Junction and nexus are two kinds of syntactic relationship, according to the Danish linguist Otto Jespersen, who was keen to demonstrate the parallels as well as the contrast between them. An example of either junction or nexus is described in terms of the rank of each word, or "word group", that makes it up.
Origin and development Jespersen first wrote of junction and nexus in the book Sprogets Logik (1913), after which his theory of ranks and of nexus versus junction "remained substantially unchanged" but was described more fully in De to Hovedarter av grammattiske Forbindelser (1921), The Philosophy of Grammar (1924), and Analytic Syntax (1937).
Rank and junction Both nexus and junction involve what Jespersen calls rank. The rank of a word used in a particular context depends on the word's "mutual relations" with other words. As a simple example:
In the combination extremely hot weather the last word weather, which is evidently the chief idea, may be called primary; hot, which defines weather, secondary, and extremely, which defines hot, tertiary. "Extremely hot weather" is a simple example of what Jespersen terms junction. In a more complex example, adds Jespersen, a tertiary word might be said to be defined by a quaternary and the quaternary by a quinary; however, "it is needless to distinguish more than three ranks, as there are no formal or other traits that distinguish words of these lower orders from tertiary words". With examples such as burning hot soup, Jespersen shows that the distinction between secondary (burning taken as coordinated with hot, and related to soup as hot is) and tertiary (burning taken as modifying hot) is not always clear.
Rank and part of speech In Jespersen's analysis, a given part of speech (grammatical category) is more or less likely to be employed as a primary, secondary, or tertiary.
Substantives are typically primaries, but they are also commonly secondaries and on occasion tertiaries. Pronouns – defined so widely as to encompass words such as this (now termed a determinative) – are typically either primaries ("this is mine") or secondaries ("my hat"); they can also be tertiaries ("the more, the merrier"; "none too able"). Adjectives are typically secondaries; however, in the impossible, the poor, etc, they are primaries; they can also be tertiaries. Verbs: "Finite forms of verbs can only stand as secondary words (adnexes), never either as primaries or as tertiaries". But infinitives (often required to be in combination with to) can be primaries ("she wants to rest), adjuncts ("in times to come") and subjuncts ("I shudder to think of it"). Adverbs (another category that has subsequently changed) can be primaries ("he did not stay for long; "he's only just back from abroad"; "from here"), and in some contexts secondaries; but commonly they are tertiaries, modifying adjectives or verbs ("describes accurately", "I firmly believe"; semantically corresponding to "accurate description", "my firm belief", "a firm believer"). Word groups: With Albert Sechehaye, Jespersen was an innovator in assigning word groups (as he called them) a status independent from that of sentences and predicative structures. Many of these word groups would now be called phrases (in particular, preposition phrases). Word groups can be primaries, secondaries or tertiaries. Clauses can be primaries ("What you say is quite true"; "I believe whatever he says"); secondaries ("This is the land where I was born"); and tertiaries ("Whoever said this, it is true"; "It is a custom where I was born").
Specialization Jespersen uses special to mean what other writers might term specific, and relates the specialization of a word or word group to factors including its part of speech (verb, adjective, etc):
[O]n the whole substantives are more special than adjectives, they are applicable to fewer objects than adjectives. . . . The adjective indicates and singles out one quality, one distinguishing mark, but each substantive suggests, to whoever understands it, many distinguishing features by which he recognizes the person or thing in question. Other factors are its rank (primary, secondary, etc), and its function within a clause (object, predicative complement, etc):
The subject is always a primary, though not necessarily the only primary in the sentence; this amounts to saying that the subject is comparatively definite and special, while the predicate is less definite, and thus applicable to a greater number of things. This is a simply demonstrated for sentences such as "My father is old" (old applying to many people or indeed animals, things and more, but my father to a single person); more problematic with the pair "Miss Castlewood was the prettiest girl at the ball" and "The prettiest girl at the ball was Miss Castlewood" (in the specified context, the prettiest girl at the ball and Miss Castlewood being but a single person). As for a clause such as "there were many people present", the generalization about subjects relies on Jespersen's stance that the subject is not there but instead many people. Specialization is aided by secondaries. The most important class of adjuncts, writes Jespersen, is of "restrictive or qualifying adjuncts", which limit the reference of the primary, and thus "specialize or define it" ("Icelandic peasants" being more specific than "peasants"). An adjunct is less specific than the primary (and a subjunct less specific than the adjunct), but no matter:
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