[Lingtyp] Universal trend: biclausal -> monoclausal?

[David Gil]

Adam,

What about the English matrix verbs in constructions such as the following:

(1) I see you're interested in diachrony in synchronic analysis
(2) I think it's going to rain

and several others.  It seems pretty clear that the above examples are 
bo-clausal.  But in (1), matrix verb "see" is no longer exclusively 
visual; the sentence would remain felicitous if the source of the 
speaker's knowledge were audial, i.e. through oral speech.  In sentence 
(2), the difference is a bit more subtle, but it seems to me that here 
matrix verb "think" is bleached of its original meaning and instead 
assumes a meaning more like "be of the opinion that".  (Interestingly, 
colloquial Malay/Indonesian dialects vary in this regard; while some 
allow constructions like (2), others don't.)

David


On 29/11/2018 01:30, Adam James Ross Tallman wrote:
> 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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-- 
David Gil

Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany

Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
Office Phone (Germany): +49-3641686834
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81281162816

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