The goal of this chapter is to examine the rules that relate syntactic and semantic representations to each other in adverbial (adjoined) clauses. The following types of adverbial clause relations are discussed, using evidence from English, Spanish, Yaqui and other languages: concessive, conditional, reason, temporal, purpose, manner and means. The chapter sheds light on the complexities of adverbial relations between clauses and how such complexities can be captured in Role and Reference Grammar.

This chapter introduces complex sentences, which are complicated sentences that are formed by a main clause and one or more subordinate clauses, namely, clauses of unequal importance. Five types of common complex sentences are identified in this chapter: causative, concessive, conditional, purposive, and preference. Each type is introduced in terms of specific correlative markers and their meanings and uses.

Several kinds of relations between events often have distinct complex sentence constructions, in particular those involving degree, causation, factivity (epistemic stance), or a combination of these. Comparative and equative constructions compare degrees of a property predicated of two different referents. The strategy chosen depends on the strategy used for temporal complex sentences, at least for comparative constructions. Conditional constructions express a causal relation (content, epistemic, or speech act), but, unlike causal relations, also express a nonfactive (neutral or negative) epistemic stance toward the events. Past tense constructions are often recruited to express nonfactivity. Concessive constructions presuppose a causal relation that is unexpectedly violated; concessive conditional constructions are the nonfactive counterparts. Strategies use conjunctions recruited from conditionals or expressions of obstinacy, focus marking, and remarkable co-occurrence. Concessive conditionals use a scalar, alternative, or universal strategy to conceptualize the concessive conditional relation. Other relations, such as the comparative conditional, may also be conventionalized.