[Lingtyp] what is designated by a complement clause

Mon May 8 20:00:31 UTC 2023

Dear Christian,

Jan Rijkhoff already mentioned the FDG approach to the issue you raise, and I'd like to elaborate on that approach a bit.

Like the RRG approach that Jürgen mentioned, FDG is a layered approach to language, but its layers are defined in semantic and pragmatic rather than in syntactic terms. Five of those layers are, informally defined:

C: Communicated Content - the message that is being transmitted in a speech act
p: Propositional Content - the mental construct underlying that message
ep: Episode - a coherent combination of States-of-Affairs
e: State of Affairs - the event or state designated
s: Situational Property: the type of State-of-Affairs designated

These layers form a nested structure: (C: (p: (ep: (e: (s) (e)) (ep)) p)) (C))

By peeling of layers of this nested structure a classification of complement (or adverbial) clauses is arrived at:

(C: (p: (ep: (e: (s) (e)) (ep)) p)) (C))     e.g. Indirect speech predicates
(p: (ep: (e: (s) (e)) (ep)) p))                 e.g. Propositional attitude predicates
(ep: (e: (s) (e)) (ep))                            e.g. Commentative predicates
(e: (s) (e))                                            e.g. Predicates of immediate perception
(s)                                                       e.g. Aspectual predicates

The way to determine whether a complement clause designates e.g. a Propositional Content, an Episode, or a State of Affairs is to check whether in a complement clause certain TMA categories or adverbial categories are allowed, that are associated with certain layers, for instance:

C: reportativity
p: inferentiality
ep: Absolute tense
e: Relative tense
s: Aspect

Given this association with layers, the following facts can be understood:

Reportativity:
John said [Peter reportedly left].
*John thinks [Peter reportedly left].

Inferentiality
John thinks [Peter must have left].
*John regrets [that Peter must have left].

Absolute tense:
John regrets [that Peter left yesterday].
*John saw [Peter having left yesterday]

etc

In work on adverbial clauses (Hengeveld 1998) I show that the lower the layer that underlies a certain type of adverbial clause is, the more likely it is to be expressed by a dependent verb form. In Dik & Hengeveld (1990), Hengeveld et al. (2019), and in unpublished work the same is shown for complement clauses.

Layering is not the only factor involved in the expression of subordinate clauses. Two other major factors that are discussed in the papers mentioned are factuality and presupposition.

Best wishes,

Kees

Hengeveld, Kees (1998), Adverbial clauses in the languages of Europe. In: Johan van der Auwera ed., Adverbial constructions in the languages of Europe (Empirical approaches to language typology/Eurotyp 20-3), 335-419. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Hengeveld, Kees & Braga, Maria Luiza & de Souza, Edson Rosa Francisco & Vendrame, Valéria (2019), Perception verbs in Brazilian Portuguese: A functional approach. Open Linguistics 5, 268-310. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/opli-2019-0016.

Hengeveld, Kees (in prep.), Complementation in Functional Discourse Grammar.

Kees Hengeveld
www.keeshengeveld.nl<http://www.keeshengeveld.nl/>
https://uva-live.zoom.us/my/keeshengeveld

From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> On Behalf Of Christian Lehmann
Sent: maandag 8 mei 2023 10:36
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>
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