[Lingtyp] Universal trend: biclausal -> monoclausal?

[Adam James Ross Tallman]

Hello all,

I have been wondering about the importance of diachrony in synchronic
analysis, and I have question. It seems to be generally true that biclausal
structures can become monoclausal structures over time and not the reverse.
I wonder if people know of cases where matrix verbs develop specialized
meanings in complement/subordinating constructions, like we would expect of
semantically bleaching auxiliaries, without the construction becoming
unambiguously monoclausal.

So whatever structure stage 2 has, it simply retains aspects of
biclausality without being reanalyzed as in stage 3 or if, for instance,
the structure just never develops into a monoclausal one because it simply
falls out of use.

1. [[...V...]...V] -> 2. ?[[...V...]..."AUX/V"...]? -> 3. [...V...AUX...]

I'm wondering whether it is safe to assume if in some construction
...V...AUX... where we decide AUX is distinct from its source V because its
semantics are have diverged (or bleached), then we *can always assume the
structure must be monoclausal regardless of any structural properties that
make it look biclausal* (i.e. its been reanalyzed without any structural
facts that suggest actualization) because of the universal monoclausal ->
biclausal trend.

Sorry if this is a little abstract; help would be greatly appreciated.

best,

Adam



-- 
Adam J.R. Tallman
Investigador del Museo de Etnografía y Folklore, la Paz
PhD, UT Austin
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