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# 36. Discourse relations

**On this page**

1. [1. Means of marking a relation](#1-means-of-marking-a-relation)
2. [2. The relations and their markers](#2-the-relations-and-their-markers)
3. [3. Frequency and register](#3-frequency-and-register)
4. [4. Position and punctuation of connectives](#4-position-and-punctuation-of-connectives)
5. [5. Implicit relations: asyndeton](#5-implicit-relations-asyndeton)
6. [6. Parataxis in the folk language](#6-parataxis-in-the-folk-language)
7. [7. Time, aspect and the order of telling](#7-time-aspect-and-the-order-of-telling)
8. [8. Correlatives and doubled marking](#8-correlatives-and-doubled-marking)
9. [9. Attribution](#9-attribution)
10. [10. Varieties and styles as deltas](#10-varieties-and-styles-as-deltas)
11. [11. Quick reference: discourse relations in UD](#11-quick-reference-discourse-relations-in-ud)
12. [12. How Mova handles it](#12-how-mova-handles-it)
13. [13. Sources](#13-sources)

A text is more than a list of sentences: one clause gives the cause of another, the result, a contrast, an example, a condition, the next event. Ukrainian marks these **discourse relations** with conjunctions (*бо*, *тому що*, *хоча*, *але*; chapter 24), with connective adverbs and parenthetical words (*отже*, *тому*, *проте*, *однак*, *зате*, *натомість*, *по-перше*, *тобто*, *зокрема*), with correlative pairs (*хоч … але*, *якщо … то*), and — more than English — with **nothing at all**: two clauses side by side, joined by intonation in speech and by a comma, colon or dash in writing. This chapter maps the relations to their Ukrainian markers, gives their frequencies and registers in news, mixed prose and parliamentary speech (counted on 2026-11-06), describes the punctuation that signals implicit relations, the folk preference for parataxis that Smerechynskyi documented, the variation across styles and varieties, and what Mova does with Ukrainian discourse today, which is nothing beyond rejecting most of it.

Contents

1. [Means of marking a relation](#1-means-of-marking-a-relation)
2. [The relations and their markers](#2-the-relations-and-their-markers)
3. [Frequency and register](#3-frequency-and-register)
4. [Position and punctuation of connectives](#4-position-and-punctuation-of-connectives)
5. [Implicit relations: asyndeton](#5-implicit-relations-asyndeton)
6. [Parataxis in the folk language](#6-parataxis-in-the-folk-language)
7. [Time, aspect and the order of telling](#7-time-aspect-and-the-order-of-telling)
8. [Correlatives and doubled marking](#8-correlatives-and-doubled-marking)
9. [Attribution](#9-attribution)
10. [Varieties and styles as deltas](#10-varieties-and-styles-as-deltas)
11. [Quick reference: discourse relations in UD](#11-quick-reference-discourse-relations-in-ud)
12. [How Mova handles it](#12-how-mova-handles-it)
13. [Sources](#13-sources)

Related chapters: conjunctions, subordinate clauses and their frequencies in [24. Coordination and subordination](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/24-coordination-subordination/); anaphoric *це*, *через це* in [35. Reference and coreference](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/35-reference-and-coreference/); implicature of order and of connectives in [33. Implicature and presupposition](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/33-implicature-and-presupposition/); discourse markers in dialogue in [38. Dialogue and discourse markers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/38-dialogue-and-discourse-markers/); aspect in [13. Verbs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/13-verbs/); punctuation in [7. Punctuation, capitals, abbreviations and numbers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/07-punctuation-typography/); register in [37. Register and variation](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/37-register-and-variation/).

Conventions as in chapter 20: examples in Cyrillic italics, romanized by the national system (2010) on first use and glossed; sentences from UD Ukrainian-ParlaMint (CC BY-SA 4.0) quoted with their `sent_id`; UD Ukrainian-IU (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) and Brown-UK (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) used for counts only. Corpus counts are case-insensitive whole-word matches (`grep -oiw`, 2026-11-06) in the Leipzig *ukr_news_2024* sample (1 M sentences, about 14.2 M words, CC BY) and in Brown-UK (1,037,038 words, mixed genres including fiction); treebank counts are UD 2.18, all splits, `awk`. Per-million figures are rounded.

