinands are coordinated by the disjunctive coordinator or, and both co- ordinands convey a complete thought. 232 From the given evidence, the disjunctive co- ordinands “you don’t follow the COVID-19 measures and or you are all expelled from the residents” have logico-semantic relations. According to Halliday (2004), the clauses linked by logico-semantic relation mean relational structure: one unit is interdependent on another. This view is also supported by Conti (2018), who perceives disjunctive clauses as typically co-subordination, meaning that one element of the clause depends on the other. Similarly, the co-ordinand “or you are all expelled from the residents” is an expansion of the primary co- ordinand “you don’t follow the COVID-19 measures” to convey a complete thought. The first co-ordinand would be spoken in tone 3 level followed by the second co-ordinand in tone 1 to show cohesiveness (Halliday, 2004). Therefore, the first co-ordinand depicts that there is more to come in the form of expansion because it extends beyond and adds some new element, so the use of or fits here adds the meaning of an alternative. The implication in example (4) is that the subject "you” has two alternative actions; either the alternative of not following the COVID-19 measures or being expelled from the residents; that is, one of the actions is true. Equally important, Asante (2018) maintains that the disjunctive coordinator in the Nkami language also states the alternative. Moreover, this construction “you don’t follow the COVID-19 measures, or you are all expelled from the residents” is a clause complex composed of two co-ordinands separated by a comma to mark the intonation break in a sentence (Halliday, 2004). Nevertheless, this result goes beyond the previously reviewed studies as they did not say anything about the relationship between the co-ordinands. 5.2 Taxis Another relationship that the co-ordinands have is taxis. This relationship shows that two co-ordinands are coordinated and have equal or unequal status. In addition to the logico-semantic relations, the two disjunctive co-ordinands have taxis relations. The proof of this relationship is evidenced in example (5). (5) Will the English lecturers incorporate the notion of COVID-19 or Malaria in the exam? (WA) Example (5) reflects the non-constituent disjunctive coordination "will the English lecturers incorporate the notion of COVID-19 or Malaria in the exams?” From this evidence, it is observed that the co-ordinands “will the English lecturers incorporate the notion of COVID-19 and Malaria in the exam” hold a para-taxis relationship. This relationship demonstrates that co-ordinand “Will the English lecturers incorporate the notion of COVID-19” and “Malaria in the exam” have equal status, that is, before some phrases in the secondary co-ordinand were moved and deleted. The first co- ordinand was: “will the English lecturers incorporate the notion of COVID-19 in the exam?” while the second co-ordinand was: “will the English lecturers incorporate the notion of Malaria in the exam?” This implies that the first co-ordinand initiates and the second one continues. The co-ordinand "will the English lecturers incorporate the notion of COVID-19” also demonstrates hypo-taxis relationship, meaning that it is a dominant unit that the second co-ordinand Malaria in the exam depends on (Halliday, 2004). Conti (2018) also attests to this view that Spanish disjunctive clauses signalled by o… o are dependent. Therefore, this observation seems to apply to English disjunctive coordination at the phonetic level. 5.3 The Structure of The Disjunctive Coordination and The Category Label of The Disjunctive Coordinator One other significant aspect that intrigued the current study is the structure of the disjunctive coordination and the category label of the disjunctive coordinator. Since the SFG fails to account for the structure of phrases, clauses, and sentences, the Minimalist Program (MP) was adopted to fill the gap. It should be noted that these two theories have different views on the stated phenomenon: coordination. As stated earlier, the SFG views co- ordinands as clause complex made through iteration. This iteration is equivalent to the MP's recursion. According to Fasold and Connor-Linton (2006), coordination is one of the recursive devices. These recursive devices allow various infinite sentences and expressions that are indefinitely long. Most importantly, similar grammatical processes can apply more than once for recursion (Fasold and Connor- Linton, 2006). The grammatical processes applied in this study are select and merge operations to generate the disjunctive coordination structures. 5.4 Select and Merge The operation selected refers to choosing a syntactic element from either numeration or array. At the same time, a merge is an operation in which two selected syntactic elements or constituents are combined to form one more prominent constituent (Al-Horais, 2013). It is worth noting that clauses within the MP are generated from the bottom-up: that is, the structure is formed from bottom to top, where lower constituents of the structure are built before the higher ones (Radford, 2009). As a result, this paper's syntactic representations are analysed from the bottom up. Looking at the evidence, the structure of the disjunctive coordination is a complementiser phrase (CP), as given in example (6). 2 (6) The structure of the disjunctive coordination at the Logical Form (LF) (The hierarchy is adapted from Adger, 2003. 2 Unlike the predecessors of the Minimalist Program, which analyse the structures from the top down, the MP's structures are generated from the bottom up (Radford, 2009); that is, the first object to be selected from the numeration or array appears at the lower constituent. 