[Lingtyp] From causal to complement markers

[Denys T.]

Dear all, 

Just a brief comment to Jussi’s examples. I guess, the development there is temporal > reason/cause. I have found similar stuff in English (1) [a bit arguable example, but still] and in Estonian (2) where a bit different temporal conjunction kuna ‘while’ is used. However, I am not sure that in Estonian kuna can be used as general complementizer. But in general, it seems that temporal > cause/reason is a cross-linguistically quite frequent development (see Heine & Kuteva 2002: 291, "temporal > cause” entry & “since (temporal) > cause”, ibid: 275).

(1) The driver of one of the buses was shot dead when he allegedly recognised one of the dacoits (enTenTen15)

(2)	Itaalias	saavutas			Birgitta	suure	populaarsuse,	kuna	väidetavalt	tegi			ta	mitmeid			imetegusid	ja	aitas			vaeseid.
	Italy.ine	achieve.pst.3sg	pn		big.gen	popularity.gen	while	allegedly		do.pst.3sg	3sg	a.number.of.pl.par	miracle.pl.par	and	help.pst.3sg	poor.pl.par
	‘In Italy Birgitta achieved huge popularity since allegedly she did a number of miracles and helped poor.’ (enTenTen13)

Best wishes from Tartu, 
Denys Teptiuk



> On 26. Sep 2020, at 21:10, Jussi Ylikoski <jussi.ylikoski at oulu.fi> wrote:
> 
> 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 
> 
> 
> Frá: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> fyrir hönd tiritiri trauntraun <hernaitz at hotmail.com <mailto:hernaitz at hotmail.com>>
> Sent: miðvikudagur, 23. september 2020 12:03
> Til: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
> 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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