---

## 1. Means of marking a relation

| means | example | relation |
| --- | --- | --- |
| subordinating conjunction | *Він пішов, бо втомився.* (*Vin pishov, bo vtomyvsia.*) | 'He left because he was tired.' — reason |
| coordinating conjunction | *Він утомився, але працював.* | 'He was tired but worked on.' — concession |
| connective adverb | *Він утомився. Тому пішов.* | 'He was tired. So he left.' — result |
| parenthetical word | *Він, отже, винен.* | 'He is, therefore, guilty.' — conclusion |
| correlative pair | *Хоч він утомився, але працював.* | concession, marked twice |
| anaphoric phrase | *Через це він пішов.* | 'Because of that he left.' — result |
| asyndeton + punctuation | *Він утомився — пішов спати.* | 'He was tired — went to bed.' — result, unmarked |
| asyndeton + colon | *Не йди туди: там небезпечно.* | 'Don't go there: it is dangerous.' — reason |
| order alone | *Прийшов, сів, поїв.* | 'He came, sat down, ate.' — succession |

The conjunctions are described in chapter 24; this chapter treats them as markers of relations and adds the rest.

## 2. The relations and their markers

The table follows the senses of the Penn Discourse Treebank (PDTB) — temporal, contingency, comparison, expansion — and lists the Ukrainian markers of each, with the style each belongs to. "Neutral" means usable in any register.

| relation | Ukrainian markers | style notes | example | gloss |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Temporal: succession** | *потім*, *згодом*, *після того як*, *далі*, *тоді*, *нарешті*, *врешті*, *спершу … потім* | neutral; *згодом* 'later' bookish-neutral | *Спершу поїли, потім пішли.* | 'First we ate, then we left.' |
| **Temporal: simultaneity** | *тим часом*, *водночас*, *поки*, *доки*, *коли*, *а в цей час* | neutral; *водночас* also contrastive | *Він читав, а тим часом стемніло.* | 'He was reading, and meanwhile it got dark.' |
| **Cause: reason** | *бо*, *тому що*, *через те що*, *оскільки*, *адже*, *позаяк*, *бо ж*, *так як* (contested) | *бо* neutral and spoken; *оскільки* official; *адже* known reason; *так як* see § 3.3 | *Не прийшов, бо хворів.* | 'He didn't come because he was ill.' |
| **Cause: result** | *тому*, *отже*, *тож*, *відтак*, *через це*, *таким чином*, *внаслідок цього*, *так що*, *от і* | *тож* neutral-literary; *відтак* official and western; *так що* colloquial | *Він хворів, тому не прийшов.* | 'He was ill, so he didn't come.' |
| **Cause: conclusion** | *отже*, *значить*, *виходить*, *таким чином* | *значить*, *виходить* colloquial and parenthetical | *Світло горить — значить, він удома.* | 'The light is on — so he's at home.' |
| **Purpose** | *щоб*, *аби*, *для того щоб*, *з метою* | *аби* western and colloquial; *з метою* official | *Прийшов, щоб допомогти.* | 'He came to help.' |
| **Condition** | *якщо*, *коли*, *як*, *раз*, *якби*, *у разі якщо* | *як* 'if' colloquial and western; *у разі* official | *Якщо прийдеш, поговоримо.* | 'If you come, we'll talk.' |
| **Concession** | *хоча*, *хоч*, *дарма що*, *незважаючи на те що*, *попри те що*, *все ж*, *все-таки*, *проте*, *однак*, *щоправда*, *втім* | *дарма що* literary-colloquial; *незважаючи на те що* official | *Хоча було пізно, ми працювали.* | 'Although it was late, we worked.' |
| **Contrast** | *а*, *але*, *проте*, *однак*, *натомість*, *зате*, *навпаки*, *водночас*, *між тим* | *зате* compensatory ('but at least'); *натомість* 'instead, by contrast' | *Брат працює, а сестра вчиться.* | 'The brother works, while the sister studies.' |
| **Expansion: addition** | *і*, *та*, *також*, *теж*, *до того ж*, *крім того*, *окрім того*, *більше того*, *причому*, *ще й* | *більше того* emphatic; *причому* 'and moreover' | *Він запізнився, до того ж забув документи.* | 'He was late, and moreover forgot the documents.' |
| **Expansion: instance** | *наприклад*, *зокрема*, *скажімо*, *як-от* | *зокрема* very frequent in news | *Деякі області, зокрема Київська, …* | 'Some regions, in particular Kyiv region, …' |
| **Expansion: restatement** | *тобто*, *а саме*, *інакше кажучи*, *іншими словами*, *себто*, *цебто* | *себто*, *цебто* old-literary | *Він пішов на пенсію, тобто більше не працює.* | 'He retired, that is, he no longer works.' |
| **Expansion: alternative** | *або*, *чи*, *або ж*, *інакше*, *а то* | *а то* colloquial 'or else' | *Іди, а то запізнишся.* | 'Go, or else you'll be late.' |
| **Expansion: list** | *по-перше*, *по-друге*, *по-третє*, *нарешті*, *з одного боку … з іншого боку* | neutral, argumentative | *По-перше, це дорого; по-друге, довго.* | 'First, it's expensive; second, it takes long.' |
| **Exception** | *крім того що*, *хіба що*, *за винятком* | neutral | *Усі прийшли, хіба що Петра не було.* | 'Everyone came, except that Petro wasn't there.' |

