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I don't have access to Sheehan's paper (it's behind a paywall), but
if she offers "a range of tests", then that's precisely the problem:<br>
<br>
The very notion of a "test" (or diagnostic, or symptom) presupposes
that there is some deep reality of "monoclausality" vs.
"biclausality" – in other words, a natural kind or innate category.<br>
<br>
As long as we don't have very good evidence that such distinctions
are part of human nature, we need to operate with *definitions*, not
with symptoms. (Doctors identify diseases on the basis of
diagnostics or symptoms, but this makes sense only if they know that
these diseases are part of nature, and not idiosyncratic to each
patient.)<br>
<br>
Balthasar Bickel has a discussion of some of these issues in this
2010 paper:<br>
<br>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<div class="csl-bib-body" style="line-height: 1.35; margin-left:
2em; text-indent:-2em;">
<div class="csl-entry">Bickel, Balthasar. 2010. Capturing
particulars and universals in clause linkage: A multivariate
analysis. In Isabelle Bril (ed.), <i>Clause-hierarchy and
clause-linking: the syntax and pragmatics interface</i>,
51–102. Amsterdam: Benjamins.</div>
<span class="Z3988"
title="url_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&rfr_id=info%3Asid%2Fzotero.org%3A2&rft_val_fmt=info%3Aofi%2Ffmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Abook&rft.genre=bookitem&rft.atitle=Capturing%20particulars%20and%20universals%20in%20clause%20linkage%3A%20A%20multivariate%20analysis&rft.place=Amsterdam&rft.publisher=Benjamins&rft.aufirst=Balthasar&rft.aulast=Bickel&rft.au=Balthasar%20Bickel&rft.au=Isabelle%20Bril&rft.date=2010&rft.pages=51%E2%80%93102"></span></div>
<br>
Best,<br>
Martin<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 30.11.18 14:02, Nigel Vincent wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:1932B7F071337A4088C8050DE465747D019A18832D@MBXP11.ds.man.ac.uk"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">I discuss this issue briefly in a recent article about causatives in Latin and Romance - see J.N. Adams & N. Vincent (eds) Early and Late Latin: Continuity or Change?, CUP, 2016, especially pp. 310-312. I refer there to Michelle Sheehan's chapter 'Complex predicates' in A. Ledgeway & M. Maiden (eds) The Oxford Guide to the Romance Languages, OUP, 2016, pp 981-994. She offers a range of tests for bi-/mono-clausality. It looks very much as if the diachronic profile here is biclausal Latin becomes monoclausal across the Romance languages with some of these then showing signs of developing back into (a different kind) of biclausal construction.
Best
Nigel
Professor Nigel Vincent, FBA MAE
Professor Emeritus of General & Romance Linguistics
The University of Manchester
Linguistics & English Language
School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
The University of Manchester
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/nigel-vincent(f973a991-8ece-453e-abc5-3ca198c869dc).html">https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/nigel-vincent(f973a991-8ece-453e-abc5-3ca198c869dc).html</a>
________________________________________
From: Lingtyp [<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org">lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>] on behalf of Martin Haspelmath [<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>]
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2018 12:01 PM
To: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org">lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org</a>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Universal trend: biclausal -> monoclausal?
On 29.11.18 00:30, Adam James Ross Tallman wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre wrap="">It seems to be generally true that biclausal structures can become
monoclausal structures over time and not the reverse.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre wrap="">
This is indeed an interesting observation that has not been discussed
very widely, I think. Harris & Campbell (1995) (in their book on
diachronic syntax) discuss such phenomena at some length, but they don't
seem to explain the unidirectionality. So it would be nice to see a
convincing explanation.
But in order to make this claim fully testable, one needs a general
definition of "clause", and I don't know of a very good definition. My
working definition is in terms of negatability: If a structure that
contains two verbs can be negated in two different ways, it's biclausal,
but otherwise it's monoclausal:
She was able [to do it]. (biclausal)
(She was not able to do it / She was able not to do it)
She could do it. (monoclausal)
(She could not do it – there is no contrast between "she could [not do
it]" and "she could not [do it]")
This indicates that "want" clauses are monoclausal in English, because
"I want to not make a mistake" sounds bad. But the judgements are
subtle, and one may perhaps even have something like "The king ordered
the non-destruction of the city" (vs. "The king didn't order the
distruction of the city", which is normally considered monoclausal).
So the negation criterion isn't very good, but I know of no better way
of distinguishing in general between monoclausal and biclausal
constructions.
Martin
--
Martin Haspelmath (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10
D-07745 Jena
&
Leipzig University
Institut fuer Anglistik
IPF 141199
D-04081 Leipzig
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath (<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:haspelmath@shh.mpg.de">haspelmath@shh.mpg.de</a>)
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10
D-07745 Jena
&
Leipzig University
Institut fuer Anglistik
IPF 141199
D-04081 Leipzig
</pre>
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