[Lingtyp] what is designated by a complement clause

[Christian Lehmann]

Dear colleagues,

as a non-specialist in these matters, I have always been struggling with 
the distinction between what Lyons 1977 (/Semantics/) calls second-order 
and third-order entities. They are also called situations (a.k.a. events 
or states of affairs) and thoughts (or propositions), resp. A complement 
clause may designate one or the other. For instance, the /that/ clause 
in ex. 1 designates a situation, the one of ex. 2 designates a thought 
(or at any rate, a third-order entity).

1) Linda saw that John arrived.

2) Linda said that John arrived.

In some cases, English grammar distinguishes these notions. For 
instance, the /that/ clause of ex. 1, but not the one of ex. 2, may be 
replaced by /John’s arrival/.

Besides such relatively clear cases, there are less clear ones.

3) Linda remembered reading the book.

4) Linda remembered to read the book.

Replacement by /perusal/ seems to show (unless my English fails me) that 
the complement clause of ex. 3 designates a situation while the one of 
ex. 4 designates a thought. If so, the superordinate predicate would not 
always determine the type of dependent clause.

Here is my question: Does anyone know of a generally applicable 
criterion or even a language-independent test frame which enables me to 
determine whether a given dependent clause designates a second-order or 
a third-order entity? Or are there contexts which are indeterminate in 
principle or where the distinction does not apply? I would be very 
grateful for advice.

Yours as always,

Christian

-- 

Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann
Rudolfstr. 4
99092 Erfurt
Deutschland

Tel.: 	+49/361/2113417
E-Post: 	christianw_lehmann at arcor.de
Web: 	https://www.christianlehmann.eu
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