Several markers serve more than one relation. *Водночас* is temporal ('at the same time') and contrastive ('at the same time, however'); *а* is additive, contrastive and, with negation, corrective (*не я, а він*); *коли* and *як* are temporal and conditional; *тому* is a result adverb on its own and part of the reason conjunction *тому що*; *нарешті* closes a list and marks the last event of a sequence.

## 3. Frequency and register

### 3.1 Three corpora

Per million words, 2026-11-06 (raw counts in parentheses):

| marker | relation | Leipzig news 2024 | Brown-UK (mixed, fiction-rich) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| *бо* | reason | 424 (6,026) | 1,165 (1,208) |
| *тому що* + *тому, що* | reason (and correlative *тому, що*) | 472 (6,698) | 405 (420) |
| *оскільки* | reason | 416 (5,913) | 349 (362) |
| *адже* | reason (known) | 363 (5,154) | 550 (570) |
| *через те, що* | reason | 65 (926) | 42 (44) |
| *так як* (all uses) | reason (contested) / comparison | 6 (85) | 4 (4) |
| *позаяк* | reason | 1.8 (26) | — |
| *тож* | result | 135 (1,923) | 303 (314) |
| *отже* | result, conclusion | 37 (521) | 216 (224) |
| *таким чином* | result, manner | 83 (1,185) | 150 (156) |
| *відтак* | result | 11 (162) | 111 (115) |
| *значить* | conclusion | 27 (383) | 71 (74) |
| *проте* | concession, contrast | 208 (2,960) | 473 (490) |
| *однак* | concession, contrast | 202 (2,874) | 470 (487) |
| *натомість* | contrast | 40 (561) | 101 (105) |
| *зате* | compensation | 5.8 (83) | 40 (41) |
| *водночас* | simultaneity, contrast | 90 (1,285) | 190 (197) |
| *хоча* | concession | 251 (3,562) | 443 (459) |
| *втім* / *щоправда* | concession | 24 / 9 | 57 / 78 |
| *зокрема* | instance | 576 (8,174) | 533 (553) |
| *наприклад* | instance | 199 (2,830) | — |
| *тобто* | restatement | 173 (2,456) | 466 (483) |
| *а саме* | restatement | 47 (661) | 93 (96) |
| *до того ж* / *крім того* | addition | 13 / 26 | 97 / 120 |
| *по-перше* / *по-друге* | list | 19 / 10 | 68 / — |
| *потім* | succession | 376 (5,334) | 573 (594) |
| *згодом* | succession | 103 (1,469) | 174 (180) |
| *нарешті* | succession, list | 73 (1,033) | 135 (140) |

(The Leipzig sample is about fourteen times larger than Brown-UK; its per-million figures are the steadier.) News prefers the bookish reason markers *оскільки* and *тому що* and the instance marker *зокрема*, the workhorse of reported politics (*зокрема, йдеться про…*). Brown-UK, with fiction, essays and science, uses *бо* almost three times as often, and the reflective connectives *отже*, *тож*, *проте*, *однак*, *тобто* two to six times as often: news reports events and quotes; argumentative and narrative prose builds chains of reasoning. *Зате* is rare in news and ten times more frequent in Brown-UK: it belongs to the narrator's and the conversationalist's 'but at least'.

