Cover not available
Part of
From Verbal Periphrases to Complex Predicates
Edited by Mar Garachana Camarero, Sandra Montserrat Buendia and Claus Dieter Pusch
[IVITRA Research in Linguistics and Literature 31] 2022
► pp. 189–209

Degrammaticalisation indices in Iberian complex predicates?

ORCID logo | State University of Campinas
ORCID logo | University of Hamburg

This chapter presents evidence for a loss in auxiliary status of Iberian complex predicate verbs, focusing on Catalan and European Portuguese. This change in structural status can be assessed by criteria such as: the decreasing occurrence of clitic climbing; the increasing use of subcategorised prepositions; the loss of complement fronting; and the change in the class of intervening adverbs (see Jones 1988), exemplified by means of a comparison of old and modern varieties of these languages. We argue that the motivation for this change can be found in the general word-order changes in Old Iberian languages, especially those of informational-structural marked expressions, with reflex on the creation of significant variability in the occurrence of clitic climbing. Finally we entertain the idea that, instead of interpreting this change as a true case of degrammaticalisation, it should be better considered as an epiphenomenon; in fact, some changes point out to grammaticalisation paths, inferrable either as loss of movement or as the result of selection of a smaller complement.

Keywords: grammaticalisation, degrammaticalisation, periphrasis, old Catalan, old Portuguese, clitic climbing, intervening adverbs
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.An overview of complex predicates in the history of Catalan and Portuguese
    • 2.1Clitic climbing
    • 2.2Bare infinitives
    • 2.3Intervening adverbials
    • 2.4Complement fronting
    • 2.5Negating the infinitival complement
  • 3.The nature and motives of change in clitic climbing and Stylistic Fronting
  • 4.Reinterpreting an Old Iberian variation: Complete vs. reduced complements
  • 5.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • Primary sources
  • References
Published online: 1 December 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ivitra.31.10and
References

Primary sources

Catalan

[Cat/13-a/FC] Llull, Ramon
. Llibre de Meravelles. Barcelona: Barcino 1931.Google Scholar
[Cat/13-b/FC] Desclot, Bernat
. Crònica de Bernat Desclot. Barcelona: Barcino 1949.Google Scholar
[Cat/14-b/FC] Metge, Bernet
. Lo Somni. Barcelona: Barcino 1925.Google Scholar
[Cat/15-a/FC] Martorell, Joanot
. Tirant lo Blanc. Barcelona: Barcino 1926.Google Scholar
[Cat/15-b/FC]
Curial e Güelfa. Barcelona: Barcino 1930.Google Scholar

