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Complementation in Ibero-Romance | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| labujía Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4195 days ago 11 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 1 of 4 27 November 2014 at 1:44pm | IP Logged |
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Hello everyone, I've been given an essay title regarding the evolution of something
called "complementation" from Latin to the modern Ibero-Romance languages (i.e. what we consider today to be Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese and Galician). Does anyone at all have any clue about what this word refers to, as a search on the Internet and a few book indices did not help at all, and I can't start my reading in preparation for the essay unless I know what I'm supposed to be focusing on. Thanks in advance to anyone who is able to help. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 4 27 November 2014 at 4:11pm | IP Logged |
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I also checked the internet, and as you might expect there are articles about both complements and complementation in the English Wikipedia plus a number of other sources. However it seems that there is some leeway in the way the nouns "complement" and "complementation" are used.
"Complement" seems to be used about the thing which in other traditions is called a 'predicative', i.e. "agricola sum" (I'm a farmer). This is a subject predicative/complement, but you can also have object ("lo llaman agricultor") and free predicative/complements. So by inference - and based on the pages on the internet that define "complementation" - it seems that this notion include all constructions where there is a complement/predicative of some kind involved. Its role can be taken by nouns, adjectives, some adverbials (place, time, mode) or prepositional phrases. And some sources also mention verbal complements of different kinds. And I'm glad I don't have to write an essay about the developments in all these constructions from Latin to the present day... it would be a monumental task even for a professional linguist. Edited by Iversen on 27 November 2014 at 4:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| akkadboy Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5409 days ago 264 posts - 497 votes Speaks: French*, English, Yiddish Studies: Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Welsh | Message 3 of 4 27 November 2014 at 5:46pm | IP Logged |
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You may want to check Dixon R. M. W. & Aikhenvald A. Y. (eds.), Complementation, A cross-linguistic Typology, Oxford University Press, 2006. Edited by akkadboy on 27 November 2014 at 5:47pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| labujía Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4195 days ago 11 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese | Message 4 of 4 28 December 2014 at 9:00pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the replies. In fact, it turns out that complementation does not refer to
predicates (in this case), but rather to phrases such as: lo hago para ganar dinero. (Spanish) Quiero que me lo corrijas. (Spanish) Para fazermos a tarefa, tens que dar-nos mais informação. (Portuguese) and the differences between them (e.g. use of infinitive, subjunctive or indicative in the complement clause), and how they developed from various constructions in Latin (for example, by using the particle UT which corresponds to 'so that' or 'in order to'). With a little prod in the right direction from our supervisor, the main focus ended up being the development of the personal infinitive in the Ibero-Romance languages; of course, Portuguese has inflections which make the form more salient and allow for two different subjects in different clauses such as in the example that I gave, whereas Spanish (and Catalan, seemingly) infinitives don't have these inflections. However, there are still cases where there is an implicit subject for the infinitive in Spanish, which does not correspond to the following/preceding subject (I don't have the examples at hand). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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