### 3.2 Speech and writing in the treebanks

Clause-linking in the two treebanks (UD 2.18, 2026-11-06; IU 99,495 words, ParlaMint 89,858):

| measure | IU (written) | ParlaMint (parliament) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| adverbial clauses (`advcl`) | 1,618 | 858 |
| `parataxis` (all subtypes) | 1,663 | 2,031 |
| verbal conjuncts (`conj` on VERB/AUX) | 2,179 | 1,433 |
| *тому* as `advmod` (result) | 83 | 273 |
| *тому* as `mark` (in *тому що*) | 3 | 83 |
| *тобто* (`mark` / `cc`) | 24 / — | 7 / 26 |
| *адже* `mark` | 26 | 26 |
| *отже* (`discourse` + `mark` + `parataxis`) | 17 + 10 + 0 | 5 + 0 + 5 |
| *проте* / *однак* `cc` | 27 / 20 | 12 / 8 |
| *натомість* `cc` | 13 | 5 |
| *по-перше* (any relation) | 2 | 19 |

Parliamentary speech subordinates less (858 adverbial clauses against 1,618) and juxtaposes more (2,031 `parataxis`); it states results with the plain adverb *тому* ('that's why') more than three times as often as writing (273 vs 83), and enumerates arguments with *по-перше, по-друге*. The conjunction counts by `mark` are in chapter 24, § 5.2: *якщо* and *щоб* lead in parliament, *як*, *бо* and the converbs in writing.

The two treebanks also annotate the same words differently: ParlaMint treats *тобто* mostly as `cc` (26), IU as `mark` (24); IU attaches *отже* as `discourse` or `mark`, ParlaMint as `parataxis` or `discourse`. A model trained on one and tested on the other loses points on connectives for reasons of convention, not of grammar.

### 3.3 *Так як*, *позаяк* and the purist tradition

The causal *так як* ('since, as') is a long-standing target of Ukrainian normative writing. Simovych (1919, `simovych-1919-hramatyka-ukrainskoi-movy-dlia`, § 374, note) already wrote that the educated Ukrainian's *так як* is "an obvious Muscovitism" (from Russian *так как*) to be avoided, and that the bookish *позаяк*, used by intellectuals for *тому що*, means something else where it is native — in the Pidhiria it means 'insofar as' — and should not be used either. A century later the Leipzig news sample has 85 *так як* (most of them the comparative *так, як* 'just as', not causal) against 5,913 *оскільки* and 6,026 *бо*; Brown-UK has 4. The causal *так як* survives in speech and in some official writing (ParlaMint: 5 sequences *так як*, against 56 *тому що*); in edited prose the standard alternatives have won. *Позаяк* survives as a rare bookish or stylised connective (26 in news).

## 4. Position and punctuation of connectives

### 4.1 Conjunction or parenthetical word

Several connectives are conjunctions at the start of a clause and parenthetical words inside it. The 2019 orthography (`ukrainskyi-pravopys-2019`, § 158, item 11, note 1 в) lists among the parenthetical words that "indicate the connection of thoughts and the order of presentation" *по-перше, по-друге*; *з одного боку, з другого боку*; *наприклад, так, відповідно, отже, таким чином, словом, виходить, значить, зрештою, нарешті; до речі, зокрема, крім того, навпаки*, and *проте* and *однак* "inside, not at the beginning of the sentence, where these words are conjunctions". The punctuation follows the function:

| position | punctuation | example |
| --- | --- | --- |
| *однак*, *проте* initial (conjunction) | no comma after | *Однак ніхто не прийшов.* 'However, nobody came.' |
| *однак*, *проте* inside (parenthetical) | commas on both sides | *Ніхто, однак, не прийшов.* |
| *отже*, *таким чином*, *значить* (parenthetical) | commas | *Отже, рішення ухвалено.* *Він, значить, знав.* |
| *отже* as a conjunction of result inside a sentence | no comma after | *Він знав, отже винен.* (*отже* = 'and so') |
| *тому* (adverb) | no comma | *Тому він і пішов.* |
| *а*, *і* joined to a parenthetical word | no comma between them | *а втім*, *а значить*, *а отже* (§ 158, note 2) |
| *по-перше*, *по-друге* | commas | *По-перше, …; по-друге, …* |

The treebanks reflect the double nature: *отже* is `mark` 10 times and `discourse` 17 times in IU.

### 4.2 Splitting the compound conjunctions

The compound reason conjunctions *тому що* and *через те що* can be split: the anaphoric part stays in the main clause and is stressed, the comma moves before *що*: *Я прийшов тому, що ти просив* 'I came because you asked' (the reason is the focus); *Я прийшов, тому що ти просив* (the reason is added). Brown-UK writes the split form *тому, що* three times as often as *тому що* (321 vs 99); the news sample about equally (3,407 vs 3,291), but the comma form also includes the correlative of other constructions (*завдяки тому, що*; *дорівнює тому, що*). The split is a focus device of the written standard; in the treebanks ParlaMint has 56 adjacent *тому що* and 38 *тому, що* sequences.

