[Lingtyp] what is designated by a complement clause

[Jan Rijkhoff]

Dear Christian,

Hengeveld's and Mackenzie's Functional Discourse Theory (FDG) may be helpful here. It distinguishes between several entity-types, also including 4th-order entities (speech acts).
In this approach, your example 2) would not count as a propositional or 'though'-content.

Hengeveld, Kees & Lachlan J. Mackenzie. 2008. Functional Discourse Grammar. Oxford: Oxford UP.

Best, Jan

J. Rijkhoff - Associate Professor (emeritus), Linguistics
URL: http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/linjr@cc.au.dk

________________________________________
From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of Christian Lehmann <christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de>
Sent: Monday, May 8, 2023 10:35 AM
To: lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: [Lingtyp] what is designated by a complement clause

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<mailto:christianw_lehmann at arcor.de>
Web:    https://www.christianlehmann.eu