The present contribution examines object complement clauses from
the perspective of constituent-order typology. In particular, it provides the first
principled empirical investigation of the position of object clauses relative to the
matrix verb. Based on a stratified sample of 100 languages, we establish that
there is an overall cross-linguistic preference for postverbal complements, due
largely to the heterogeneous ordering patterns in OV-languages. Importantly,
however, we also show that the position of complement clauses correlates with
aspects of their structural organization: Preverbal complement clauses are significantly more likely to be coded by morphosyntactically “downgraded” structures than postverbal complements. Given that previous research has found a
parallel correlation between structural downgrading and the semantics of
the complement-taking predicate (Givón 1980. The binding hierarchy and the
typology of complements. Studies in Language 4. 333–377, Cristofaro 2003.
Subordination. Oxford: Oxford University Press), one needs to analyze how
positional, structural and semantic factors interact with one another. Our data
suggest that the correlation between clause order and morphosyntactic structure
holds independently of semantic considerations: All predicate classes distinguished in the present study increase their likelihood of taking downgraded
complements if they are preceded by the complement clause. We thus propose
that, in addition to the well-known “binding hierarchy”, a second correlation
needs to be recognized in the typology of complementation: the co-variation of
linear order and morphosyntactic structure.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:83405 |
| Date | 07 February 2023 |
| Creators | Schmidtke-Bode, Karsten, Diessel, Holger |
| Publisher | De Gruyter |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 0024-3949 |
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