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INSERTED CONSTRUCTIONS AS THE TEXT FORMATION METHOD OF CONTRACTS

Summary/Abstract: Concerning contracts as legal texts, besides accurate content, technical accuracy, which appears in the proper structure of the text, good syntax, precise word choice and neutral style, is also expected. However, the reality is somewhat different – lower-level legal and administrative texts that have not been edited tend to be syntactically more complicated than, for instance, legislative texts. Language analysis reveals that although the sentence structure of contracts is rather simple, the comprehension of a text is inhibited by several inserted constructions: non-finite clauses, participle constructions, nominalisations, adverbialisations and constructions without predicates. Although the abundance of the inserted constructions is one of the textual characteristics of contracts, the functions that these types of constructions fulfil from the point of view of text formation have to be taken into account. The constructions of ma- and da-infinitive vividly pass on the essence of contracts – deontic modality – obligation and permission is expressed by different nouns and verbs, especially frequently by kohustuma and õigus. Moreover, genre-specific structural characteristics of contractual sentences set out various specifications of conditions, restriction of actions and options. With participle constructions limits are set, conditions specified and intratextual references added. Also, the adverbialisations and constructions without predicates are at the service of the accuracy and concreteness of the contracts. However, nominalisations perform a different kind of function in contracts – they pass the actions on in the same way as terms. This is supported by the genre-specific static language of a contract – that is to say, descriptive and analytical (naming and defining, referring to connections). Both the abundance of inserted constructions and their functions make contractual language unavoidably complicated, which in turn may impede the unambiguous interpretation of a contract. Therefore, more attention should be paid to the compilation of contractual texts and the training of officials.

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