233 Figure 5.1 The structure of the disjunctive coordination Example (6) reflects the structure of the disjunctive coordination "we should use sanitisers or running water” at the LF. Building on Sailor and Thoms‟s (2014) study, the structure of the second co- ordinand is CP. The evidence from the current study reveals a similar observation as the structure of the secondary co-ordinand “, or we should use running water” is also CP. However, the present study departs from their reflection and focuses on the structure of the whole construction: the disjunctive coordination. The first word selected from the array is noun (N) water and merges with an adjective (A) running to form the adjectival phrase (AP) running water. Another element selected from the array is verb (V) use and merges with the AP running water. The resultant phrase is VP use running water. This VP further merges with tense (T) should, and the resultant constituent is an intermediate projection (bar) T should use running water. To form the tense phrase (TP), we should use running water, pronoun (P) we is selected from the array and merged with the T-bar. Since the speaker aims to construct the disjunctive coordination, the disjunctive coordinator or is selected from the array and merges with the TP we should use running water. The resulting constituent is CP, or we should use running water. The N sanitiser merges with the CP, or we should use running water to form the V-bar sanitiser, or we should use running water. It is worth noting that the constituents P we, T should and V use are not moved or internally merged, but they are externally merged through the application of the External Token Merge (c.f. Krivochen, 2012:8). The implication is that, instead of moving an element, another instance can be drawn from the array. A similar syntactic element can be drawn as many times as possible to satisfy the conceptual-intentional system. Therefore, in the primary co-ordinand, we should and use are also externally merged, and the whole structure is the CP we should use sanitisers, or we should use running water at the LF. Drawing from this structure at the LF, example (3) further proves that the disjunctive coordination does not comprise the non-constituent as the lower constituent still has the same instances "we”, “should”, and “use”. This view is also shared by Sailor and Thoms (2014) that the secondary co- ordinand is a complete vP or CP, and in the case of the current study, it is the complete CP. Consequently, Sailor and Thoms conclude that the non-constituent coordination structures do not exist. The reflection implies that the coordination is symmetrical because both combined co-ordinands have similar syntactic units and equal status. As a result, the current study also exudes that non-constituent disjunctive coordination does not exist. 234 On the notion of the disjunctive coordinator "or” category label, the study labelled it complementiser (C). Following Sailor and Thoms (2014), who similarly labelled the coordinators as the complementisers, Tallerman (2020) defines a complementiser as a functional element. He states that the construction introduced by a small functional element is known as the complementiser phrase. According to Radford (2004) and Aarts, Chalker and Weiner (2014), one of the roles of the complementisers is to mark the embedded clause. Therefore, these features prove that coordinators are also complementisers because the coordinator "or” signals the type of the coordination and the beginning of the second co-ordinand. The view that the disjunctive coordinator functions as the complementiser is confirmed by Asante (2018). 5.5 Derivational Uniformity Principle The Derivational Uniformity Principle incorporates move, copy and merge. This principle explains what happens to some of the constituents at the PF. Some elements are not pronounced to avoid unnecessary duplication. For this reason, duplicate elements of the lower co-ordinands are moved and deleted as the principle highly supports the economy of words. Example (7) illustrates the non-constituent disjunctive coordination at the PF. (7) [CP TP [P They VP [V want TP [T to VP [V use [N vaccine CP [C or TP [P They VP [V want TP [T to VP [V use [N Chloroquine]]]]]]]]]]]] Example (7) exemplifies the structure of the non- constituent disjunctive coordination "they want to use vaccine or Chloroquine” at the PF. The N Chloroquine merges with the V use forming the VP use Chloroquine. This VP subsequently merges with the T to in order to form the T-bar to use Chloroquine. To form the VP want to use Chloroquine, the T-bar merges with the V want. This VP want to use Chloroquine further merges with the P they, and the resultant constituent is TP they want to use Chloroquine. The TP they want to use Chloroquine merges with the C, or the resultant constituent is CP, or they want to use Chloroquine. From this analysis, it should be noted that or is still a member of the C at the PF. The CP also merges with the N vaccine. As indicated, the Derivational Uniformity Principle supports the economy of words. The lower copies V use, T to and V want to move from the lower co-ordinand and re-emerge in the higher co-ordinand. Their lower copies are then deleted later to avoid duplication of words. However, the present researcher's perception differs from Bruening (2015) and Kubota (2020), who claim that prosody and movement respectively are sources of the so-called non-constituent construction. Following Sailor and Thoms (2014) on the notion that there is neither non- constituent coordination nor ellipses that caused the non-constituent coordination, the current study maintains that for economic considerations, what happens at the PF after the move and delete, the copies of moving elements are given the privilege in terms of pronunciation (Chomsky, 2000, 2001 cited by Al-Horais, 2013). Therefore, disjunctive coordination has no non-constituent coordination. 6. Conclusion Based on how the disjunctive coordination becomes the non-constituent disjunctive coordination, this research concludes that the disjunctive coordination where or is used does not become the non-constituent. It means that is the disjunctive coordination has no irregular constituent at the LF. The co-ordinands still have equal status. Therefore, the operations select and merge prove that English is a symmetrical language as far as the disjunctive coordination construction is concerned. However, at the PF, the elements from the lower co-ordinands are moved to the higher co-ordinands and deleted later to satisfy the economy principle coined with the Derivational Uniformity Principle. Those operations, including move, copy and merge, do not cause the disjunctive coordination to become the non- constituent. Therefore, this study prefers to call such construction at the PF a reduced coordination. 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