## 5. Implicit relations: asyndeton

### 5.1 The punctuation of implicit relations

When no connective is present, the reader infers the relation from the content, the order and, in writing, the punctuation. The 2019 orthography gives each mark its relations in an asyndetic complex sentence:

| mark | relation of the second part to the first | 2019 orthography | example |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| comma | enumeration, simultaneity, succession | § 158 | *Сонце сходить, птахи співають.* |
| semicolon | looser enumeration, contrast of extended parts | § 159 | *Одні сміялися; інші мовчали.* |
| colon | explanation of content; **cause**; rarely result | § 160, item 1 a–b | *Лаврін не поганяв волів: він забув і про воли, і про мішки* (Nechui-Levytskyi, quoted there) 'Lavrin did not drive the oxen on: he had forgotten about the oxen and the sacks' |
| dash | time, condition, consequence, concession, sharp contrast, sudden change | § 161, II, item 1 | *Защебетав соловейко — пішла луна гаєм* (Shevchenko, quoted there) 'The nightingale began to sing — the echo went through the grove' |

The orthography adds that a dash between clauses "conveys a sharper juxtaposition of their content" than the more usual comma. A colon thus reads as *бо*, a dash as *то*, *тому*, *і раптом* or *але*, depending on content.

### 5.2 What the treebanks show

The punctuation directly before a `parataxis` clause that follows its head (2026-11-06):

| mark before the clause | IU | ParlaMint |
| --- | --- | --- |
| comma | 609 | 1,163 |
| colon | 233 | 124 |
| parenthesis | 212 | 30 |
| dash (— – -) | 184 | 54 |
| semicolon | 67 | 0 |
| none | — | 53 |

Writing distributes the relations over the full set of marks; the parliamentary transcript, punctuated by stenographers, reduces almost everything to the comma (1,163 of about 1,430), so the relation that the speaker's intonation carried is lost in the written record. A parser or a relation classifier trained on IU and run on transcripts sees colons and dashes that are not there.

## 6. Parataxis in the folk language

Smerechynskyi (1932, `smerechynskyi-1932-narysy-z-ukrainskoi-syntaksy`, chs. XXVIII–XXIX) argued that **parataxis** — clauses and words placed side by side, with or without a conjunction — is "the greatest and most characteristic feature of the Ukrainian folk language", running through it "from the connection of single words to the connection of whole sentences". He described asyndeton as "a progressive fact" in the development of the language: the omission of the conjunctions that convey logical shades, and their replacement by intonation, stress and pauses, gives concision and force and, in words he quotes from Bulakhovskyi, "provokes heightened activity of thought, which itself joins separate sentences and thoughts with logical bridges". He classified the asyndetic complex sentences of folk narrative and song by the relation they express:

| relation | Smerechynskyi's example (folk texts and classics) | gloss | missing connective |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| succession of actions | *Випряга він коня, сідає, тікає* | 'He unharnesses the horse, mounts, flees' | *і* |
| reason | *Не хилися, явороньку, — ти ще зелененький* | 'Do not bow, little sycamore, — you are still green' | *бо*, *адже* |
| reason | *Тільки один чоловік і не втопивсь: умів плавать* | 'Only one man did not drown: he could swim' | *бо* |
| consequence | *Брови чорні, очі карі — любо подивитись* (Nechui-Levytskyi) | 'Black brows, brown eyes — a joy to look at' | *тому* |
| condition | *Не посій — не вродиться* (saying) | 'If you don't sow, nothing will grow' | *якщо* |
| condition | *Найду долю — одружуся, не найду — втоплюся* (Shevchenko) | 'If I find my fate, I'll marry; if not, I'll drown myself' | *якщо* |
| contrast | *Догоряють поліна в печі, попеліє червоная грань, у задумі сиджу я вночі* (Franko) | 'The logs burn down in the stove, … I sit in thought at night' | *а* |
| complement | *Говорили, волю рятують* | 'They said they were saving freedom' | *що* |
| time | *…проклинала, край дороги пшениченьку жала* | '…cursed (you) as I reaped the wheat by the road' | *як*, *коли* |

He set the paratactic style against the hypotactic style of the bookish language, in which "the thought is broken up among many shades of dependence, mostly artificial and formal", and listed the "high positive features" of parataxis: imagery, concision, energy, economy of attention, naturalness. The modern reader should take the evaluation as a programme of the 1920s purist and stylistic school; the description holds: folk narrative and song prefer juxtaposition, and the reader of them must infer most relations.

