Complex sentences in grammar and discourse : essays in honor of Sandra A. Thompson

371 Pages·2002·4.656 MB·English

by  Joan L Bybee, Michael Noonan, Sandra A Thompson

<ATSKSWVUIIDUEOZTIBYDOTEFLJWFHTECESHHCOIOEN"ETTRRCFI"DGo1O"""m5S"H4"0"pT">"l"ex"22S0e"ntencesinGrammarandDiscourse:EssaysinHonorofSandraA.Thompson"
ComplexSentencesinGrammarandDiscourse

Complex Sentences
in Grammar and Discourse
Essays in Honor of
Sandra A. Thompson
Edited by
Joan Bybee
UniversityofNewMexico
Michael Noonan
UniversityofWisconsin

JohnBenjaminsPublishingCompany
Amsterdam(cid:1)/(cid:1)Philadelphia
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Complexsentencesingrammaranddiscourse:essaysinhonorofSandraA.Thompson/
editedbyJoanBybee,MichaelNoonan.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindexes.
1.Grammar,Comparativeandgeneral--Sentences.2.Discourseanalysis.I.Bybee,
JoanL.II.Noonan,Michael.III.Thompson,SandraA.

P295.C597 2001
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©2002–JohnBenjaminsB.V.
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Table of contents
Introduction vii
JoanBybeeandMickeyNoonan
Mainclausesareinnovative,subordinateclausesareconservative:
Consequencesforthenatureofconstructions 1
JoanBybee
ParticiplesinTsez:Anemergentwordclass? 19
BernardComrie
Mini-grammarsofsometime-whenexpressionsinEnglish 31
CharlesJ.Fillmore
Denialandtheconstructionofconversationalturns 61
CeciliaE.Ford
Ontheembodiednatureofgrammar:Embodiedbeing-in-the-world 79
BarbaraA.Fox
Thesymmetryofcounterfactuals 101
JohnHaimanandTaniaKuteva
NoteonthegrammarofTurkishnominalizations 125
PelinHennesyandT.Givón
HendiadysandauxiliationinEnglish 145
PaulHopper
“Sentence”inspontaneousspokenJapanesediscourse 175
ShoichiIwasakiandTsuyoshiOno
Someissuesconcerningtheoriginoflanguage 203
CharlesN.Li
Aresubordinateclausesmoredifficult? 223
CarolLord
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vi Tableofcontents
Combiningclausesintoclausecomplexes:Amulti-facetedview 235
ChristianM.I.M.Matthiessen
Overwroughtutterances:“Complexsentences”inadifferentsense 321
EmanuelA.Schegloff
PublicationsbySandraA.Thompson 337
Languageindex 347
Nameindex 351
Subjectindex 357
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Introduction
JoanBybeeandMickeyNoonan
TheauthorsandeditorsofthisbookdedicateittoSandraAnnearThompson
on the occasion of her sixtieth birthday. By presenting articles on complex
clausesindiscourseandgrammar,wehonorSandy’sspirit,creativity,stead-
fastness,andintelligence.Thecenterpieceofherintellectualenterpriseisthe
studyofgrammarasitarisesandmanifestsitselfinnaturaldiscourse.Inthe
courseofthisstudyshehasproducedscoresofexcitingandoriginalstudiesof
thediscoursefunctionof,amongothers,complexclauses,adjectives,datives,
transitivity, relative clauses, unattached NPs, Japanese postpositions, and
pronouns.ShehasdonethisinadditiontoherworkonChinesegrammarand
its history, Wappo grammar, grammaticalization theory, and her many dis-
course-related contributions to typology, including studies of subject and
topic,wordorder,coreandobliquedistinctions,interrogation,andnegation.
Asacomplementtoherowncontributions,shehasinspiredagenerationof
linguiststolookatgrammarfromanewangle,ananglethatsituatesgrammar
in a communicative context and explains both the how and the why of
grammaticalproperties.
Thoughheracademiccontributionsareamplecauseforcelebration,weare
movedtohonorSandyfortheloveandfriendshipthatshehasbestowedupon
her students and colleagues. Sandy is a kind, supportive, funny, gentle, wise,
steady,thoughtfulandco-operativememberoftheacademiccommunityand
indeed,thehum anrace.Astherecordshows,sheprefersworkingincollabora-
tion with other people to working alone. Her kind and sympathetic nature
allowshertogetasexcitedaboutotherpeople’sprojectsasherown.Sheviews
scienceasadialogue,aco-built,negotiatedaffair—inshort,aconversation.In
fact, a problem several authors faced in working on their chapters for this
volumewasthatiftheydiscussedtheirtopicswithSandy(withoutherknowing
theultimatedestinationofthearticles)shewascharacteristicallysosupportive
andenthusiasticthatsheofferedtoworkonthepaperwiththem!
</TARGET"intro">
viii Introduction
GiventhewaySandyisloved,amajorchallengefortheeditorswasrestrict-
ing the number of papers so that a volume of manageable size could be pro-
duced.Ageneralcallforcontributionswouldhaveproducedenougharticlesfor
severalvolumes.Thecontributorstothisvolumeareprimarilypeoplewhohave
been Sandy’s co-authors. Our apologies to all those who would have liked to
contribute.Theeditorsfeelthatonevolumeinhonorofaresearcherwiththe
stature and influence that Sandy has is probably not enough, and we invite
otherstodedicatevolumestoher.Thisisonlythebeginning.
<LINK"byb-n*">
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Main clauses are innovative,
subordinate clauses are conservative
Consequences for the nature of constructions*
JoanBybee
UniversityofNewMexico
1. Introduction
In1973SandyThompsonandIwroteaboutthediscoursebasisfortherelative
conservatismofsubordinateclauseswithrespecttowordorderpatternsused
for topicalization, contrast and presentative focus. Since then other authors
have approachedthe relatedtopic of theconservatism of subordinateclauses
withrespecttoongoingchange.Thebest-knownexamplesinvolvewordorder
changes in main clauses that are not immediately duplicated in subordinate
clauses, e.g. in Old English (Hock 1986), German (Vennemann 1975, Givón
1979:259–61),Kru(Givón1979:124–26).Inadditiontochangesatthesyntac-
ticlevel,therearealsowell-documentedcasesofinnovationinmainclausesand
conservatisminsubordinateclausesingrammaticization(Klein-Andreu1990,
Bybee et al. 1994:230–36), in morphological replacement (Aldai, 2000) and
evenatthelevelofmorphophonemicchange(Matsuda1993,1998).
Matsuda1998examinesfourpossibleavenuesforexplainingfactssuchas

