[Lingtyp] what is designated by a complement clause

[Juergen Bohnemeyer]

Dear Christian – In your first post, you did not ask about a classification of predicates, but about semantic properties that distinguish complement types:

“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.”

That’s what I was responding to, and my response is that in my view, the best semantic criterion for distinguishing between propositional and eventive complements is that the former occur with propositional attitude predicates, whereas the latter occur with predicates of event manipulation. The rationale here is that complements of propositional attitude predicates must represent objects of propositional attitudes, i.e., propositions, whereas complements of event manipulation predicates must represent objects of event manipulation, i.e., events.

Your observation that English has non-finite complements in propositional attitude contexts if matrix coding is added to the mix is of course well-taken, but does not invalidate the bootstrapping procedure I was suggesting, since as I think I pointed out, finiteness is only a weak secondary correlate. Finiteness is a morphosyntactic property, and as is often if not usually the case with morphosyntactic properties, its use/distribution has multiple competing semantic conditioning factors.

You now ask for a comprehensive semantic classification of complement-taking predicates. There are comprehensive classifications, but I’m not sure to what extent they are based on semantic analyses of the predicates as opposed to typological observations of common co-occurrence patterns vis-à-vis particular complement types. An example is the classification of complement-taking predicates in Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin 2005: 205-213; a revised and more detailed version will appear in the Handbook of Role and Reference Grammar, whose release is apparently imminent<https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-handbook-of-role-and-reference-grammar/0F834474677B1A15246E0C96CA5449C1>).

Best – Juergen

Van Valin, R. Jr. (2005). Exploring the syntax-semantics interface. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.


Juergen Bohnemeyer (He/Him)
Professor, Department of Linguistics
University at Buffalo

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From: Christian Lehmann <christian.lehmann at uni-erfurt.de>
Date: Monday, May 8, 2023 at 10:58 AM
To: Juergen Bohnemeyer <jb77 at buffalo.edu>, lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] what is designated by a complement clause
Dear Jürgen,

thank you very much. On the condition that the language in question uses two different grammatical constructions with the two classes of predicates which you use as criterial, it seems that the procedure that you propose would produce the distribution of these two constructions over kinds of complement-taking verbs, subdividing thus the set of these verbs into two subsets. However, the two constructions in question are language-specific, so the two subsets thus defined in one language will not coincide semantically with the subsets produced by two constructions in another language.

Moreover, I am not sure that the members of either of the categories of superordinate predicates that you propose behave structurally in a unified way even in one language. Salvo errore, English has Linda believes John to be mistaken, but not Linda doubts John to be mistaken.

I had hoped that semanticists would have a semantically-based comprehensive categorization of predicates taking a propositional argument which would take into account the kind of entity represented by the proposition. Putting it differently: You are naming three categories of such predicates, cognitive attitude predicates, phasal predicates and psych action predicates. Is there a comprehensive classification of propositional-argument taking predicates which comprises these three categories and possibly the entire rest, like 'fear', 'ask', 'forget' and what not?

Best,
Christian
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