Portuguese

[Port/13-a/CIPM]
Afonso X, Foro Real.
[Port/14-a] Lopes, Fernão
. Crónica de D. Fernando Ed. Giuliano Macchi. Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional – Casa da Moeda 2004, 1–331.Google Scholar
[Port/14-b/TBC] Lopes, Fernão
. Chronica del Rey D. Ioam I de Boa Memoria e dos reys de Portugal o decimo. Lisboa: Antonio Alvarez 1644.Google Scholar
[Port/15-a/TBC] Galvão, Duarte
. Chronica do muito alto e muito esclarecido principe D. Affonso Henriques primeiro Rey de Portugal. Lisboa: Officina Ferreyriana 1726.Google Scholar
de Andrade, Aroldo
2010 A subida de clíticos em português: um estudo sobre a variedade europeia dos séculos XVI a XX. Ph.D. dissertation. Campinas: Universidade Estadual de Campinas. DOI logo
Batllori, Montse, Narcís Iglesias and Ana Maria Martins
2005 Sintaxi dels clítics pronominals en català medieval. Caplletra 38: 137–177.Google Scholar
Benincà, Paola
1995 Complement Clitics in Medieval Romance: The Tobler-Mussafia Law. In: Clause Structure and Language Change, Adrian Battye and Ian G. Roberts (eds.), 325–344. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Benveniste, Émile
1968 Mutations of linguistic categories. In: Directions for historical linguistics: A symposium, Winfred P. Lehmann and Yakov Malkiel (eds.), 85–94. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
CICA – Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic
2009 Torruella, Joan dir.; Manuel Pérez Saldanya and Josep Martines. Available at: [URL].
Cortès, Corinne
1992 Issues in Catalan Syntax. Ph.D. dissertation. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
Cruschina, Silvio
2011 Focalization and Word Order in Old Italo-Romance. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 10: 95–132. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Diesing, Molly
1992 Indefinites. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fischer, Susann
2002 The Catalan Clitic System: A Diachronic Perspective on Its Syntax and Phonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
2005a Das Wackernagelsche Gesetz und der Tobler-Mussafia Effekt aus generativer Perspektive. In: Deutsche Romanistik – Generativ, G. Kaiser (ed.), 87–105. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag.Google Scholar
2005b Construcciones con avance estilístico en el catalan antiguo. Caplletra 38: 119–135.Google Scholar
Fukuda, Shin
2008 Two Syntactic Positions for English Aspectual Verbs. In Proceedings of the 26th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, Charles B. Chang and Hannah J. Haynie (eds.), 172–180. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Gonçalves, Anabela
1999 Minimizando a estrutura sintáctica dos complementos infinitivos nas construções com predicados complexos verbais do Português europeu. In Actas do XIV Encontro da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística. Braga: APL.Google Scholar
Gonçalves, Anabela, Inês Duarte and Matilde Miguel
2007 On the status of prepositions in infinitival verb complements. Actas del VI Congreso de Lingüística General. Vol. II: Las lenguas y su estructura. Madrid: Arco/Libros.Google Scholar
Hinterhölzl, Roland
2004 Language Change versus Grammar Change: What diachronic data reveal about the distinction between core grammar and periphery. In: Diachronic Clues to Synchronic Grammar, Eric Fuß and Carola Trips (eds.), 131–160. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hrafnbjargarson, Gunnar Hrafn
2004 Stylistic Fronting. Studia Linguistica 58(2): 88–134. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jones, Michael. A.
1988 Auxiliary Verbs in Sardinian. Transactions of the Philological Society 86: 173–203. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kayne, Richard S.
1989 Null Subjects and Clitic Climbing. In: The Null Subject Parameter, Osvaldo Jaeggli and Kenneth J. Safir (eds.), 239–261. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lehmann, Christian
1992 Word order change by grammaticalisation. In: Internal and external factors in syntactic change, Marinel Gerritsen and Dieter Stein (eds.), 395–416. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1995 Thoughts on Grammaticalization. Munich: Lincom.Google Scholar
Magro, Catarina
2005 Introdutores de orações infinitivas – o que diz a sintaxe dos clíticos. Actas do XX Encontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Lingüística, 649–664. Lisbon: APL.Google Scholar
Martineau, France
1991 Clitic Climbing in Infinitival Constructions of Middle French. In: New Analyses in Romance Linguistics, Dieter Wanner and Douglas A. Kibbee (eds.), 235–251. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Martins, Ana Maria
1994 Clíticos na história do português. Ph.D. dissertation. Lisboa: Universidade de Lisboa.
2004 Ambiguidade estrutural e mudança linguística: A emergência do infinitivo flexionado nas orações complemento de verbos causativos e perceptivos. In: Linguística Histórica e História da Língua Portuguesa: Actas do Encontro de Homenagem a Maria Helena Paiva, Ana Maria Brito, Olívia Figueiredo and Clara Barros (eds.), 197–225. Porto: FLUP.Google Scholar
Napoli, Donna Jo
1981 Semantic interpretation vs. lexical governance. Language 57(4): 841–887. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norde, Muriel
2009 Degrammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pearce, Elizabeth
1990 Parameters in Old French Syntax: Infinitival Complements. Dordrecht: Kluwer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Perlmutter, David M.
1970 The two verbs begin. In: Readings in English Transformational Grammar, Roderick A. Jacobs and Peter S. Rosenbaum (eds.), 107–119. Waltham, MA: Blaisdell.Google Scholar
Picallo, M. Carme
1990 Modal Verbs in Catalan. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 8(2): 285–312. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rizzi, Luigi
1982 Issues in Italian Syntax. Dordrecht: Foris. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Ian
2010 Agreement and Head Movement: Clitics, Incorporation, and Defective Goals. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Roberts, Ian and Anna Roussou
2003 Syntactic Change: A Minimalist Approach to Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ross, John R.
1972 More on begin. Foundations of Language 8: 574–577.Google Scholar
Sitaridou, Ioanna
2011 Word order and information structure in Old Spanish. Catalan Journal of Linguistics 10: 159–184. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Squartini, Mario
1998 Verbal Periphrases in Romance: Aspect, Actionality, and Grammaticalization. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wanner, Dieter
1982 A history of Spanish clitic movement. In: Proceedings of the Berkeley Linguistics Society 8: 135–147.Google Scholar
1996 Second Position Clitics in Medieval Romance. In: Approaching Second: Second position clitics and related phenomena, Aaron L. Halpern and Arnold M. Zwicky (eds.), 537–578. Stanford, CA: CSLI.Google Scholar