these.Theseexplanationsrelyonsyntactic,discourse-pragmatic,stylisticand
processing considerations. Matsuda rules out syntactic accounts such as The
Penthouse Principle (Ross 1973) and the Root Transformation hypothesis
(Emonds1970)asnotabletoaccountforthefullrangeoffacts,asdemonstrat-
ed in Hooper and Thompson 1973, and furthermore, as only describing the
situationratherthanprovidinganexplanation.Stylisticexplanationsarealso
rejectedbyMatsudaonthebasisofhisowndata,whichshowsaneffectofthemain
vs.subordinatecontinuumacrosscarefulandcasualspeechstyles.Thediscourse
2 JoanBybee
explanationprovided byHooper andThompson (andlater echoedby Givón
1979) is that subordinate clauses contain backgrounded information that is
muchlesslikelytobesubjecttotopicalization,contrastandpresentativefocus;
suchmanipulationsaremoreappropriateandmorecommonlyoccurinmain
clauses.Matsudafindsnoreasontorejectthisexplanation,nordoeshereject
theprocessingexplanation,whichis,simply,thatsubordinateclausesaremore
difficulttoprocessandthuslesslikelytobesubjecttoadditionalpermutations
orincipientchangesexpressedbyvariablerules.Heconcludesthatdiscourse-
pragmaticfactorsandfactorsofprocessingbothhelptoexplainthephenome-
non.TheviewtakenherebuildsonMatsuda’sconclusions.
Two approaches to the phenomenon in question are possible: one could
attempt to explain the more innovative nature of main clauses, or the more
conservative nature of subordinate clauses. In fact, both approaches are
necessarytoexplainthefullrangeoffacts.Ontheonehand,wehavethewell-
known fact that the constituents of assertions are fully manipulable for the
purposesofforegroundingandbackgroundingandatthesametimeweneedto
explainwhysubordinateclausesdonotsimplyfallinlinebehindmainclauses.
I will argue that subordinate clauses are constructions that are processed in
relatively large chunks, which makes their constituents less independent and
notsolikelytochange.Ofspecialconcernherewillbetheconsequencesfora
theoryofgrammar.Thefactssuggestthatmainandsubordinateclausesarenot
all equally instances of ‘S’, but that the set of constructions that govern main
clauses and the set of constructions that provide subordinate clauses can be
partiallyindependentofoneanother.Furthermore,thelevelatwhichsubordi-
nate clause conservatism is attested, which includes the morphological and
morphophonemiclevels,suggeststhatsubordinateclauseconstructionscontain
aconsiderableamountofdetailedinformation.
2. Acontinuumbetweenmainandsubordinateclauses

Clause-types range from those that are fully independent, with a finite verb,
appropriate case marking and no noun phrases shared with other clauses, to
those that are reduced in various ways, e.g., by lacking verbal inflection, by
havingthecaseofnounphrasesdeterminedbyotherclausesandvariousother
restrictions.Inthepresentwork,weareconcernedprimarilywithsubordinate
clauses that have finite verbs. In other words, we will be dealing only with a
smallrangeonthecontinuum—mainclausesandthosesubordinateclauses