[Lingtyp] From causal to complement markers

[Jussi Ylikoski]

Dear Rodrigo,



If it doesn't "matter how loose these assumptions might be or how restricted to a small number of semantic context or complement-taking predicates", Finnic and Saami languages of the Uralic family do have multiple-purpose conjunctions, often with the primary meaning 'when', e.g. the temporal conjunction kun in Finnish. However, although there are more specialized subordinators like the mostly causative koska 'as; because' and the general complementizer että, many languages like my own idiolect of colloquial Finnish also permit the use of kun 'when; because; as; comp'. Here are the translations of your Hausa examples:



(1) Ne  pakeni,    koska/kun ne  pelkäs,    että ne  pidätetään.

    3PL flee.PST.3 as/kun    3PL fear.PST.3 COMP 3PL arrest.PASS

    'As they are afraid of being arrested, they fled.'



(2) Mä  ihmettelen, että/kun ne  lähtee näin aikaisin.

    1SG wonder.1SG  COMP/kun 3PL go.3   this early

    'I am surprised that they go out (this) early.'



(My examples are in colloquial Finnish, as I believe that some local purists would oppose my examples if they were presented as standard Finnish.)



Unfortunately, I suppose that few people dare to say which way these functions have developed.



Best regards,



Jussi


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Efni: [Lingtyp] From causal to complement markers


Dear all,

I’m interested in finding examples of languages for which it might be assumed (either tacitly or explicitly) that elements marking complement clauses are directly derived from markers of causal clauses, as in (1) and (2):

              Hausa (Chadic, Afroasiatic). Abdoulaye 2008.

(1)  Dà su-kèe tsòoro-n à kaamàa su, sun gudù.

       as 3p-RI fear-of imp.SBJ arrest 3p 3p.CPL flee

       'As they are afraid of being arrested, they fled.'

(2)  Naa yi màamaakìi dà su-kèe fìtaa dà wuri.

      1s.CPL do surprise as 3p-RI go.out at early

      'I am surprised that they go out early.'


For Hausa, Abdoulaye assumes that dà in (2) functions as a complementizer, and that this is a ‘secondary’ extension from a causal source (1). Similar interpretations can be found for Latin (quod, quia) or for a number of Semitic languages (e.g., Hebrew, Amharic or Akkadian). Schmidtke-Bode (2014) also mentions other possible cases, like Epena Pedee.

I’d be very grateful to hear about any other potential cases, no matter how loose these assumptions might be or how restricted to a small number of semantic context or complement-taking predicates.

Many thanks!

Best,



Rodrigo Hernáiz

Lecturer in Languages and Linguistics

School of Languages and Applied Linguistics

The Open University

rodrigo.hernaiz-gomez at open.ac.uk<mailto:rodrigo.hernaiz-gomez at open.ac.uk>





Abdoulaye, M. L. (2008). Origin of relative marking in Hausa. (https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00259490)

Schmidtke-Bode, K. (2014). Complement clauses and complementation systems: A cross-linguistic study of grammatical organization (Doctoral dissertation, Thüringer Universitäts-und Landesbibliothek Jena).




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