The status of purpose, reason, and intended endpoint in the typology of complex sentences: implications for layered models of clause structure

Linguistics: an interdisciplinary journal of the language sciences, July-August, 2008 by Jean-Christophe Verstraete

Abstract

This study argues that constructions of purpose, reason and intended endpoint have a special status in typologies of complex sentences, because they combine features of the adverbial domain and the complement domain. The feature they share with adverbial clauses is that they do not junction as the object of the predicate of the main clause, but instead elaborate on its circumstances. The feature they share with complement clauses is that unlike other adverbial clauses they specify the mental state of some participant in the main clause, typically the agent. Evidence for this special status comes from two sources. On the one hand, it is shown that the recognition of a mental state relation is' necessary in semantic terms, to distinguish the three constructions from semantically similar types in the adverbial domain, and to explain their exceptional behavior in terms of presupposition. On the other hand, it is also shown that the presence of such a mental state relation is crosslinguistically reflected in the formal make-up of the three construction types, specifically in the use of mood markers in the dependent clause, and in the use of conjunctions that are shared with the domain of represented speech. From a theoretical perspective, the intermediate status of constructions of purpose, reason and intended endpoint is important because it provides structural evidence for layered models of clause structure, specifically Jot the distinction between a description-related and an interaction-related layer of organization, and .for a further subdivision of the interaction-related layer in terms of modal and illocutionary features.

1. Introduction (1)

The traditional typology of complex sentences distinguishes between three basic types of clause combining, depending on the function of one clause relative to the other (see Thompson and Longacre 1985). Complement clauses function as an argument of another clause, like the that-clause in (1), adverbial clauses function as an adjunct of another clause, like the when-clause in (2), and relative clauses elaborate on an NP in another clause, like the who-clause in (3).

(1) Jim firmly believed that he was Napoleon's great-great-grandson.

(2) Jim organized a big party when the DNA evidence confirmed this.

(3) The man who turned out to be a descendant of Napoleon will not visit France.

In this article, 1 will argue that the distinction between the categories of complement clauses and adverbial clauses is not as clear-cut as has traditionally been assumed, and I will show that this has important theoretical consequences for layered models of clause structure. Specifically, I will focus on three types of complex sentences that have traditionally been classified as adverbial, viz. purpose constructions, illustrated in (4) below, reason constructions, illustrated in (5) below, and intended endpoint constructions, illustrated in (6) below. (2)

(4) He left the back door open so that the plumber could get in.

(5) He set the alarm because there might be burglars in the area.

(6) He kept banging on the door until somebody opened it.

I will argue that these three construction types need to be defined in terms of features of both the adverbial domain and the complement domain. Clauses of purpose, reason and intended endpoint have traditionally have been regarded as adverbial clauses, because they provide adverbial modification of the main clause. They also have a crucial semantic feature that is typical of complement clauses, however. Many types of complement clauses describe the perspective of some participant in the main clause, as in constructions of represented speech or thought, and more generally constructions with mental state predicates. This is a feature we also find in constructions of purpose, reason and intended temporal endpoint. Just as the complement clause in (I) represents a mental state of the agent of the main clause, viz. the content of the belief that is attributed to Jim, the purpose clause in (4) represents a mental state associated with the agent of the main clause: the plumber's ability to get into the house is what is intended by the agent of the action described in the main clause. What distinguishes the three constructions in (4)-(6) from genuine complement constructions, however, is that the predicate in the main clause does not describe a mental state of the agent of the main clause. While the predicate believe in (1) explicitly describes the mental state whose content is elaborated in the dependent clause, the predicate leave open in (4) does not describe a mental state, and the dependent clause does not describe its content but rather provides adverbial modification.

The evidence I will adduce for the intermediate character of the purpose, reason and intended endpoint constructions is of two kinds. On the one hand, I will argue that the recognition of the mental state relation with the agent of the main clause is crucial in the semantic description of the constructions in question. I will show that the feature is needed to distinguish the three construction types from closely related constructions that are entirely in the adverbial domain, and I will show that it can also help us to elucidate their exceptional behavior in terms of presupposition. On the other hand, I will use data from a wide range of languages to show that the formal properties of the three construction types often explicitly reflect the presence of a mental state relation with the agent of the main clause, I will show that in finite instantiations of the three construction types, the dependent clause typically contains some type of mood marker to signal the presence of an 'evaluating' authority, and I will demonstrate that there are specific formal strategies to establish binding of this mood to a participant in the main clause, such as the use of conjunctions that are typical of complement constructions, especially from the domain of represented speech and thought. Although most of these formal and semantic features have been noted in passing for some of the three constructions discussed here, I will argue that taken together, they can be regarded as defining a distinct and internally coherent category of complex sentences that is intermediate between the adverbial and the complement domain.