Seminario de complejidad sintáctica 2006 - Maestría en Lingüística ...

Multiple routes to clause union: the diachrony of
syntactic complexity
T. Givón
Universidad de Oregon, Rancho Nube Blanca
tgivon@uoregon.edu
This paper proceeds with two main premises in mind, both of
which, for better or worse, I have always been inclined to take
for granted:
(i) The phenomenon of complex predicates is better viewed in
the broader context of syntactic complexity; more specifically,
of syntactically-complex clauses and cognitivelycomplex
events.
(ii) A synchronic typology, of whatever syntactic domain, can
only make full sense from a diachronic perspective; that
is, as a typology of the diachronic pathways that gave rise
to the attested synchronic types within the domain.
In the course of trying to show that both my premises are
eminently sensible, and that they are indeed applicable to the
more-narrowly construed topic of complex predicates, I will
first outline the two main diachronic sources of complex
clauses--thus the two main pathways to clause union--verbphrase
embedding ('complementation') and clause chaining.
For each of the two, I will suggest, the syntactic properties of
the resultant ('synchronic') complex clause are in large part
predictable from its diachronic source.
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