Optimal matches between clause-embedding predicates and their clausal complements

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Barbara Stiebels
• Subject Area: General and Comparative Linguistics, Experimental Linguistics, Typology, Non-European Languages
• Term: since 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 439622645

Clausal complementation is characterized by two important properties: (i) the predicate-specific instantiation of complementation structures and (ii) the interaction of the clause-embedding predicate (=CEP) and its interpretation with material in the complement clause (=CC). Property (i) concerns the instantiation of structures such as raising, control, NEG-raising, restructuring, and bridge phenomena; only specific subsets of CEPs occur with each of the aforementioned structures. Property (ii) has been shown inter alia for the licensing of mood markers (e.g., the subjunctive in Romance languages), “harmonic modals”, dependent verb morphology (infinitives, participles etc.), logophoric markers, and expletive negation in complement clauses of certain CEPs. Both properties point to an aspect that will be central in the project: the obvious matching requirement between the CEP and its complement clause. The ingredients that help to improve that match are taken here as instances of optimization: (a) addition of material in the complement clause (e.g., verbal mood, modals) that is needed only with certain CEPs (top-down effect) and (b) modification of the CEP (e.g., coercion) triggered by elements in the CC (bottom-up effect). A further important aspect of the project is the potential polysemy/vagueness of CEPs and its significance for the respective clausal complementation properties (e.g., Spanish sentir : ‘sense’ with indicative, ‘be sorry’ with subjunctive). It is the goal of the project to learn more about the direction of optimization in the match of CEP and CC by looking at polysemous/vague CEPs. The project will also be concerned with the cyclic/non-cyclic propagation of control, raising, restructuring and bridge phenomena in recursive structures of CEP stacking.The project critically addresses the significance of cyclic optimization for the interaction of syntax and semantics. By understanding specific CC types as independent cyclic domains, a potential problem for cyclic locality emerges: the wellformedness of these domains depends on the interpretation and other properties of the CEP (and potentially further elements in the higher/extended domain). Optimization, i.e., the selection of suitable CC candidates or CEP readings, cannot take place before CEP and CC are combined/merged. The project will tentatively explore if this problem can be solved by cyclic adjustment of semantic representations in an optimality-theoretic grammar.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 5175: Cyclic Optimization