Description:
The present contribution examines object complement clauses fromthe perspective of constituent-order typology. In particular, it provides the firstprincipled empirical investigation of the position of object clauses relative to thematrix verb. Based on a stratified sample of 100 languages, we establish thatthere is an overall cross-linguistic preference for postverbal complements, duelargely to the heterogeneous ordering patterns in OV-languages. Importantly,however, we also show that the position of complement clauses correlates withaspects of their structural organization: Preverbal complement clauses are significantly more likely to be coded by morphosyntactically “downgraded” structures than postverbal complements. Given that previous research has found aparallel correlation between structural downgrading and the semantics ofthe complement-taking predicate (Givón 1980. The binding hierarchy and thetypology of complements. Studies in Language 4. 333–377, Cristofaro 2003.Subordination. Oxford: Oxford University Press), one needs to analyze howpositional, structural and semantic factors interact with one another. Our datasuggest that the correlation between clause order and morphosyntactic structureholds independently of semantic considerations: All predicate classes distinguished in the present study increase their likelihood of taking downgradedcomplements if they are preceded by the complement clause. We thus proposethat, in addition to the well-known “binding hierarchy”, a second correlationneeds to be recognized in the typology of complementation: the co-variation oflinear order and morphosyntactic structure.