Simovych (1919, § 360) gives the same in school-grammar terms: clauses of a compound sentence "are each independent, but by thought, by content they connect", and the relation — conjunctive, contrastive, causal, consequential — is recognised either from the content alone (*Тихесенько вітер віє, степи, лани мріють*, Shevchenko) or from the conjunction (*Умер співець, але живуть у серця слова безсмертні*).

## 7. Time, aspect and the order of telling

Aspect carries much of the temporal structure that English marks with connectives and tenses:

| aspect pattern | relation | example | gloss |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| perfective + perfective | succession, in the order told | *Прийшов, роздягнувся, сів.* | 'He came, took off his coat, sat down.' |
| imperfective + perfective | background + event | *Він читав, коли задзвонив телефон.* | 'He was reading when the phone rang.' |
| imperfective + imperfective | simultaneity or habit | *Вона співала, а він грав.* | 'She sang and he played (at the same time).' |
| perfective after a converb in *-вши* | anteriority | *Поснідавши, пішов на роботу.* | 'Having had breakfast, he went to work.' |
| imperfective converb in *-учи* | simultaneity, manner | *Ішов, співаючи.* | 'He walked, singing.' |

A chain of perfective past verbs without connectives (§ 6) is read as a sequence of events in the order of telling; a reordering needs a marker (*перед тим*, *до того*, *раніше*, the pluperfect-like *був пішов* of older and dialect texts).

**Mixing tenses in narration.** Smerechynskyi (1932, ch. XIV) showed that folk narrative combines past, present and future forms within one sentence of a story in the past: *Як коли прийшли туди, кладе хліб на стіл* 'When they came there, (he) puts the bread on the table'; *Внесла дівка рушник на тарілці, підходить до батька* 'The girl brought in a towel on a plate, goes up to her father'. The present makes the event vivid, "as if someone looks through binoculars and tells the others what he sees". For a reader the tense switch does not signal a new time; the relation is still succession.

## 8. Correlatives and doubled marking

Ukrainian often marks one relation twice, in both clauses — a pattern English mostly avoids (*Although …, but …* is ungrammatical in English):

| relation | correlative pair | example | gloss |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| concession | *хоч / хоча … але / проте / та / все ж* | *Хоч і пізно було, але ми прийшли.* | 'Although it was late, we came.' |
| concession, compensation | *хоч … зате* | *Хоч не застав Івана вдома, зате пройшовся* (2019 orthography, § 43) | 'Although I didn't find Ivan at home, at least I had a walk.' |
| condition | *якщо / коли / як … то* | *Якщо прийдеш, то поговоримо.* | 'If you come, (then) we'll talk.' |
| reason | *через те / тому … що* | *Тому я й прийшов, що ти просив.* | 'That's why I came — because you asked.' |
| time | *як … так і* | *Як прийшов, так і сів.* | 'As soon as he came, he sat down.' |
| comparison, proportion | *чим … тим* | *Чим далі, тим гірше.* | 'The further, the worse.' |
| alternative | *то … то*, *чи … чи*, *не то … не то* | *То дощ, то сніг.* | 'Now rain, now snow.' |

The correlative *то* after a conditional or temporal clause is frequent in speech: ParlaMint has 86 *то* as `mark`, IU 22 as `cc`. Smerechynskyi (1932, ch. XXV) gives a chapter to the folk correlatives *так — як*, *як — так*, *хоч — хоч*, *що — що*, *чи — чи*.

## 9. Attribution

Reported speech and thought are discourse relations too (PDTB *Attribution*): the content is someone's. Ukrainian marks them with:

- a verb of saying or thinking and *що*, *ніби*, *нібито*, *мовляв*: *Він сказав, що прийде*; *Він відмовився: мовляв, зайнятий* 'He refused — said he was busy' (*мовляв* 'as he put it', distancing);
- parenthetical *каже*, *кажуть*, *за словами …*, *як повідомляє …*, *на думку …*: *Злість, кажуть, сатані сестриця* (Kotliarevskyi, quoted by Simovych 1919, § 347) 'Malice, they say, is Satan's sister';
- the particles of reported or doubted content *нібито*, *начебто* 'allegedly' (news uses them to distance itself from a claim);
- in folk speech, direct speech after *що* without a shift of person (chapter 35, § 7; Smerechynskyi 1932, ch. XVII).

