[Lingtyp] Universal trend: biclausal -> monoclausal?

Thu Nov 29 06:03:45 UTC 2018

Adam, your question makes me think of a correlated point, also following
what Mark wrote.

One of my pet peeves when reading grammars and other descriptive work is
the assumption that the form should have some bearing on what sort of
analyses are possible. Specifically, in my work on pseudocoordination ("go
and get", "try and do"), I have come across dozens of authors who are in
one way or another hesitant to allow what appears to be a coordinating
conjunction to be interposed between verbs in what otherwise appears to be
monoclausal construction. This hesitation is manifested variously. For
example, some insist on a coordination (=multi-clausal) analysis based on
form alone. Others are explicitly skeptical of a possible reconstruction of
such a linker to a coordinating conjunction diachronically (or
identification of cognates, rather than coincidental homophony). And yet
others give examples of the possibility but only as a rare or exceptional
phenomenon that they add to their list as a surprising example (it is rare,
but not nearly as rare as some linguists seem to believe). Of course there
are iconicity- or frequency-based factors that would predict a shorter form
for tightly grammaticalized monoclausal constructions (Givón 1990 comes to
mind, among others), but this is a statistical generalization. The same
would of course apply to other types of linking elements, or constructions
in general-- different likelihoods of grammaticalizing in one way or
another, but few or no strict limits set by the form itself.

But your original question seemed to be more about the semantic properties
of verbs than the form of the constructions. The problem, of course, is how
to define monoclausality. It seems that we could try to generalize based on
whether the two verbs are mutually asserted: that is, if we compare "go
[and] get" to "go [in order] to get", the difference is that the former
necessarily predicates the success of both verbs, whereas the second only
asserts the second verb as the purpose of the first. We could call this
"complementation", although some types of complementation do mutually
assert the two components (e.g., "begin singing"). Relatively clear
examples are easy to find, though, such as "want to eat", where at least
semantically these are clearly not mutually asserted. So it would seem to
me that "want to eat" is unlikely to grammaticalize to a monoclausal
construction. However, there are plenty of claims of "restructuring" (in
the Generative literature) of such predicates, where, in short, as part of
the derivation a biclausal construction becomes monoclausal. And just
descriptively, consider the fact that a desiderative affix can have the
same meaning as "want", or that a conative affix can have the same meaning
as "try". (I suppose we might say that at some point the formerly matrix
verb must grammaticalize to be a modifer of the lexical verb, rather than
selecting it as complement, or something along those lines.) So in summary,
aside from issues of defining monoclausality, it isn't clear to me that we
can make any absolute rules. At the same time, I would certainly expect
that mutually asserted verbs are more likely to display the properties of
monoclausality. The rest might just be up to our various definitions. (Note
that the question of whether the two verbs are mutually asserted relates to
the elusive topic of "single eventhood" often discussed for serial verb
constructions.)

The short answer to your question then is that I don't believe there are
any absolutes either way, but there are some tendencies.

As a specific example for you to consider, there is an interesting puzzle
regarding posture-verb pseudocoordination like "sit and read", specifically
to what extent it has grammaticalized to express progressive aspect with
bleached postural semantics. See my co-authored paper with Helge Lødrup on
this topic here:
https://sites.google.com/unive.it/psecomac/program/abstracts?authuser=0
("SIT as a progressive marker in pseudocoordination?", extended abstract
available there, more info on request)

Daniel Ross
PhD Candidate
University of Illinois

On Wed, Nov 28, 2018 at 4:35 PM Mark Post <mark.post at sydney.edu.au> wrote:

> Hi Adam,
>
> In Assamese (and in a number of other Indo-Aryan languages), the
> final/inflected ("matrix") verb in a clause chain can indeed develop
> aux-like functional values which are in many ways similar to those found in
> serial verb constructions (so, for example, be > STAT; stay > DUR; go/come
> > DIR; see > TENT(ative), etc.). And while clause chains that end in such
> verbs tend to be more tightly-integrated even than co-subordinate
> constructions tend to be more generally (so, for example, they would share
> the object of the chain-medial, more "lexical" verb in addition to the
> usual subject and TAM-sharing), they don't in general seem to become
> "monoclausal", in the strict sense that dependent marking on the
> chain-medial verb is no longer functional. I had at one point hoped to
> adopt an assumption similar to your* bolded* assumption below, and wrote
> a couple of papers on the topic once which basically leaned toward such an
> analysis of Assamese. But my tendency now would be to simply look at these
> as particular constructions within a cline of clause-integration (in a
> sense in which "mono/bi-clausality" is defined in terms of its symptoms
> rather than in terms of an underlying abstraction).
>
>
> https://www.academia.edu/197270/Assamese_verb_serialization_in_functional_areal-typological_and_diachronic_perspective
>
>
> https://www.academia.edu/197267/Grammaticalization_and_the_discourse_distribution_of_serial_verbs_in_Assamese
>
> cheers
> Mark
>
> ------ Original Message ------
> From: "Adam James Ross Tallman" <ajrtallman at utexas.edu>
> To: "LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org" <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org
> >
> Sent: 29/11/2018 10:30:54 AM
> Subject: [Lingtyp] Universal trend: biclausal -> monoclausal?
>
> 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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