In the Leipzig news sample *мовляв* occurs 551 times (39 per million) and *за словами* is a standard news formula; in Brown-UK *мовляв* has 78 per million.

## 10. Varieties and styles as deltas

Each variety or style is listed only by what it changes in the discourse marking of the literary standard.

| variety or style | grammar delta | lexicon delta | punctuation / form delta |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| colloquial standard | more juxtaposition and parataxis (ParlaMint 2,031 `parataxis` vs 858 `advcl`); result stated by initial *тому*; enumeration by *по-перше*; correlative *то* after conditions | *так що*, *а то*, *значить*, *виходить*, *ну от*, *коротше* (chapter 38); causal *так як* | relation carried by intonation; transcripts reduce it to commas (§ 5.2) |
| official, legal, journalistic | hypotaxis with compound connectives; result and reason as prepositional phrases | *оскільки*, *з огляду на це*, *у зв'язку з цим*, *з метою*, *відповідно до*, *внаслідок цього*, *таким чином*, *відтак*, *зокрема*, *водночас*, *натомість* | split *тому, що*; colons before lists |
| fiction and essay | full range of connectives, including reflective *отже*, *тож*, *проте*, *однак*, *тобто*, *зате* (two to ten times the news rates) | *втім*, *щоправда*, *дарма що*, *себто* | the full set of marks (§ 5.2, IU) |
| folk narrative and song | asyndeton for every relation (§ 6); tense switching (§ 7); *та й*, *а*, *ой* as clause links | *та й*, *аж*, *коли це* ('and suddenly') | dash and comma |
| western (Galician) | *бо* frequent; *аби* for *щоб*; *як* for *якщо* | *відтак* also 'then, afterwards'; *позаяк* 'insofar as' (Simovych 1919, § 374) | — |
| surzhyk | Ukrainian clause linking with Russian connectives | *потому шо*, *так шо*, *хотя*, *єслі*, *поетому*, *короче*, *тіпа*; *шо* for *що* | Russian vowels |

## 11. Quick reference: discourse relations in UD

UD annotates the syntactic attachment of connectives, not the relation itself:

| construction | example | UD analysis (UD Ukrainian) |
| --- | --- | --- |
| subordinate reason clause | *Пішов, бо втомився.* | `advcl(Пішов, втомився)`, `mark(втомився, бо)` |
| compound conjunction | *тому що* | ParlaMint: `mark` *тому* + `fixed` *що*; IU: also *тому* `advmod` + *що* `mark` |
| result adverb | *Тому він пішов.* | `advmod(пішов, Тому)` |
| coordinating contrast | *але*, *проте*, *однак*, *натомість* | `cc` on the second conjunct |
| parenthetical connective | *Він, отже, винен.* | `discourse` (IU) or `parataxis` (ParlaMint) |
| restatement | *тобто* | `mark` (IU) or `cc` (ParlaMint) |
| asyndetic clause | *Не йди: там небезпечно.* | `parataxis(йди, небезпечно)` with `punct` *:* |
| correlative *то* | *Якщо прийдеш, то поговоримо.* | `mark` *то* (ParlaMint) on the main clause |

None of the Ukrainian works in the research library describes a corpus with discourse-relation annotation (PDTB- or RST-style), and Mova holds none (2026-11-06).

## 12. How Mova handles it

Mova's discourse relations are links between frames — `cause`, `next`, `quote`, the conditional flag — set by the frame reader from English cues (*because, so, then, after, if*) on trees of the English parser ([`prag/src/frames.rs`](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/prag/), `set_cause`, `set_next`; [Pragmatics: frames — who did what to whom, why, and what came next](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/repo-docs/pragmatics/), *Links*); the story layer and the QUD stack ([`world/src/story.rs`](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/world/), [`world/src/qud.rs`](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/world/)) work on those frames. None of this reads Ukrainian: there is no Ukrainian parser model in [mova-parse](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/tools/mova-parse/), `langseg` has a Latin-script table only, and the cue lists are English.

The Ukrainian fact extractor `kg` ([`kg/src/uk.rs`](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/kg/), [kg — the Mova knowledge graph](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/kg/)) takes simple sentences only. Its conjunction list `CONJ` contains most clause linkers — *і, й, та, а, але, або, чи, що, щоб, коли, якщо, бо, ніж, ані, зате, проте, адже, хоча, хоч, поки, доки, як, наче, ніби, мов, неначе, тому, аніж*, and the interrogative-relative words — and **any sentence containing one is rejected**. It also rejects any comma and any dash in a sentence with a verb (*"a dash alongside a verb means two parts"*). What passes are single clauses with a connective adverb that is not on the list, which becomes an `adverbial` or `particle` member without a relation.

Measured on 2026-11-06 (`kg parse`, CPU, worktree commit `ac9a23149`, VESUM, empty name list):

| sentence | kg output | verdict |
| --- | --- | --- |
| *Тому він пішов.* | rejected: conjunction (*тому*) | the result adverb is on `CONJ` |
| *Проте він пішов.* / *Зате він прийшов.* | rejected: conjunction | — |
| *Він пішов бо втомився.* / *Він пішов тому що втомився.* | rejected: conjunction | complex sentences are out of scope |
| *Однак ніхто не прийшов.* | predicate *прийти* (neg.), subject *ніхто*, `adverbial` *однак* | the clause is right; the contrast with the previous text is lost |
| *По-перше він запізнився.* | `adverbial` *по-перше* | parsed; the list relation is not recorded |
| *Він до того ж запізнився.* | `adverbial:до+v_rod` *те*, `particle` *ж* | **wrong**: the fixed connective *до того ж* 'moreover' is taken apart into a prepositional phrase and the particle *ж* |
| *Отже він винен.* | rejected: not covered | the short-form predicate *винен* is not handled |
| *Він втомився — пішов спати.* | rejected: punctuation, dash with verb | the asyndetic result is out of scope |

### 12.1 Not yet

- No Ukrainian discourse relations of any kind: no `cause`, `next` or `quote` links between Ukrainian frames.
- No reading of connective adverbs and parenthetical words as relations; fixed connectives (*до того ж*, *крім того*, *таким чином*) are not treated as units.
- No reading of the colon and the dash as relation markers; no complex sentences.
- No Ukrainian discourse-annotated corpus for measurement.

## 13. Sources

- Smerechynskyi, Serhii. 1932. *Нариси з української синтакси (у зв'язку з фразеологією та стилістикою)*. Ch. XIV (mixing tenses in narration), ch. XVII (indirect speech), ch. XXV (correlative pairs), ch. XXVIII (asyndeton; B: asyndeton of clauses, types 1–15), ch. XXIX (parataxis and its "high positive features"). `smerechynskyi-1932-narysy-z-ukrainskoi-syntaksy` (public domain in UA/EU)
- Simovych, Vasyl. 1919. *Граматика української мови для самонавчання та в допомогу шкільній науці*. §§ 347 (parenthetical words), 360 (compound sentences by content), 374 with note (causal clauses; *так як*, *позаяк*). `simovych-1919-hramatyka-ukrainskoi-movy-dlia` (public domain)
- *Український правопис*. 2019. § 43 (compound conjunctions written as one word), § 158 item 11 with notes 1–2 (parenthetical connectives; *проте*, *однак* initial vs medial), § 159 (semicolon), § 160 item 1 (colon in asyndetic sentences: content, cause), § 161 II item 1 (dash in asyndetic sentences: time, condition, consequence, concession). `ukrainskyi-pravopys-2019` (official text, not under copyright)
- Universal Dependencies 2.18: UD_Ukrainian-IU (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; counts only), UD_Ukrainian-ParlaMint (CC BY-SA 4.0); counted 2026-11-06, all splits.
- Leipzig Corpora Collection, *ukr_news_2024* (1 M sentences; Goldhahn, Eckart & Quasthoff 2012; CC BY), leipzig-news-2024; Brown-UK (Starko & Rysin; CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; counts only), brown-uk; counted with `grep -oiw` 2026-11-06.
- Shevchenko, Kotliarevskyi, Nechui-Levytskyi, Franko and folk texts, as quoted in the grammars above: public domain.
- Mova: [`kg/src/uk.rs`](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/kg/) (`CONJ`, the punctuation gate in `fn parse`), [kg — the Mova knowledge graph](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/kg/), [`prag/src/frames.rs`](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/prag/), [Pragmatics: frames — who did what to whom, why, and what came next](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/repo-docs/pragmatics/), [`world/src/story.rs`](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/world/), [`world/src/qud.rs`](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/world/), [mova-parse](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/tools/mova-parse/).
- [← previous 35. Reference and coreference](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/uk/35-reference-and-coreference/)
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